Monday, November 30, 2015

History: Timeline for the History of Judaism 3800 BCE thru 1948 post WWII


History:
Timeline for the History of Judaism


History: Table of Contents | Ancient Jewish History | Modern Jewish History

Click on a Time Period to Expand:

Note: Dates regarding biblical figures & events cannot be confirmed

Dawn of History
(3800-2001 BCE)


October 7, 3761
The beginning date of the Hebrew calendar, according to scholar Rabbi Yossi ben Halafta, a 2nd century Rabbi. Adam & Eve created (Year 1 of Jewish calendar).
3630
Seth born
3525
Enosh born
ca. 3500
Chalcolithic Period, first settlement
3435
Kenan born
3365
Mehalalel born
3300
Yered born
3300
First confirmed settlement of Gaza at Tell as-Sakan
3138
Enoch born
3074
Methusaleh born
2886
Lemech born
2831
Adam dies
ca. 2800
Early Dynastic period (Akkad)
2704
Noah born
ca. 2700-2400
Old Kingdom period (Egypt)
ca. 2500-2200
Ebla flourishes
ca. 2500
First houses built in Jerusalem
ca. 2300-2200
Priestess Enheduanna, first known author in the world
2203
Shem born
2150
The Flood
2100-1700
Middle Kingdom period (Egypt)


Ancient Israelite Religion
(2000-587 BCE)


2000-1750Old Babylonian period
2000-1700Israel's Patriarchal period
ca. 1900-1400Old Assyrian period
1882Terach born
1813Abraham born
ca. 1850/1750/1700Abraham & SarahIsaac & Ishmael, famine forces Israelites to migrate to Egypt
1800First Jerusalem city wall built
ca. 1792-1750Hammurabi
ca. 1750-1200Hittite empire
1765The Tower of Babel
1743Origin of traditions of the "Abrahamic covenant"
1713Isaac born; Abraham circumcises himself; Sodom & Gomorrah destroyed
ca. 1700-1550Hyksos in Egypt
1677Isaac prepared as sacrifice; Sarah dies
1653Jacob born
1638Abraham dies
ca. 1600-1150Kassite period (Babylonia)
1590Isaac blesses Jacob instead of Esau.
ca. 1570-1085New Kingdom period (Egypt)
1569Jacob marries Leah
1565Levi born
1562Joseph born
1546Joseph sold into slavery
1533Isaac dies
1532Joseph becomes viceroy of Egypt
1523Jacob and his family join Joseph in Egypt
ca. 1500-1200Ugaritic texts
1452Joseph dies
1429Egyptian enslavement of the Hebrews begins
ca. 1400-900Middle Assyrian period
ca. 1400-1300Amarna period (Egypt)
1393Moses born.
1355Joshua born.
1314Moses sees the burning bush.
ca. 1300-1200Mosaic period (Israel)
1280Exodus from Egypt, Sinai Torah, Canaan Entry
1240After setting up the Ark at Shiloh near Shechem (Nablus), Joshua launches foray into Jerusalem (Joshua 10:2315:63)
ca. 1200Sea Peoples invade Egypt and Syro-Palestine
ca. 1200-1050/1000Period of the Judges (Israel)
ca. 1200-1000Jerusalem is a Canaanite city
ca. 1150-900Middle Babylonian period:
ca. 1106Deborah judges Israel.
ca. 1100The Philistines take over Gaza. They called it Philistia (from which the modern name Palestine is derived), and made it one of their civilization's most important cities.
ca. 1050-450Hebrew prophets (Samuel-Malachi)
ca. 1000-587Monarchical period in Israel
ca. 1030-1010Saul (transitional king)
ca. 1010-970David conquers the Jebusites and makes Jerusalem his capital
ca. 970-931Solomon builds the First Temple on Mount Moriah
ca. 931Secession of Northern Kingdom (Israel) from Southern Kingdom (Judah)
931-913Rehoboam rules Judah
931-910Jeroboam I rules Israel, choses Shechem as his first capital, later moves it to Tirzah
913-911Abijah rules Judah
911-870Asa rules Juda
910-909Nadab (son of Jeroboam) rules Israel
909-886Baasha kills Nadab and rules Israel
900-612Neo-Assyrian period
886-885Elah, son of Baasha, rules Israel
885Zimri kills Elah, but reigns just seven days before committing suicide, Omri chosen as King of Israel
885-880(?)War between Omri and Tibni
885-874Omri kills Tibni, rules Israel
879Omri moves capital of Israel from Tirzah to Samaria
874-853Ahab, Omri's son, is killed in battle, Jezebel reigns as Queen. Athaliah, Ahab and Jezebel's daughter, marries Jehoram, crown prince of Judah
870-848Jehoshapha rules Judah
853-851Ahaziah, son of Ahab, rules Israel, dies in accident
750-725Israelite Prophets Amos, Hosea, Isaiah
722/721Northern Kingdom (Israel) destroyed by Assyrians10 tribesexiled (10 lost tribes)
720Ahaz, King of Judah dismantles Solomon's bronze vessels and places a private Syrian altar in the Temple
716Hezekiah, King of Jerusalem, with help of God and the prophetIsaiah resists Assyrian attempt to capture Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 32). Wells and springs leading to the city are stopped
701Assyrian ruler Sennacherib beseiges Jerusalem
612-538Neo-Babylonian (“Chaldean”) period
620Josiah (Judean King) and “Deuteronomic Reforms”
ca. 600-580Judean Prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel
587/586Southern Kingdom (Judah) and First Temple destroyed-Babylonian exile
ca. 550Judean Prophet “Second Isaiah”
541First Jews return from Babylon in small numbers to rebuild the city and its walls. Seventy years of exile terminated. (Daniel 9,Haggai 2:18-19)
539Persian ruler Cyrus the Great conquers Babylonian Empire


After the Babylonian Exile
(538 BCE-70 CE)


538-333 B.C.E.Persian Period.
538 B.C.E.Edict of Cyrus (first return from Exile).
520-515 B.C.E.Jerusalem ("Second") Temple rebuilt.
520 B.C.E.Judean Prophet Haggai.
500 B.C.E.The notion of a Messiah, a political/military-religious/moral leader, develops.
450-400 B.C.E.Reformation led by Ezra and Nehemiah.
ca. 450 B.C.E.Torah (Pentateuch = first division of Jewish Scriptures) begins to gain recognition as Scripture.
438 B.C.E.Achashverosh becomes king of Persia.
426 B.C.E.First decrees by Haman; fast ordered by Esther, Haman's downfall and execution.
425 B.C.E.Haman's ten sons executed; Purim celebration.
424 B.C.E.Megillah recorded.
411 B.C.E.Bagoas, a Persian, is made governor of Jerusalem.
333-63 B.C.E.Hellenistic (Greek) period.
333/331 B.C.E.Alexander the Great conquers the Land of Israel.
ca. 320-168 B.C.E.Judaism under Greek Ptolemies & Seleucids.
ca. 250 B.C.E."Septuagint" translation of Torah into Greek.
ca. 230-146 B.C.E.Coming of Rome to the east Mediterranean.
ca. 201 B.C.E.Prophets (second division of Jewish Scriptures) recognized by some as Scripture
ca. 200 B.C.E.-135 C.E.Jewish Qumran community.
175 B.C.E.Selicid, king of Syria, plunders Jerusalem, murdering many.
166-160 B.C.E.Jewish Maccabean revolt against restrictions on practice ofJudaism and desecration of the Temple.
142-129 B.C.E.Jewish autonomy under Hasmoneans.
63 B.C.E.Rome (Pompey) annexes the land of Israel.
66-73 C.E.First Jewish Revolt against Rome.
69 C.E.Vespasian gives Yochanan ben Zakkai permission to establish a Jewish center for study at Yavneh that will become the hub for rabbinic Judaism.
70 C.E.Destruction of Jerusalem and the second Temple.


Rule of Rome
(230 BCE-400 CE)


ca. 230-146 B.C.E.Coming of Rome to the east Mediterranean.
142-129 B.C.E.Jewish autonomy under Hasmoneans.
63 B.C.E.Rome (Pompey) annexes the land of Israel.
37-4 B.C.E.Herod the Great (Jewish Roman ruler of the land of Israel).
34 B.C.E.Mark Antony deeds the city of Gaza to his lover, Queen Cleopatra.
37 B.C.E.Herod captures Jerusalem, has Antigonus II executed, and marries the Hasmonean princess Mariamne I.
20 B.C.E.Herod creates Temple Mount and begins to rebuild the Temple inJerusalem. Project continues until 72 C.E..
ca. 4 B.C.E.-ca. 30 C.E.Joshua/Jesus “the Christ.”

MODERN ERA

Hillel & Shammai (Jewish sages).
6 C.E.Rome establishes direct rule of prefects in Judea.
ca. 13 B.C.E.- 41 C.E.Philo Judaeus of Alexandria.
ca. 30 C.E.Jesus is crucified.
36-64 C.E.Paul “the apostle” (Jewish “Christian”).
ca. 37-100 C.E.Josephus (Jewish leader, historian).
ca. 40 C.E.Gamliel/Gamaliel I (Jewish leader-scholar).
ca. 50-125 C.E.Christian Testament (NT) writings.
66-73 C.E.First Jewish Revolt against Rome.
69 C.E.Vespasian gives Yochanan ben Zakkai permission to establish a Jewish center for study at Yavneh that will become the hub for rabbinic Judaism.
70Destruction of Jerusalem and the second Temple.
73Last stand of Jews at Masada.
ca. 90-100Gamaliel II excludes sectarians (including Christians) from thesynagogues.
ca. 90-150Writings (third and last division of Jewish Scriptures) discussed and accepted as sacred scripture.
114-117Jewish Revolts against Rome in Cyprus, Egypt and Cyrene. The Great Synagogue and the Great Library in Alexandria are destroyed as well as the entire Jeiwsh community of Cyprus. Afterwards, Jews were forbidden on Cyprus.
120-135Rabbi Akiva active in consolidating Rabbinic Judaism.
132-135Bar Kokhba rebellion (Second Jewish Revolt). Roman forces kill an estimated half a million Jews and destroy 985 villages and 50 fortresses.
136Hadrian renames Jerusalem Aelia Capatolina and builds a Pagan temple over the the site of the Second Temple. He also forbids Jews to dwell there. Judea (the southern portion of what is now called the West Bank) was renamed Palaestina in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel.
138-161Antoninus Pius, Hadrian's sucessor, repeals many of the previously instituted harsh policies towards Jews.
193-211Roman emperor Lucious Septimus Severus treats Jews relatively well, allowing them to participate in public offices and be exempt from formalities contrary to Judaism. However, he did not allow the Jews to convert anyone
ca. 200Mishnah (Jewish oral law) compiled/edited under Judah the Prince.
200-254Origen (Christian scholar, biblical interpreter).
203Because of his health, Judah HaNasi relocates the center of Jewish learning from Beth Shearim to Sepphoris.
212Roman Emperor Caracalla allows free Jews within the empire to become full Roman citizens.
220Babylonian Jewish Academy founded at Sura by Rab.
220-470

Amoraim, or Mishna scholars, flourish. The Amoraim's commentary, along with the Mishna, comprises the Talmud.
222-235
Emperor Alexander Severus allowed for a revival of Jewish rights, including permission to visit Jerusalem.
240-276Rise of Mani/Manichaean World Religion synthesis.
ca. 250Babylonian Jews flourish (as does Manichaeism) under Persian King Shapur I
250-330Early development of Christian monasticism in Egypt.
263-339Eusebius (Christian author, historian)
303Violent persecution of Christians by Emperor Diocletian.
To 311Sporadic persecution of Christianity by Rome.
306One of the first Christian councils, the Council of Elvira, forbids intermarriage and social interaction with Jews
312/313Emperor Constantine embraces Christianity, announces Edict of Toleration
315Code of Constantine limits rights of non-Christians, is Constantine's first anti-Jewish act.
368Jerusalem Talmud compiled.


Rabbinic Period of Talmud Development
(70 BCE-500 CE)


66-73First Jewish Revolt against Rome.
69Vespasian gives Yochanan ben Zakkai permission to establish a Jewish center for study at Yavneh that will become the hub for rabbinic Judaism.
70Destruction of Jerusalem and the second Temple,
73Last stand of Jews at Masada.
ca. 90-100Gamaliel II excludes sectarians (including Christians) from thesynagogues.
ca. 90-150Writings (third and last division of Jewish Scriptures) discussed and accepted as sacred scripture.
114-117Jewish Revolts against Rome in Cyprus, Egypt and Cyrene. The Great Synagogue and the Great Library in Alexandria are destroyed as well as the entire Jeiwsh community of Cyprus. Afterwards, Jews were forbidden on Cyprus.
120-135Rabbi Akiva active in consolidating Rabbinic Judaism.
132-135Bar Kokhba rebellion (Second Jewish Revolt). Roman forces kill an estimated half a million Jews and destroy 985 villages and 50 fortresses.
136Hadrian renames Jerusalem Aelia Capatolina and builds a Pagan temple over the the site of the Second Temple. He also forbids Jews to dwell there. Judea (the southern portion of what is now called the West Bank) was renamed Palaestina in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel.
138-161Antoninus Pius, Hadrian's sucessor, repeals many of the previously instituted harsh policies towards Jews.
193-211Roman emperor Lucious Septimus Severus treats Jews relatively well, allowing them to participate in public offices and be exempt from formalities contrary to Judaism. However, he did not allow the Jews to convert anyone
ca. 200Mishnah (Jewish oral law) compiled/edited under Judah the Prince.
203Because of his health, Judah HaNasi relocates the center of Jewish learning from Beth Shearim to Sepphoris.
212Roman Emperor Caracalla allows free Jews within the empire to become full Roman citizens.
220Babylonian Jewish Academy founded at Sura by Rab.
220-470
Amoraim, or Mishna scholars, flourish. The Amoraim's commentary, along with the Mishna, comprises the Talmud.
222-235Emperor Alexander Severus allowed for a revival of Jewish rights, including permission to visit Jerusalem.
ca. 250Babylonian Jews flourish (as does Manichaeism) under Persian King Shapur I.
306One of the first Christian councils, the Council of Elvira, forbids intermarriage and social interaction with Jews.
315Code of Constantine limits rights of non-Christians, is Constantine's first anti-Jewish act.
359Hillel creates a new calendar based on the lunar year to replace the dispersed Sanhedrin, which previously announced the festivals.
368Jerusalem Talmud compiled.
370-425Hillel founds Beit Hillel, a school emphasizing tolerance and patience. Hillel, a descendant of King David, is one of the first scholars to devise rules to interpret the Torah.
410Rome sacked by Visigoths.
425Jewish office of Nasi/Prince abolished by Rome.
426Babylonian Talmud compiled.
439Theodosis enacts a code prohibiting Jews from holding important positions involving money. He also reenacts a law forbidding the building of new synagogues.
500
Babylonian Talmud recorded. After conquering Italy in 493, Ostrogoth king Theodoric issues an edict safeguarding the Jews and ensuring their right to determine civil disputes and freedom of worship.


Consolidation & Dominance of Christianity
(325-590 CE)


325Christian First Ecumenical Council, at Nicea (Asia Minor), changes the date of Easter from Passover and forbids Jews from owning Christian slaves or converting pagans to Judaism.
330Jerusalem becomes part of Constantine's Byzantine Empire.
ca. 325-420Jerome (Christian author, translator).
339Constantine forbids intermarriage with Jews and the circumcision of heathen or Christian slaves, declaring death as the punishment.
354-430Augustine (Christian author in North Africa).
359Hillel creates a new calendar based on the lunar year to replace the dispersed Sanhedrin, which previously announced the festivals.
368Jerusalem Talmud compiled.
370-425Hillel founds Beit Hillel, a school emphasizing tolerance and patience. Hillel, a descendant of King David, is one of the first scholars to devise rules to interpret the Torah.
380/391Christianity becomes THE religion of Roman Empire.
401Christianity takes root in Gaza thanks to Bishop Porphyry.
410Rome sacked by Visigoths.
415St. Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria, champions violence against the city's Jews and incites the Greeks to kill or expel them. Some Jews return within a few years, but many return only after theMuslims conquer Egypt.
425Jewish office of Nasi/Prince abolished by Rome.
426Babylonian Talmud compiled.
439Theodosis enacts a code prohibiting Jews from holding important positions involving money. He also reenacts a law forbidding the building of new synagogues.
451Christian Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon.
500After conquering Italy in 493, Ostrogoth king Theodoric issues an edict safeguarding the Jews and ensuring their right to determine civil disputes and freedom of worship.
501An earthquake hits Israel, partially destroying Acre and incuring damage as far east as Jersusalem.
511Rebellion leader Mar Zutra usurps power from Kobad the Zenduk, establishing an independant Jewish state in Babylon that would last for seven years, until Zutra's forces defeated Zutra's army, killing him and instituted a harsh policy toward the remaining Jews.
516Southern Arabian king Ohu Nuwas adopts Judaism, possibly as a rampart against the spread of Christianity. King Eleboas of Abyssinia, with the help of Justin I, later defeated Nuwas.
519After Ravenna residents burnt down local synagogues, Ostrogoth ruler Theodoric orders the Italian town to rebuild the synagogues at their own expense.
587Recared of Spain adopts Catholicism, banning Jews from slave ownership, intermarriage and holding positions of authority. Recared also declares that children of mixed marriages be raised Christian.
570Birth of Prophet Muhammad, Makkah.
590Pope Gregory the Great formulates the official Papal policy towards Jews, objecting to forced baptism and tolerating them according to the previous council's regulations.


Development of Muhammad's Islamic Message
(570-1258 CE)


ca. 570-632Muhammad ("the Prophet" of Islam).
ca. 610Prophetic call and start of Quranic revelations.
614Persian invasion, Jews allowed to controll Jerusalem.
617Persians change policy toward Jews, forbid them from living within three miles of Jerusalem.
622The hijra (emigration) from Mecca to Medina.
624-627Muhammad attacks Jewish Arabian tribes for refusing to convert to Islam. Eventually the Southern Arabian tribes are destroyed.
626While proselytizing Arabia, Muhammad captures the Banu Kurara tribe and forces the group of about 600 to chose between conversion and death. After spending all night praying, all but three or four Banu Kurarans are beheaded.
627-629Emperor Heraclius breaks his promise of protection to Jews, massacring any he found and forbidding them from entering Jerusalem. Hundreds of Jews were killed and thousands exhiled to Egypt, ending the Jewish towns in the Galilee and Judea. Heraclius' decree remained in effect until the Muslim conquest ofJerusalem.
630Capitulation of Mecca, rededication of Kaba.
632The Jewish tribe Kaibar defends itself against Muslim forces, negotiating a settlement in which half of their crops would go to Mohammed in exchange for peace. Other Jewish tribes, including Fadattr, Tedma and Magna reached similar deals.
590-604Pope Gregory the Great.
ca. 600-1300Period of the Jewish Rabbinic Geonim.
632-661Muhammad dies, creating the four "rightly guided caliphs" ofIslam.
634Gaza becomes the first city in Palestine to be captured by Muslims. Many Christians and Jews remained despite the Muslim takeover.
637Muslim forces capture Caesarea, forcing the city's estimated 100,000 Jews to follow the Pact of Omar, which meant they had to pray quietly, not build new synagogues and not prevent Jews from converting to Islam. The Jews were also forbidden from riding horses and holding judicial or civil posts, and were forced to wear a yellow patch for identification.
638Caliph Umar conquers Jerusalem and Jews are permitted to return to the city under Islam.
661Assassination of Ali (last of the four).
661-750Umayyad Dynasty of Islam in Damascus (Syria).
669, 674Muslim Attacks on Christian Constantinople.
680Massacre of Ali's son Husayn and Shiites (Iraq).
685Muslims extend Jerusalem and rebuild walls and roads.
692Dome of the Rock built on site of First and Second Temples by Caliph Abd el-Malik.
November 9, 694The 17th Council of Toledo convenes, passing a wide-ranging array of restrictions on the local Jewish community.
711Muslim Forces Attack Spain Successfully.
715Al-Aqsa Mosque built, Jerusalem.
732Islam repulsed at Tours (France), gateway to Europe.
750Abbasid caliphate founded.
ca. 760Karaism founded (Jewish reaction to Rabbinic Judaism).
762Baghdad founded by Abbasids.
767Anan Ben David, organizer of the Karaite sect that only believed in the literal Biblical writings and not the Oral law.
742-814Charlemagne, French Holy Roman Emperor, protected and helped develop Jewish culture in his kingdom, seeing Jews as an asset.
740-1259Jewish Kingdom of Khazar lasts over 500 years, defending itself from the Muslims, Byzantines and Russians, finally subdued by Mongols under Genghis Khan.
750-1258Abbasid Dynasty of Islam in Baghdad (Iraq)—the "golden age" of Islamic culture.
?-767Abu Hanifa (Muslim theologian and jurist in Iraq).
710-795Malik ibn Anas (jurist, collector of hadiths, Medina).
800Caliph Harun al-Rashid rules in "1001 Nights" style.
ca. 800-950Mutazilite rationalism developed and debated.
807Harun Al Rashid, Caliph of the Abbasids forces Baghdad Jews to wear a yellow badge and Christians to wear a blue badge.
825Caliph Mamun sponsors translations of Greek learning into Arabic (Arabic science flourishes).
814-840Charlemagne's son, Louis the Pius, who succeeded his father as king, expanded his father's positive policies towards the Jews, like changing "market day" from Saturday (Shabbat) to Sunday.
855Ibn Hanbal (jurist, collector of hadiths, Baghdad).
868Palestine annexed to Egypt.
870, 875Bukhari and Muslim (collectors of hadiths).
874Shiite "twelvers" arise.
?-935Al-Ashari (ex-Mutazilite Muslim scholar).
882-942Saadia Gaon (Rabbinic Jewish sage).
942Office of the Exilarch was abolished after seven centuries, primarily because of dissention with the Muslims. David ben-Zaccai held the postion.
922Execution of Hallaj, radical Persian Muslim mystic/sufi.
ca. 950-1150“Golden Age” in Spain (Islamic Umayyad dynasty).
969Founding of Cairo (and soon thereafter Azhar University) by the Islamic Shiite Fatimid dynasty in Egypt.
969Caliph al-Aziz defeated the Turkish princes at Ramleh, marking the beginning of Fatamid rule over Eretz-Israel.
972Al-Azhar University Founded, Cairo.
ca. 1000Rabbi Gershon of Mainz, Germany, publishes a ban on bigamy. This marks the beginning of Ashkenazi (Franco-German) halachic creativity.
1001Ibn al-Bawwab produces earliest exist Qur'an copy on paper, Baghdad.
990-1055Diplomat and poet, as well as vizier to King Habus of Granadaand author of a Biblical Hebrew dictionary, Samuel Ibn Nagrela.
1008Egyptian Caliph Hakkim, who claimed to be divine, pressured allnon-Muslims to convert and forced all Jews to wear a "golden calf" around their necks.
1009Oldest existing text of full Hebrew Bible is written.
1016Earthquake causes structrual damage on Temple Mount.
1021-1069Messianic poet and philosopher, Solomon Ibn Gabirol.
1027Samuel Hanagid becomes vizier of Granada. He is the first of the poets of the Golden Age of Spain, and symbolic of both the political power and literary creativity of Jews in Spain at the time.
1032Rebel Abul Kamal Tumin conquered Fez and decimated the Jewish community, killing 6,000 Jews.
1066Final split ("schism") between Latin (Roman) and Greek (Byzantine) Classical Christian Churches: 1053/54 William the Conqueror (Norman) takes England.
1056Abraham Ibn Daud: On Saumuel Ha-Nagid, Vizier of Granada.
1040-1105Rashi (Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac; Jewish sage): .
1058-1111Ghazali (Persian Muslim scholar and mystic): .
1065-1173Benjamin of Tudela, Jewish traveller and historian, who wrote a famous journal called Sefer Hamassa'ot (Book of Travels).
1070Rashi, a French-Jewish thinker, completes his commentaries on most parts of the Bible.
1070-1139Poet and philiospher Moses Ibn Ezra.
1071Seljuk occupation of Jerusalem.
1099First Crusade Begins rule in Jerusalem.
1100The Crusaders seize Gaza from the Fatimid Caliphs, returning it to Christian rule.
1181Philip expels Jews from France.
1187Salah al-Din returns Jerusalem to Muslim rule.
1192Philip expands his kingdom and allows Jews to return, for a fee and under strict conditions.


Medieval Period in the West
(600-1500 CE)


610Visigothic ruler Sesbut prohibits Judaism after several anti-Jewish edicts are ignored. Exiled Jews return to Byzantine Spainunder Sesbut's successor, Swintilla.
614Persian General Romizanes captures Jerusalem and allows Jews to run the city. At this time, aproximately 150,000 Jews are living in 43 settlements in Eretz-Israel.
617The Persians renege on their promises and forbid Jews to settle within a three mile radius of Jerusalem.
638Although Chintilla decrees that only Catholics are permitted to live in Visogoth Spain, many Jews continue to live there.
638Islamic conquest of Jerusalem.
682Visigoth King Erwig continues oppression of Jews, making it illegal to practice any Jewish rites and pressing for the conversion or emigration of the remaining Jews.
691First account of Jews in England.
712Jews help Muslim invaders capture Spain, ending Visogoth rule and beginning a 150 year period of relative peace, in which Jews were free to study and practice religion as they wished.
722In the wake of a narrow military defeat over Muslim forces, Leo III of Constantinople decided his nation's weakness lay in its heterogenious population, and began the forcible conversion of the Jews, as well as the "New Christians." Most converted under Leo III clandestinely continued their Jewish practices.
1040Birth of Rashi.
1066In the wake of the Norman conquest of England, Jews left Normandy and settled in London and later in York, Norwich, Oxford, Bristol and Lincoln.
1078Pope Gregory VII prohibited Jews from holding offices in Christendom.
1086-1145The greatest Hebrew poet of his time, Judah Halevi.
1090Iban Iashufin, King of the Almoravides, captured Granada and destroyed the Jewish community, the survivors fled to Toledo.
1095Henry IV of Germany, who granted Jews favorable conditions whenever possible, issued a charter to the Jews and a decree against forced baptism.
1131Birth of Rambam.
1171In the town of Blois, southwest of Paris, Jews are falsely accused of committing ritual murder ((killing of a Christian child) andblood libel. The adult Jews of the city are arrested and most are executed after refusing to convert. Thirty-one or 32 of the Jews are killed. The Jewish children are forcibly baptized.
1210Group of 300 French and English rabbis make aliyah and settle in Israel.
1215The Church's Fourth Lateran Council decrees that Jews be differentiated from others by their type of clothing to avoid intercourse between Jews and Christians. Jews are sometimes required to wear a badge; sometimes a pointed hat.
1227-1274Christian theologian, who called for the slavery of all Jews, Saint Thomas Aquinas.
1229King Henry III of England forced Jews to pay half the value of thier property in taxes.
1242Burning of the Talmud in Paris.
1244Tartars capture Jerusalem.
1253King Henry III of England ordered Jewish worship in synagogueto be held quietly so that Christians passing by do not have to hear it. e also ordered that Jews may not employ Christian nurses or maids, nor may any Jew prevent another from converting to Christianity.
1254French King Louis IX expelled the Jews from France, ending the Tosaphists period. Most Jews went to Germany and further east.
1255Seeing himself as the "master of the Jews," King Henry II of England transferred his rights to the Jews to his brother, Richard, for 5,000 marks.
1267In a special session, the Vienna city council forced Jews to wear the Pileum cornutum, a cone-shaped headress prevelent in many medieval woodcuts illustrating Jews. This form of distinctive dress was an additon to badge Jews were forced to wear.
1267Ramban (Nachmanides) arrives in Israel.
1275King Edward of England banned usury and unsuccessfully encouraged Jews in agriculture, crafts and local trades. He also forced Jews over the age of seven to wear an indentifying badge.
1282The Archbishop of Canterbury, John Pectin, ordered all London synagogues to closed and prohibited Jewish physicians from practicing on Christians.
1285Blood libel in Munich, Germany results in the death of 68 Jews. An additional 180 Jews are burned alive at the synagogue.
1287A mob in Oberwesel, Germany kills 40 Jewish men, women and children after a ritual murder accusation.
1290Bowing political pressure, English King Edward I expels the Jews from England. They were only allowed to take what they could carry and most went to France, paying for thier passage only to be robbed and cast overboard by the ship captains.
1306Philip IV orders all Jews expelled from France, with their property to be sold at public auction. Some 125,000 Jews are forced to leave.
1321Similar to accusations made during the Black Plague, Jews were accused of encouraging lepers to poison Christian wells inFrance. An estimated five thousand Jews were killed before the king, Philip the Tall, admitted the Jews were innocent.
1321Henry II of Castile forces Jews to wear yellow badges.
1322Charles IV of France expels all French Jews without the one year period he had promised them.
1348-1349Much of Europe blames the Black Plague on the Jews and tortured to confess that they poisoned the wells. Despite the pleas of innocence of Pope Clement VI, the accusations resulted in the destruction of over 60 large and 150 small Jewish communities.
1348Basle burns 600 Jews at the stake and forcibly baptizes 140 children, expelling the city's other Jews. The city's Christian residents convert the synagogue into a church and destroy the Jewish cemetery.
1348Pope Clement VI issues an edict repudiating the libel against Jews, saying that they too were suffering from the Plague.
1360Samuel ben Meir Abulafia is arrested and tortured to death by King Pedro without any explination. The king also confiscated his great wealth.
1385-1386German Emperor Wenceslaus arrests Jews living in the Swabian League, a group of free cities in S. Germany, and confiscates their books. Later, he expelled the Jews of Strassburg after a community debate.
1386Emperor Wenceslaus expelles the Jews from Strassbourg and confiscate their property.
1389After a priest was hit with some sand from a few small Jewish boys playing in the street, he insisted that the Jewish community was plotting against him and began a virulent campaign against the city's Jews, resulting in the massacre of thousands and the destruction of the city's synagogue and Jewish cemetery. King Wenceslaus refused to condemn the act, insisting that the responsibility lay with the Jews for going outside during the Holy Week.
1389Pope Boniface continues the policy of Clement VI, forbidding the Christians to harm Jews, destroy their cemeteries or forcibly baptize them.
1391Ferrand Martinez, archdeacon of Ecija, begins a campaign against Spanish Jewry, killing over 10,000 and destroying the Jewish quarter in Barcelona. The campaign quickly spreads throughout Spain, except for Granada, and destroys Jewish communities in Valencia and Palma De Majorca.
1391King Pedro I orders Spain not to harm the remaining Jews and decrees that synagogues not be converted into churches.
1392King Pedro I announces his compliance with the Bull of Pope Boniface IX, protecting Jews from baptism. He extends this edict to Spanish Jewish refugees.
1415Benedict XIII bans the study of the Talmud in any form, institutes forced Christian sermons and tries to restrict Jewish life completely.
1420Pope Martin V favorably reinstates old privleges of the Jews and orders that no child under the age of 12 can be forcibly baptized without parental consent.
1420All Jews are expelled from Lyons, including the refugees from Paris who were expelled 20 years earliers. Jews now only remain in Provence (until 1500) and in the possessions of the Holy See.
1422Pope Martin V issues a bull reminding Christians that Christianity was derived from Judaism and warns the Friars not to incite against the Jews. The Bull was withdrawn the following year, alleging that the Jews of Rome attained the Bull by fraud.
1480Inquisition established in Spain.


The Crusades
(1095-1258 CE)


1096Participants in the First Crusade massacre Jews in several Central European cities, beginning centuries of pogroms linked to the Crusades.
1096More than 5,000 Jews were murdered in Germany in several different attacks.
May 3, 1096Count Emico of Leiningen, on his way to join a Crusade, attacked the synagogue at Speyers and killed all the defenders.
May 27, 10961,200 Jews commit suicide in Mayence to escape Count Emico, who tried to forcibly convert them.
1085-1140Judah Halevi (Jewish author).
1099Crusaders (European Christians) capture Jerusalem and massacre tens of thousands of the city's Jews.
1100Germans, including German Jews, migrate to Poland. It is seen as “the land of opportunity.”
1107Moroccan Almoravid ruler Yoseph Ibn Tashfin orders allMoroccan Jews to convert or leave.
1109Tiberias falls to the Crusaders.
1115After reconquering Toledo, Spain from the Muslims, Alphonso I invited all Jews to return.
1120Jews from Muslim countries begin to settle in Byzantium.
1124Records of a Jewish gate in Kiev attest to the presence of a Jewish community there.
1135-1204Maimonides (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon; Jewish scholar).
1139Judah Halevi completes his influential philosophy of Judaismknown as The Kuzari. He is a friend of commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra, who also left Spain for the life of a wandering Jewish scholar.
1143150 Jews killed in Ham, France.
1144Jews in Norwich, England, are accused of murdering a Christian child in what is believed to be the first ritual murder charge. The blood libel, as well as others in England that follow in the 12th century, incites anti-Jewish violence.
1160-1173Benjamin of Toledo, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Toledo.
1163Benjamin of Toledo writes of 40,000 Jews living in Baghdad, complete with 28 synagogues and 10 Torah academies.
1171Saladin (1138-1193) overthrows Fatimid dynasty in Egypt.
1187Saladin recaptures Jerusalem from Crusaders grants Jews permission to re-enter.
March 16, 1190Jews attacked, over 150 die after a six day standoff in York, England.
1190Approximately 2,500 Jews live in England, enjoing more rights than Jews on the continent.
1191French King Phillip starts the Third Crusade, cancels debts to Jews, drives many Jews out of France, confiscates their property.
1194-1270Scholar and Jewish leader Moses Ben Nachman (Nachmanides).
1195Moses Maimonides completes The Guide to the Perplexed, considered the most important work of medieval Jewish thought.
1211A group of 300 rabbis from France and England settle in Palestine (Eretz Yisrael), beginning what might be interpreted as Zionist aliyah.
1198-1216Pope Innocent III (Christian).
1204First synagogue built in Vienna, a city where Jews enjoyed more freedom than in other areas of Austria.
1215Fourth Lateran Council expands anti-Jewish decrees in Europe, forces Jews to wear the Yellow Patch, the "Badge of Shame.
1222Deacon Robert of Reading, England, was burned for converting to Judaism, setting a precedent for the burning of "heretics".
1222Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury and a prime mover of the Lateran Council, forbids Jews from building new synagogues, owning slaves or mixing with Christians.
ca. 13th cen.The Zohar (a Jewish kabbalistic book): .
1227Death of Genghis Khan (roving Mongol conqueror).
ca. 1230Inquisition by Christians in Spain.
1232The Jewish community of Marrakech, Morocco, is reestablished, leading to massacres of Jews caused by Islamic political revolt and grassroots hatred.
1239Pope Gregory IX orders the kings of France, England, Spain andPortugal to confiscate Hebrew books, Following this edict, the Talmud is condemned and burned in France and Rome.
1225-1274Thomas Aquinas (Christian scholar).
1240-1292Spanish Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia.
1243First accusation of desecration of the Host (the wafers used is Christian Mass) - the blood libel - in Berlitz, Germany.
1244-1517Rule by Tartars, Mongols, Ayybids, and Mamelukes.
1247Pope Innocent IV issued a Bull refuting blood libels and sent it throughout Germany and France.
1254-1517Mamluk Islamic rule (new dynasty) in Egypt.
1258Fall of Islamic Abbasid dynasty to Hulagu (Mongol).


Transition & Rebuilding of Political Islam
(1258-1500 CE)


1258Mongols sack Baghdad.
1260Mongols led by Hulagu Khan overrun Gaza, they are beaten back by Egyptian Mamluk General Baibars. Gaza becomes the capital of a Mamluk Province.
1278The Edict of Pope Nicholas III requires compulsory attendance of Jews at conversion sermons.
1286Moses de Leon of Spain completes a commentary of the Torah. The Zohar remains a central text of Jewish mysticism.
1290/1291Expulsion of Jews from England.
1291Expulsion of Christian Crusaders from Syria.
1348Black Death reaches Europe.
1445Gutenberg prints Europe's first book with movable type.
1453Ottomans begin rule from Constantinople.
1492The Alhambra Decree ordered the expulsion of the Jews from Castile and Aragon, Spain. The edict was not formally revoked until December 16, 1968.
1492End of Muslim states in Spain.
1492Columbus sets sail.


Mamluk Rule
(1291-1516 CE)


1300-1517Italian Renaissance.
1306-1394Expulsions of Jews from France.
1328-1384John Wycliffe (Christian dissident leader).
14th centuryRise of the Ottoman Muslim dynasty in Turkey.
1333Casimir the Great takes power in Poland and brings with him a sympathetic attitude toward the Jews, who benfit as a result.
September 30, 1338The Deggendorf Massacre. Residents of Deggendorf, Germany, burned the homes of and massacred the town's approximately 50 Jews.
1348Black Death reaches Europe and Jews are accused of poisoning Christian wells.
1336-1405Timurlane/Tamurlane, Turkic ruler in central Asia.
1360King Pedro of Portugal arrests and tortures to death Samuel Ben Meir Abulafia. No charges were ever given and the King confiscated Abulafia's lands and great wealth.
1400Damascus sacked by Timurlane.
1424Jewish physician, Y'en Ch'eng is given the surname "Chao" as an honor by the Emperor. This family, which probably originated in India and Babylon, became on of the leading Chinese Jewish families.
1437-1509Philosopher, financier and scholar, Don Isaac Abarbanel intercedes many times on behalf of his fellow Jews, including trying to stop Ferdinand from expelling them. This time he was foiled by Torquemada and he followed them into exile. His commentaries cover the major and minor Prophets. Consistent with his belief that the Messiah would come in his lifetime, he also wrote three messianic texts called Migdal Yeshu'ot (Tower of Salvation).
1452-1454/55Gutenberg prints Europe's first book with movable type.
1447Following a fire in Posen where the original charter (written by Casimir the Great) granted the Jews "privileges," Casimir IV renews all their rights and makes his charter one of the most liberal in Europe. This charter lasted less than a decade before it was revoked.
1452-1515Astronomer and historian, Abraham Zacuto creates tables used by Columbus. After the explusion of 1492, Zacuto went to Portugal where he developed the metal Astrolab used by Vasco Da Gama. In 1498 he was forced to flee or convert. He left and reached Tunis where he wrote a history of the Jews from creation until the sixteenth century.
1453Fall of Constantinople (Istanbul) to Ottoman Muslims.
1454Casimir IV of Poland revokes the Jewish charter, at the insistence of Bishop Zbignev. The Bishop had correctly predicted Casimir's defeat by the Teutonic Knights backed by the Pope, and succeeded in convincing the King that it was due to the Jews.
1463Pope Nicholas V authorized the establishment of the Inquisitionto investigate heresy among the Marranos.
1479-15Isabella's severe anti-Jewish learnings influence Ferdinand and lead to the final expulsion of the Jews from Spain.
1486First prayer book published in SoncinoItaly.
1488The first complete edition of the Hebrew Bible is printed inSoncinoItaly.
1492Christian expulsion of Muslim Moors from Spain.
1492Columbus sets sail.
1492Christian expulsion of Jews from Spain, sending over 200,000 Jews fleeing: 137,000 Jews forced to leave Sicily.
1494Polish King Jan Olbracht's orders Jews to leave to leave Crakowfor Kazimierz after they are blamed for a large fire that destroyed part of the city.
1496Manuel of Portugal expels Jews from Portugal.
1516The closed Jewish Quarter in VeniceItaly, is dubbed the Geto Nuovo (New Foundry). "Geto" will later become the basis for the word "ghetto".
1516The Ottoman's fight the Mamluks out of Gaza, Gaza is ruled for the next 100 years by the Ridwan family.
1505-1584Kabbalist and author of "Lecha Dodi" (Come My Beloved),Solomon ben Moses Alkabetz.


Christian Reformation Period
(1517-1569 CE)


151038 Jews were burned at the stake in Berlin.
1516Jews in Venice are relegated to a ghetto, the most extreme segregation to which Jews had been submitted. Over time, Jews in many lands are similarly segregated.
1483-1546Martin Luther.
1517Luther posts "95 theses" in Wittenburg, Germany
1520-1579Cracow Rosh Yeshiva whose major work was an adaptation ofCaro's Shulchan Aruch to Europoean Jewry, Moses Isserles.
1525-1609Brilliant Talmudist, mathematician and astronomer, popular with Emperor Randolh II. Judah Loew Ben Bezalel, the Maharal ofPrague also created the Golem, a man from clay who protected the Jewish community.
1534First Yiddish book published in CracowPoland.
1534-1572Talmud and Kabbalah scholar, Isaac Ben Solomon Luria, given the name "The Ari" (The Lion).
1543Luther writes "About the Jews and Their Lies," considered the first modern anti-Semitic tract.
ca. 1500-1650Protestant Christian Reformation.
1509-1564John Calvin.
1516Jewish ghetto instituted in Venice.
1526The Prague Haggadah, which contains the oldest known printedYiddush poem, is published.
November 22, 1547Jews in the small community of Asolo, Italy were victims of a massacre, leaving 10 of the 37 Jewish residents dead.
1547Ivan the Terrible becomes ruler of Russia and refuses to allow Jews to live in his kingdon.
1555Jewish ghetto instituted in Rome.
1559Pope Paul IV allows the first printing of the Zohar, a Jewish mystical text.
1567/1571Shulhan Arukh (code of Jewish law by Joseph Caro).published.
1569Isaac Luria writes the Kabbalist in Safed. Luria's ideas give rise to a new form of Jewish mysticism.


Dominance of Ottoman Muslim Empire
(1500-1920 CE)


1517Victory of (Muslim Ottoman Turk) Selim I over Egypt.
Ottoman Muslim rulers (later) claim the title "caliph".
1520-1566Sulayman I, "the Magnificent," rules.
ca. 1500-1800Dominance of Safavid Shiite Muslim dynasty in Iran.
ca. 1500-1800Dominance of Mughal Muslim dynasty in India.
1550-1619Rabbi, preacher and biblical commentator known for his brilliant sermons calling for self improvement, Ephraim Solomon of Lunshits.
1550Dr. Jospeh Hacohen was chased out of Genoa for practicing medicine, and soon after, all the Jews were expelled.
1553Under the direction of Cardinal Caraffa, later Pope Paul IV, theTalmud was confiscated and publicaly burned in Rome on Rosh Hashanah, starting a wave of Talmud burning throughout Italy.
1554Cornelio da Montalcino, a Franciscan Friar who converted toJudaism, is burned alive in Rome.
1555In his Bull Cum Nimis Absurdum, Pope Paul IV renewed all anti-Jewish legislation and installed a ghetto in Rome. The Bull also forced Jews to wear a special cap, forbade them from owning real estate or practicing medicine on Christians. It also limited Jewish communities to only one synagogue.
1555-1631Talmudic commentator, author of Chidushei Halachot, Samuel Eliezer Aidles, also known as "Maharsha." .
1558In Recanti, Italy, under the protection of Pope Paul IV, Joseph Paul More, a baptized Jew, entered a synagogue on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and tried to preach a conversion sermon. The congregation evicted him and a near massacre occured. Soon after, the Jews were expelled from Recanti.
1585First known Jew to step on American soil, Joachim Gaunse(Ganz), lands on Roanoke Island.
1596-1650Rene Descartes (scholar-philosopher): .
1564In Brest Litovsk, the son of a wealthy Jewish tax collector, is accused of killing the family's Christian servant for ritual purposes. He is tortured and killed.
1566Three months into his reign, Pope Pius V rejects Pope Pius IV leniency towards Jews and reinstates the restrictions of Pope Paul IV which forced Jews to wear a special cap, forbade them from owning real estate or practicing medicine on Christians. It also limited Jewish communities to only one synagogue.
1569Brest Litovsk welcomes Jewish settlement. In 80 years the Jewish population surges from 4,000 to more than 50,000.
1586Pope Sixtus V rejects Pope Gregory XIII policies and forbids Jews from living in the Papal states and to print the Talmud.
1587-1643The leading Jewish composer of the late Italian Renaissance and the musical director of court of Mantua, Salamone de Rossi.
1588England defeats the Spanish Armada, weakening Spain and decreasing the reach of the Inquisition, espcially in theNetherlands.
1590Built of wood, the entire Jewish quarter of Posen burned while then gentile population watched and pillaged. 15 people died and 80 Torah scrolls were burned.
1591Rabbi, encyclopedist, physician and pupil of Galileo, Jose Solomon Delmedigo wrote over 30 works in math, geometry, chemistry, mechanics, philosophy and medicine.
1592Esther Chiera, who held considerable influence in Sultan Murad III's court, was executed because of jealousy and the Sultan's desire for her assets.
1593Pope Clement VIII expelled Jews from all Papal states except Rome and Ancona.
1596Official Yom Kippur services are held for the first time inAmsterdam, though not without controversy.
1603Frei Diogo Da Assumpacao, a partly Jewish friar who embraced Judaism, was burned alive in Lisbon. His arguments against Christianity were published and gained wide popularity.
1605A Jesuit missionary in China meets with Al T'Ien, a Chinese Jewish teacher. Thier correspondence is the basis for most known information regarding the Kaifeng Jewish community.
1605-1657Menasseh ben Israel (Jewish scholar-mystic).
1612The Hamburg Senate decides to officially allow Jews to live in the city on the condition there is no public worship.
1614Vincent Fettmilch, who called himself the "new Haman of the Jews," led a raid on a Frankfurt synagogue that turned into an attack which destroyed the whole community.
1615King Louis XIII of France decreed that all Jews must leave the country within one month on pain of death.
1615The Guild, led by Dr. Chemnitz, "non-violently" forced the Jews from Worms.
1616The Bishop of Speyer, with the backing of Frederick's troops, readmitted the Jews to Worms.
1616Holland's Prince Maurice of Orange allowed each each city to decide for itself whether to admit Jews. In the towns where Jews were admitted, they would not be required to wear a badge of any sort identifying them as Jews.
1616Jesuits arrives in Grodno, Poland and accused the Jews of blood orgies and host desecrations.
1618-1638Thity Years War between Catholics and Protestants centers around GermanyAustriaFrance and the Netherlands.
1619Shah Abbasi of the Persian Sufi Dynasty increased persecution against the Jews forcing many to outwardly practice Islam. (Many secretly practiced Judaism.).
1620Christian Puritans begin emigrations to America.
1621Sir Henry Finch, legal advisor to King James I, makes the first English call to restore the Jews to their homeland in his treatiseThe World's Great Restoration or Calling of the Jews.
1621-1663Well-known commentator of the Shulchan Aruch and author of several other works, Shabbetai Ben Meir Hacohen.
1622-1629Persian Jews are forced to convert to Islam.
1623-1662Blaise Pascal (scholar).
1625The Jews of Vienna were forced to move into a ghetto called Leopoldstadt.
1625Pope Urban VIII forbids Roman Jews to erect gravestones.
1626-1676Shabbatai Zvi (Jewish “messianic” leader).
1630-1703Financier and founder of the Viennese Jewish community, Samuel Oppenheimer.
1632Miguel and Isabel Rodreguese and five others were burned alive in front of the King and Queen of Spain after being discovered holding Jewish rites.
1632-1677Baruch/Benedict Spinoza (scholar, converted Jew).
1636Rhode Island grants religious liberty to Jews.
1639More than 80 New Christians (Jews who converted to Christianity) were burned at the stake after the Inquisition caught them holding regular Jewish services in Lima, Peru.
1641-1718Shabbtai Ben Joseph the Bass, Author of Seftai Yesharim, the first bibliography of Hebrew books and biblical commentator. He also built a printing house in 1689, despite being jailed several times, accused of printing anti-Christian material. The printing house lasted more than 150 years.
1642The first Jewish colony in the New World is established in Recife, Brazil.
1642Chao Ying-Cheng helped rebuild the synagogue in Kai Fen after the Yellow River flooded the area. He also served in the goverrnment and helped build schools and squashed marauding bandits.
1648Bogdan Chmelnitzki massacres 100,000 Jews in Poland.
1648The Treaty of Westphalia brings victory to the Protestants.
1649In the largest Auto de Fe ever held in the New World, 109 crypto-Jews were accused of Judaizing, several were burned alive.
1649John Casimir, upon ascending the Polish throne, negotiates a truce with Cosack leader and murderer of thousands of Jews, Bogdan Chmelnitzki.
1654Arrival of 23 Jews from Brazil in New Amsterdam (New York, America).
1655Dutch West India Company allows Jewish settlers to reside permanently in New Amsterdam.
1655Jews readmitted to England by Oliver Cromwell.
1657The first Jews gain the rights of citizens in America.
1670Jews expelled from Vienna.


Jewish Contemporary Period
(1700-1917 CE)


1700-1760Israel Baal Shem Tov (founder of Jewish Hasidism).
1700Jewish population in America numbers approximately 250.
1703-1758Jonathan Edwards (American Christian preacher).
1703-1791 and 1707-1788John and Charles Wesley (Christian).
1712First public Jewish synagogue in Berlin.
1724Death of Samson Wertheimer
1730Jews build first North American synagogue in Lower Manhattan, Shearith Israel.
1740England grants naturalization rights to Jews in the colonies.
ca. 1750Wahhabi "fundamentalist" movement arises in Islam.
1753Parliament extends naturalization rights to Jews resident inEngland.
1761First English prayer book for High Holidays is published in New York.
1763The Jews of Newport, Rhode Island, dedicate a Sephardicsynagogue, designed by leading Rhode Island architect Peter Harrison.
1768-1828"Father of Reform [Judaism]," Israel Jacobson.
1775Pius VI issues Editto sopra gli ebrei, "Edict over the Hebrew," suppressing the Jewish religion.
1775Frances Salomon elected to South Carolina Provisional Congress; the first Jew to hold elected office in America.
1776United States Declaration of Independence.
1775-1854America merchant and philanthropist Judah Touro, funded first New Orleans synagogue.
1729-1786Moses Mendelssohn (Jewish "enlightenment" scholar).
1762Although usually considered more liberal than other states, Rhode Island refuses to grant Jews Aaron Lopez and Isaac Eliezer citizenship stating "no person who is not of the Christian religion can be admitted free to this colony."
1765Portugal holds the last public Auto de Fe "Act of Faith," a ceremony where the Inquisition announces its punishments, usually a death sentence of burning at the stake.
1769-1821Napoleon (France).
1775-1781American Revolution; religious freedom guaranteed.
1781Joseph II of Austria recinds the 513-year old law requiring Jews to wear distinctive badges.
1781Haym Solomon, a Polish Jew who arrived in New York in 1772, helps raise funds to finance the American cause in the Revolutionary War.
1781-1869American philanthropist Rebecca Gratz.
1782Austrian Emperor Joseph II issued his edict of tolerance, allowing Jews to practice their religion freely.
1783The Sultan of Morocco expells the Jews for the third time in recent years after they failed to pay an exorbitant ransom.
1785-1851Zionist author, journalist and and diplomat, Mordechai Manuel Noah.
1788Ratification of the U.S. Constitution means Jews may hold any federal office.
1789French Revolution.
1784-1885Leading Jewish philanthropist, Sir Moses Montefiore, createed numerous agricultural settlements in Eretz Israel.
1789Gershom Mendes Seixas, minister of New York's Jewish congregation, is invited to Washington's inaugural.
1790Jews of Newport, Rhode Island welcome President George Washington. George Washington writes letter to Jewish community proclaiming religious liberty.
September 27, 1791French Jews granted full citizenship for the first time since the Roman Empire.
1791Tsarist Russia confines Jews to Pale of Settlement, between the Black and Baltic Seas.
1795First American Ashkenazi synagogue, Rodeph Shalom, is established in Philadelphia.
1796The Netherlands grants citizenship to Jews.
1798Napoleon, battle of the Pyramids in Islamic Egypt.
1799Napoleon's army moves from Egypt, capturing Gaza and Haifaand gets as far north as Akko which is successfully defended by the British.
1801-1804Muslim Wahhabis capture Mecca & Medina, raid Karbala.
1801The first American Jewish orphan care society established in Charleston, South Carolina.
1804-1881English Statesman Benjamin Disraeli.
1808Polonies Talmud Torah, the first Jewish school on record in the United States established in New York.
1811-1884"Brains of the Confederacy," Judah P. Benjamin.
March 11, 1812Prussia's Edict of Emancipation grants citizenship to Jews.
1812-1875Moses Hess, author, socialist and Zionist.
1813President Madison appoints Mordechai Noah as consul to Tunis and then rescinds the appointment when the Tunisians object to dealing with a Jew.
1814King Ferdinand VII of Portugal reestablishes the Inquisition six years after it was abolished by Joseph Boneparte
March 29, 1814Denmark grants citizenship to Jews.
1818-1883Although born a Jew, he converted to Protestantism and later became the father of Communism, Karl Marx.
mid-19th centuryRise of the Jewish Reform movement in Europe (Abraham Geiger.)
1819Rebecca Gratz establishes the first independent Jewish women's charitable society in Philadelphia.
1819-1900Head of the American Reform movement and founder of Hebrew Union College and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Isaac Mayer Wise.
1820 (ended in 1834)A royal decree officially abolished the Spanish Inquisition.
1821-1891Well-known physician and early Zionist, Leon Pinsker.
1823The Monroe Doctrine closes the American continent to foreign colonization.
1823The first American Jewish periodical, The Jew, published in New York.
1824Society of Reformed Israelites is established in Charleston.
1825Mordechai Emmanual Lassalle led a failed movement to colonize New York's Grand Island for Jewish refugees.
1826In the last known Auto Da Fe, in Valencia, Spain, a poor school master was executed for adhering to Judaism.
1827Reinterpretation of Russia's Conscription Law mandates 31 years of military service for Jews, beginning at age 12.
1830French occupation of Muslim Algiers.
1830German Jews begin to immigrate to America in substantial numbers.
November 30, 1830Greece grants citizenship to Jews.
1830-1903Jewish Impressionist painter, whose works focused on the streets of Paris and landscapes, Camille Pissarro.
1831Louis Philippe of France grants state support to synagogues.
1831Belgium grants citizenship to Jews.
1831Although Jews had been living in Jamaica since 1655, they are finally given the right to vote.
1831-1896Banker and philanthropist, who donated millions of dollars to Jewish organizations and attempted to resettle Eastern European and Russian Jews by estabishing the Jewish Colonial Association (JCA), Baron De Hirsch.
1832Canada grants Jews political rights.
1833The first book by an American Jewish woman, Penina Moise'sFancy's Sketch Book, published in South Carolina.
1837An earthquake in Tzfat and Tiberias kills four thousand people and damages monuments and archeological sites.
1837First Passover Haggadah printed in America.
1838Rebecca Gratz establishes Hebrew Sunday School in Philadelphia.
1840Jews are accused of murdering a Franciscan friar in theDamascus blood libel.
1840First organized movement by American Jewry to protest false accusations of blood libel in Damascus, Syria.
1840The first Hebrew printing press in India is established.
1840sThe use of the word "Jew" as a verb comes into popular parlance in North America. "To Jew" means to strike a bargain or employ questionable business practices, according to this prejudicial usage.
1841David Levy Yulee of Florida elected to the United States Senate, the first Jew in Congress.
1843B'nai B'rith is organized, the first secular Jewish organization in the United States.
1844Lewis Charles Levin was the first Jew elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
1845Isaac Leeser publishes his translation of the Pentateuch from the Hebrew into English.
1845-1934Zionist leader Baron Edmond James de Rothschild.
1847London elects its first Jewish member of Parliament, Baron Lionel Nathan Rothschild. However, he cannot be seated as a member of Parliament because he will not swear the oath of office, which affirms Christianity as the true faith.
1847-1915Author, scholar and leader of the American Conservative movement, Solomon Schechter.
1848In every part of Germany, excluding Bavaria, Jews had been granted granted civil rights, allowing Gabriel Riesser, a Jewish advocate, to be elected vice-president of the Frankfurt Vor Parliament and to become a member of the National Assembly. The civil rights, however, existed on paper only and were not enforced.
1849-1887American poet whose "New Colossus" was inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: Emma Lazerus.
1852Mount Sinai, the first Jewish Hospital in the United States is founded by a group of mostly German Jewish immigrants.
September 1, 1852An anti-Jewish riot erupts in Stockholm, Sweden.
1852The Ghetto of Prague is officially abolished.
1852-1870Reign of Napoleon III of France.
1853Isaac Leeser publishes his translation of the Bible into English, the first complete Anglo-Jewish translation of the Pentateuch.
1855First acknowledged non-Muslim visitor permitted to enter Temple Mount since 1187 CE.
1856Sabato Morais, rabbi of Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, denounces the evils of American slavery from his pulpit.
1858Edgar Mortara, an Italian Jewish child, is abducted by Papal Guards and placed in a monastery.
1859-1916"Yiddish Mark Twain," famed novelist, Shalom Alechem Rabinowitz.
1859-1941 (Reign 1888-1918)Kaiser William II of Germany.
1860First neighborhood, Mishkenot Sha'ananim, built outside Jerusalem's walls.
1860Frenchman Adolohe Cremieux launches the Alliance Israelite Universelle to defend Jewish rights and establish worldwide Jewish educational facilities.
1860-1904Father of Zionism, Theodore Herzl.
1860-1911Major modern Jewish composer of nine symphonies, Gustav Mahler.
1860-1945Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah, the Amerian Woman's Zionist Organization.
1860Morris Raphall is the first rabbi to offer prayers at the opening session of Congress.
1861Norway allows Jews to enter the country.
1861Judah Benjamin becomes attorney general of the Confederacy, the first Jew to hold a cabinet-level office in any American government.
1861-18651,200 Jews fought for the Confederacy and 6,000 for the Union, including nine generals and 21 colonels in the American Civil War.
1861-1936Essayist and publicist who headed the Jewish and Zionist Organization during the 1930s, was editor of He-Tsefriah and published a history of Zionism, Nahum Sokolow.
1862Moses Hess writes Rome and Jerusalem.
1862General Ulysses S. Grant expels Jewish civilians issues General Order No. 11 expelling the Jews "as a class" from the area under the jurisdiction of the Union army in his military department.
1862Jacob Frankel is appointed first Jewish chaplain in the United States Army.
1864Leon Pinsker writes Autoemancipation and argues for creation of a Jewish state.
1866Jews become a majority in Jerusalem.
1866Switzerland, a hotbed of anti-Jewish edicts grants Jews equal rights only after threats by the United States, France and Britain.
1867First rabbinical school in America, Maimonides College, is founded in Philadelphia.
1867The original Ku Klux Klan is organized to maintain "white supremacy".
1867Hungary passes legislation emancipating the Jews.
1867German journalist Wilhelm Marr publishes a popular book, The Victory of Judaism over Germanism. He coins the word "antisemitism" so that Judenhass, or Jew-hatred, can be discussed in polite society.
1868Benjamin Disraeli becomes prime minister of Great Britain — and the first prime minister of Jewish descent in Europe.
1869Suez Canal opens.
1869Italy grants emancipation to Jews.
1870Sweden grants citizenship to Jews.
1870Ghettos abolished in Italy.
1870The Edict of Pope Nicholas III which required compulsory attendance of Jews at conversion sermons since 1278 is abolished.
1871First Yiddish and Hebrew newspaper in America is published.
1871The the first American kosher cookbook, Jewish Cookery Book, by Esther Jacobs Levy is published.
1871Great Britain grants full emancipation to Jews.
January 12, 1871A new German constitution gives German Jews full legal equality.
1873Reform Judaism in U.S. establishes Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
1873-1934Poet laureate of the Jewish national movement, authored "In City of Slaughter," "El Ha Tsippor-To the Bird" and "Metai Midbar-Dead of the Desert, Hayim Nahman Bialik.
1873-1956Leading theologian of the Reform movement, refused to escape Nazi Germany and spent five years in Terezin (Theresienstadt)concentration campLeo Baeck.
1874Jews in Switzerland receive full rights of citizenship under the new constitution.
1874-1926Eric Weiss, better known as Harry Houdini, the master escape artist, was born into an orthodox home.
19th-20th centuriesYoung Men's Hebrew Associations in New York and Philadelphia become prototypes for the more than 120 YMHAs established throughout the US in the next 15 years. In the 20th century, many of these evolve into Jewish Community Centers.
1874-1952Statesman and scientist Chaim Weizmann.
1875Isaac Mayer Wise founds Hebrew Union College, the rabbinical seminary of the Reform movement, in Cincinnati.
1877New Hampshire becomes the last state to offer Jews political equality.
1878Petah Tikvah (Gate of Hope) founded as agricultural colony by orthodox Jews. Although it was abandoned in 1881 after Arab attacks, it was reestablished in 1883 after the First Aliyah.
1878The antisemitic German Christian Social Party is founded by Adolf Stoecker, a court chaplain. The party demands that Jews convert to Christianity.
1879-1955Zionist, physicist, Nobel Prize winner and discoverer of the special and general theory of relativity Albert Einstein.
1880-1920Zionist leader Joseph Trumpeldor.
1880-1939Zionist leader, founder of the New Zionist Organization,HaganahJewish LegionIrgunBetarRevisionist Party,Vladimir Jabotinsky.
1881Ottoman government announces permission for foreign (non-Ottoman) Jews to settle throughout Ottoman Empire.
1881Start of mass migrations of eastern European Jews.
1881French occupation of Muslim Tunisia.
1881Samuel Gompers founds the Federation of Unions, the forerunner of the American Federation of Labor.
1881May Laws restricting the movements and conduct of Jews are enacted in Russia.
1881The word "pogrom" enters the English language, as Russian mobs begin a series of violent attacks against Jews and their property.
1882British occupation of Muslim Egypt.
1882First halutz (pioneering) movement, Bilu, founded in Kharkov Russia.
1882Ottoman government adopts policy to allow Jewish pilgrims and business-people to visit Palestine, but not settle.
1882Hibbat Tzion societies founded.
November 15, 1882Associate Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter is born.
1884First Conference of Hovevei Zion Movement.
1884Ottoman government closes Palestine to foreign (non-Ottoman) Jewish business, but not to Jewish pilgrims.
1885Reform Jewish Pittsburgh Platform.
1885-1962Scientist who developed the theory on the nature of the atom, rescued from Nazi GermanyNeils Bohr.
1885Sir Nathaniel Meyer Rothschild becomes the first Jew in England's in the House of Lords. The Christian oath was amended so that non-Christians could also serve in the House of Lords.
1886-1929Philosopher, author, helped create the Free Jewish House of Study in Frankfurt, Franz Rosenweig.
1886Etz Chaim, the first yeshiva for Talmudic studies in the United States, established in New York.
1886-1973Statesman David Ben-Gurion.
1887Jewish Theological Seminary opens in New York and, later, becomes the intellectual center of the Conservative movement.
1887-1990Famous artist Marc Chagall.
1888Jewish Publication Society of America is founded to publish English books of Jewish interest.
1888European powers press Ottoman government to allow foreign (non-Ottoman) Jews to settle in Palestine provided they do not do so en masse.
1888-1970Hebrew novelist and Nobel prize winner, Samuel Joseph Agnon.
1889The Educational Alliance founded on the Lower East Side to assist Eastern European immigrants.
April 20, 1889Adolf Hitler is born in Braunau am Inn, Austria.
October 2, 1890Jewish comedian Groucho Marx is born. Along with his brothers he formed the group “the Marx Brothers”, and performed in vaudeville stage acts. The brothers were also pioneers of modern cinema and television.
1891Grand Duke Segai orders the expulsion of 14,00 Jewish families living in Moscow. Those who refuse to convert or become prostitutes are sent to the Pale of Settlement.
1891Christian Zionist William E. Blackstone and 413 prominent Americans petition President Benjamin Harrison to support resettlement of Russian Jews in Palestine.
1891Baron de Hirsh donates 2 million pounds and establishes the Jewish Colonial Association in order to resettle 3 million Russian Jews in agricultural areas in other countries.
1892Workmen's Circle established to promote Yiddishist and socialist ideas among the masses of Jewish laborers.
1892American Jewish Historical Society established.
1892Ottoman government forbids sale of state land to foreign (non-Ottoman) Jews in Palestine.
1893National Council of Jewish Women founded in Chicago.
1893Kosher ritual slaughter banned in Switzerland.
1894French general staff officer Alfred Dreyfus is sentenced to life on Devil's Island in the Dreyfus Affair.
1894Sholem Aleichem begins writing the first episode of the life of Tevye the Dairyman.
1894-1917Last Russian Czar, commissioned what became the anti-Semitic "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," Nicholas II.
1894-1943Artist known for his passionate and often disturbing use of color and form, Chaim Soutine (Smiliouchi).
1895Lillian Wald founds Henry Street Settlement.
1896Theodor Herzl publishes Der JudenstaatThe Jewish State(Zionism): .
1897First Jewish Zionist congress convened by Theodor Herzl in Basle, Switzerland, Zionist Organization Founded.
1897Yiddish Socialist Labor party (the Bund) is founded in Russia.
1897Abraham Cahan founds leading Yiddish newspaper, Jewish Daily Forward in New York.
1897The Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS), later part of Yeshiva University, begins training Orthodox rabbis.
1898Eastern European immigrants organize a Union of Orthodox Congregations, whose viewpoint clashes with that of the Reform movement's Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC).
1898-1936Perhaps the greatest composer of the 20th century, whose works include "Rhapsody in Blue," George Gershwin.
1898-1978Fourth Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir.
1898Acting on behalf of Col. Dreyfus, Emile Zola publishes J'Accuse.
1898A section of the Old City Wall is removed to facilitate the entrance of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and his entourage on his visit to Jerusalem.
1899-1902The term "concentration camp" is coined by the British during the Boer War to denote holding areas for potentially threatening Afrikaners (descendents of Dutch who immigrated to South Africa in the mid-1800s).
1899Emile Zola wins a new trial for Alfred Dreyfus, and despite new charges, Dreyfus is aquitted and promoted to Major.
1899Theodor Herzl establishes the Jewish Colonial Trust, the financial arm of the Zionist movement.
1900-1990American composer and conductor best known for "Appalachian Spring," "Billy the Kid" and "Rodeo," Aaron Copland.
early 20th centuryFounding of the Modern Jewish Orthodox movement.
1901The Industrial Removal Office, organized by several Jewish organizations, relocate Jewish immigrants from the Lower East Side to communities across the United States.
1901The Fifth Zionist Congress decides to establish Keren Kayemet LeIsrael (KKL) - The Jewish National Fund.
1902Theodor Herzl publishes a romantic utopian novel, Altneuland,Old-New Land, a vision of the Jewish State.
1902Russian Jews organize U.S.-based Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society to serve as counselors, interpreters, attorneys, etc.
1902-1979Composer and partner of Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960), known for "Oklahoma!" and" South Pacific," Richard Rogers.
1902Solomon Schechter comes from England to America to head the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Conservative Judaism's rabbinical seminary.
1903British Government proposes "Uganda Scheme," rejected by the Sixth Zionist Congress.
1903Kishinev massacre increases Jewish exodus from Russia.
1903Oscar Straus is appointed Secretary of Commerce and Labor by President Roosevelt, the first Jew to serve in the U.S. Cabinet.
August 26, 1903Herzl proposes Kenya as a safe haven for Jews.
1903-1907500,000 Jews flee Russia, 90% go to the United States.
1904-1914Second Aliyah, mainly from Russia and Poland.
1905Gimnazia Herzilia, the first Hebrew high school, opens in Tel Aviv.
1905Zionist Labor Party (Poale Zion) formed in Minsk in an effort to combine Zionism and Socialism.
1906American Jewish Committee is founded to safeguard Jewish rights internationally.
early 20th centurySholem Aleichem comes to New York from Russia to write for the American Yiddish theater. The musical Fiddler on the Roof is based on his story Tevye's Daughters.
1906First Hebrew high school founded in Jaffa and Bezalel school founded in Jerusalem.
1907Physicist Albert A. Michelson is first American Jew to winNobel Prize.
1907Adolf Hitler is rejected for study at the Vienna Academy of Art.
1908Discovery of oil in Persia; leads to Anglo-Persian (later British Petroleum).
1908Revolution by "young Turks" depose Sultan Abdul Hamid the Damned under Ottoman.
1908Turkey grants Jews political rights.
1908Hijaz Railway from Damascus to Medina.
1909Julius Rosenwald, American merchant and philanthropist, converts Sears, Roebuck and Co. into the largest mail-order house in the world.
1908-1914Second Yemenite Aliyah.
1909First kibbutz, Degania, founded.
1909Founding of Tel Aviv as Hebrew speaking Jewish city.
1909Hashomer, the first Jewish self-defense organization is founded to replace Arab guards protecting Jewish settlements.
1911-1913Russian neurologist Sikowsy testifies thet Jews use Christian blood for ritual purposes in the Beilis Trial (Russia).
1911-1986Hall of Fame baseball player Hank Greenberg.
1911A tragic fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York's Lower East Side kills 146 women, mostly Jews.
1911Palestinan journalist Najib Nasser publishes first book in Arabic on Zionism entitled, "Zionism: Its History, Objectives and Importance." Palestinian newspaper Filastin begins addressing its readers as "Palestinians" and warns them about Zionism.
1913In Russia, Menahem Mendel Beilis, a Jew, is put on trial for the ritual murder of a Christian boy. After two years followed by a "show trial," Beilis is acquitted.
1912United States abrogates treaty of 1832 with Russia because of Russia's refusal to honor passports of Jewish Americans.
1912Henrietta Szold founds Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization.
1912Haifa's Technion is founded.
1912Agudah (Agudat Israel) formed as the World Organization of Orthodox Jewry at Katowitz.
191212 of the 100 members of the Reichstag (German parliament) are Jewish.
1913Trial of Leo Frank in Atlanta leads to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.
1913Solomon Schechter, president of the Jewish Theological Seminary, founds the United Synagogue of America (later the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism).
1913First Arab Nationalist Congress meets in Paris.
1913-1993Commander of the Etzel, statesman and Israeli prime minister,Menachem Begin.
1914Joint Distribution Committee of American Funds for the Relief of Jewish War Sufferers is established.
1914-1919World War I.
1914Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand assassinated in Sarajevo prompting World War One.
1914During First World War, Russian forces in retreat drive 600,000 Jews from their homes.
1914American Jewish Relief Committee established to distribute funds to needy Jews; it later combined with other Jewish relief organizations to become the Joint Distribution Committee.
1914The Ottoman empire enters the war on the side of Germany.
1915Moses Alexander elected Governor of Idaho - the first Jew to win the governorship of an American state.
1915MacMahon-Hussein correspondence.
1915Zion Mule Corps established by Yosef Trumpeldor in British army.
1915Avshalom Feinburg and Aaron Aaronsohn form NILI (Netzah Israel Lo Yeshaker), recruited to spy on the Turks for the British.
1915The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is created in the wake of the Leo Frank Affair.
1915-1981Moshe Dayan, Haganah fighter, Israeli minister of Defense.
1915Leo Frank, a southern American Jew falsely convicted of murdering a 14 year-old girl is hung by a lynch mob.
October 30, 1915Jewish television news pioneer Ferdinand "Fred" Friendly Wachenheimer is born.
1915-2005Arthur Miller, American playwright whose works include, "Death of a Salesman," The Crucible" and "A View From the Bridge." .
1916Sykes-Picot Agreement divides Middle East into spheres of British and French influence.
1916Start of Arab revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule.
1916Louis Dembitz Brandeis is first Jew appointed to the Supreme Court.
1916Germany accuses Jews of evading active service in WWI, despite 100,000 Jews serving, 12% higher than their population ratio.
1917British capture Baghdad.
1917Jewish Telegraphic Agency is founded.
1917Four-hundred years of Ottoman rule ended by British conquest.
1917The Balfour Declaration favors Jewish Palestinian State.
1917As WWI comes closer to Tel-Aviv and Jaffa, the Turkish Governer of Jaffa orders all Jews to leave Tel-Aviv and Jaffa.
1917Jews granted full rights in Russia.
1917Russian Revolution breaks out, heavy fighting in the South and West, where over 3 million Jews live. Over 2000 pogroms took place, claiming the lives of up to 200,000 Jews in the next three years.
1917The United States declared war on Germany. Appoximately 250,000 Jewish soldiers (20% of whom were volunteers) served in the U.S. Army, roughy 5.7% while Jews only made up 3.25% of the general American population.
1917The Jewish Welfare Board is created and serves the social and religious requirements of Jewish soldiers; expands after the war.
1917355,000 people chose representatives for the first American Jewish Congress.
1917Over 2,700 men volunteer for the new Jewish Legion of the British Army which fought in Transjordan, among other places.
1917Vladamir Ilyich Lenin and Leon Trotsky ousted Kerensky and took over the Russian government.
1917Surrender of Ottoman forces in Jerusalem to Allied Forces under General Sir Edmund Allenby.
1917British forces land on the beaches of Gaza during WW1.


Unrest & Realignment in the Middle East
(1914-1918 CE)


1916Sykes-Picot Agreement divides Middle East into spheres of British and French influence.
1916Start of Arab revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule.
1917British capture Baghdad.
1917Jewish Telegraphic Agency is founded.
1917Four-hundred years of Ottoman rule ended by British conquest.
1917The Balfour Declaration favors Jewish Palestinian State.
1917As WWI comes closer to Tel-Aviv and Jaffa, the Turkish Governer of Jaffa orders all Jews to leave Tel-Aviv and Jaffa.
1917Jews granted full rights in Russia.
1917Russian Revolution breaks out, heavy fighting in the South and West, where over 3 million Jews live. Over 2000 pogroms took place, claiming the lives of up to 200,000 Jews in the next three years.
1917The United States declared war on Germany. Appoximately 250,000 Jewish soldiers (20% of whom were volunteers) served in the U.S. Army, roughy 5.7% while Jews only made up 3.25% of the general American population.
1917The Jewish Welfare Board is created and serves the social and religious requirements of Jewish soldiers; expands after the war.
1917355,000 people chose representatives for the first American Jewish Congress.
1917Over 2,700 men volunteer for the new Jewish Legion of the British Army which fought in Transjordan, among other places.
1917Vladamir Ilyich Lenin and Leon Trotsky ousted Kerensky and took over the Russian government.
1917British General Allenby captured Jerusalem from the Turks, ending Ottoman rule.
1918Damascus taken by T.E. Lawrence and Arabs.


British Rule in Palestine
(1918-1947 CE)


.. ..... .
1918
Treaty of Versailles formally ends Word War I. Out of an estimated 1.5 million Jewish soldiers in all the armies, approximately 170,000 were killed and over 100,000 cited for valor.
1918
Damascus taken by T.E. Lawrence and Arabs.
1918
American Jewish Congress is founded.
Nov. 1918
Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm abdicates.
1918
Nahum Zemach founds the Moscow-based Habimah Theaterwhich receives acclaim for “The Dybbuk.”
Jan. 5, 1919
The German Workers' Party (DAP) is founded in Munich; Adolf Hitler joins the Party nine months later.
1919
Jewish educational summer camping is launched in the United States with what came to be known as the Cejwin Camps.
1919
Versailles Peace Conference decides that the conquered Arab provinces will not be restored to Ottoman rule.
1919
First Palestinian National Congress meeting in Jerusalem sends two memoranda to Versailles rejecting Balfour Declaration and demanding independence.
1919-1923
Romania grants citizenship to Jews.
1919
Egyptian revolution.
1919
Chaim Weizmann heads Zionist delegation at Versailles Peace Conference.
1919-1923
Third Aliyah, mainly from Russia.
1919
Emir Faisel wrote a letter to Felix Frankfurter supportingZionism, “We Arabs...wish the Jews a most hearty welcome.”
1919-1943
1919
League of Nations established in an effort to prevent further wars.
1920
Histadrut (Jewish labor federation) and Haganah (Jewish defense organization) founded.
1920
Vaad Leumi (National Council) set up by Jewish community (yishuv)to conduct its affairs.
1920
Keren Hayesod created for education, absorbtion and the development of rural settlements in Eretz-Israel.
1920
Chaim Weizmann elected president of the World Zionist Organization.
1920
Fall of Tel Hai to Arab attackers; Joseph Trumpeldor and five men under his command killed.
1920
Mandate for the Land of Israel given over to Britain on the condition that the Balfour Declaration be implemented, San Remo Conference.
1920
Sir Herbert Samuel, British statesman, appointed High Commissioner of Palestine.
1920
Henry Ford's newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, begins publishing its anti-Semitic propaganda, including the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Feb. 24, 1920
The first mass meeting of the National Socialist Party (NSDAP)takes place at Munich's Hofbräuhaus.
April 1, 1920
Adolf Hitler is honorably discharged from the German Army.
1920
The San Remo Conference awards administration of the formerTurkish territories of Syria and Lebanon to France, and Palestine,Transjordan, and Mesopotamia (Iraq) to Britain.
1920
Second and third Palestinan National Congress' held.
1921
The Times of London pronounces the PProtocols of the Elders of Zion a forgery.
1921
U.S. immigration laws “reformed” to effectively exclude Eastern European Jews and other immigrants. Further restrictions imposed in 1924.
1921
Fourth Palestinian National Congress, convenes in Jerusalem, decides to send delegation to London to explain case againstBalfour.
1921
The Allied Reparations Committee assesses German liability forWorld War I at 132 billion gold marks (about $31 billion).
1921
The NSDAP, also known as the Nazi Party, establishes the Sturmabteilung (SA; Storm Troopers; Brown Shirts).
1921
Arab riots in Jaffa and other cities.
1921
Völkischer Beobachter (People's Observer), the official National Socialist newspaper, begins publication.
July 29, 1921
Adolf Hitler becomes the Nazi Party's first chairman with dictatorial powers.
1921
Kingdom of Iraq established.
1921
First moshav, Nahalal, founded in the Jezreel Valley.
1921
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and Rabbi Ya'akov Meir are elected the first two cheif Rabbis of Eretz-Israel.
1921-1944
Famous Hungarian Jewish poet and paratrooper who fought in WWII, Hannah Szenes (Senesh).
1922
Britain granted Mandate for Palestine (Land of Israel) by League of Nations.
1922
Transjordan set up on three-fourths of the British mandate area, forbidding Jewish immigration, leaving one-fourth for the Jewish national home.
1922
Jewish Agency representing Jewish community vis-à-vis Mandate authorities set up.
1922
Mordecai M. Kaplan founds the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, the cradle of the Reconstructionist movement.
1922
The United States Congress and President Harding approve theBalfour Declaration.
1922
Supreme Muslim Council created under the jurisdiction of the British government to centralize religious affairs and institutions, but is corrupted by the overzealous Husseini family who used it as an anti-Jewish platform.
1922
1922
Benito Mussolini establishes a Fascist government in Italy.
1922
Harvard's president proposes a quota on the number of Jews admitted. After a contentious debate, he withdrew the recommendation.
1922
League of Nations Council approves Mandate for Palestine.
1922
First British census of Palestine shows total population 757,182 (11% Jewish).
1922
Fifth Palestinian National Congress in Nablus, agrees to economic boycott of Zionists.
1922
Jungsturm Adolf Hitler (Adolf Hitler Boys Storm Troop) andStosstrupp Adolf Hitler (Shock Troop Adolf Hitler) are established. The latter will form the nucleus of the Schutzstaffel (SS).
June 24, 1922
Walther Rathenau, Jewish foreign minister of Germany, is assassinated by members of Organisation Consul, a clandestine, right-wing political organization led by Captain Hermann Ehrhardt.
September 8, 1922
Jewish entertainer Sid Caeser is born.
Jan.1923
France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr after an economically broken Germany is unable to meet the annual installment of its war-reparations payments designed to pay off Germany's $31 billion war debt.
March 1923
The Schutzstaffel (SS; Protection Squad) is established. It is initially a bodyguard for Hitler but will later become an elite armed guard of the Third Reich.
1923
Palestine constitution suspended by British because of Arab refusal to cooperate.
1923
Overthrow of Ottoman Muslim rule by “young Turks” (Kemal Ataturk) and establishment of secular state.
1923
Sixth Palestinian national Congress held in Jaffa.
1923
The first issue of the pro-Nazi, antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer (The Attacker) is published in Nuremberg, Germany. Its slogan is "Die Juden sind unser Unglück" ("The Jews are our misfortune"), a phrase picked up from Heinrich von Treitschke.
Nov. 8-11, 1923
Hitler's so-called “Beer Hall Putsch” takeover attempt at Munich fails, temporarily rattling the National Socialist Party and leading to Hitler's arrest in Bavaria, Germany.
1923
Technion, first institute of technology, founded in Haifa.
1924-1932
Fourth Aliyah, mainly from Poland.
1924
Benjamin Frankel starts Hillel Foundation. The first Hillel House opens at the University of Illinois, offers religious and social services.
1924
Caliphate officially abolished.
May 11, 1924
The first conference of the General Zionist movement is held inJerusalem.
May 14, 1924
Ultra-Orthodox Jews found an agricultural settlement between Ramat Gan and Petah Tikva: Bnei- Brak.
1924
The United States Congress passes the Immigration Restriction Act, which effectively bans immigration to the U.S. from Asia and Eastern Europe.
July 1924
While in prison, Hitler begins work on Mein Kampf.
1925-1979
Pahlevi dynasty in Persia (“Iran”: 1935).
1925
1925
1925
Edna Ferber is the first American Jew to win Pulitzer Prize in fiction.
1925
Palestinian National Congress meets in Jaffa.
March 24, 1925
Publication of the pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmerresumes after being banned by the Weimar government in November 1923.
April 26, 1925
Paul von Hindenburg is elected president of Germany.
1926
France proclaims Republic of Lebanon.
October 6, 1927
Warner Brothers releases The Jazz Singer, about a cantor's son who follows his dreams to Broadway against his father's wishes. This was the first "talking" movie ever made, and it is also famous for it's accurate portrayal of Jewish home life.
1928
Britain recognizes independence of Transjordan.
1928
Seventh Palestinian National Congress convened in Jerusalem; established a new forty-eight member executive committee.
1928
Yeshiva College is dedicated in New York.
October 8, 1928
Jewish actor, producer, and director Larry Semon supposedly dies, but many believe he faked his own death to avoid creditors.
1929
2,000 Arabs attack Jews praying at the Kotel on the 9th of Av. Arabs view British refusal to condemn the attacks as support.
1929
Hebron Jews massacred by Arab militants.
1929-1945
Anne Frank, Holocaust victim whose diary, written during the Nazi Occupation became famous.
1929-1939
Fifth Aliyah, from Germany.
1930
Hope-Simpson report, predecessor to Passfield White Paper, recommends and end to all Jewish immigration to Eretz-Israel.
1930
Lord Passfield issues his White Paper banning further land acquisition by Jews and slowing Jewish immigration.
1930
Salo Wittmayer Baron joins the faculty of Columbia University, his is the first chair in Jewish history at a secular university in the United States.
1931
Etzel (the Irgun), Jewish underground organization, founded.
1930
Second British census of Palestine shows total population of 1,035,154 (16.9% Jewish).
1931
The Nahum Zemach-founded Moscow-based Habimah Theater which received acclaim for "The Dybbuk" moves to Eretz-Israel.
1932
'Abd al-Aziz Al Saud proclaims the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
1932
British Mandate over Iraq terminated, Iraq gains independence.
1932
Discovery of oil in Bahrain.
1932Herbert Lehman was elected New York's first Jewish governor; from that time on, Jews formed a pact with the Democratic Party.
1932
First Maccabia athletic games take place with representatives from 14 countries.
1932
German Chancellor von Papen persuaded President von Hindenburg to offer Hitler the chancellorship.
1932
Formation of Istiqlal Party as first constituted Palestinian-Arab political party; Awni Abdul-Hadi elected president.
1933
Concession agreement signed between Saudi government and Standard Oil of California (SOCAL). Prospecting begins. SOCAL assigns concession to California Arabian Standard Oil Co. (CASOC).
1933
The American Jewish Congress declares a boycott on German goods to protest the Nazi persecution of Jews.
1933
Assassination of Chaim Arlozorov.
1933
Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany.
1933
Germany begins anti-Jewish boycott.
1933
Cardinal Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII, signed the Hitler Concordat; whereby the Vatican accepted National Socialism.
1933
Albert Einstein, upon visiting the United States, learns that Hitler had been elected and decided not to return to Germany, takes up position at Princeton.
1933
Riots in Jaffa and Jerusalem to protest British "pro-Zionist" policies.
1934
In Afghanistan, two thousand Jews are expelled from towns and forced to live in the wilderness.
1934
American Jews cheer Detroit Tigers' Hank Greenberg when he refuses to play ball on Yom Kippur. In 1938, with five games left to the season, Greenberg's 58 home runs are two shy of Babe Ruth's record. When several pitchers walk him rather than giving him a shot at the record, many believe major league baseball did not want a Jew to claim that place in America's national sport.
1935
Jewish rights in Germany rescinded by Nuremberg laws.
1935
Hakibbutz Hadati, the religious kibbutz movement is founded.
1935
Regina Jonas was ordained by Liberal (Reform) Rabbi Max Dienemann in Germany, becoming the first woman rabbi.
1935
Ze'ev Jabotinsky founds the New Zionist Organization.
1935
Official establishment of the Palestine Arab Party in Jerusalem;Jamal al-Husseini elected president.
1936-1939
Anti-Jewish riots instigated by Arab militants.
1936
Supported by the Axis powers, the Arab Higher Committee encourages raids on Jewish communities in Eretz-Israel.
1936Texaco buys 50% interest in California Arabian Standard Oil Co.'s concession.
1936
Leon Blum becomes the first Jew elected premier of France, enacts many social reforms.
1936
The first of the Tower and Stockade Settlements (Tel Amel) Nir David is erected.
1936
Syria ratifies the Franco-Syrian treaty; France grants Syria and Lebanon independence.
1936
World Jewish Congress convened in Geneva.
1936
Peel Commission investigated Arab riots, concluded Arab claims were "baseless".
October 4, 1936
The “Battle of Cable street” takes place in London.
1937
Reform Jewish Columbus Platform.
1937
British declare Arab Higher Committee in Palestine illegal andMufti of Jerusalem escapes to Syria.
1937
The Peel Commission recommends the partition of Palestine between Jews and Arabs.
1937
Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion accept partition plan, despite fierce opposition at the 20th Zionist Congress.
1937
John Woodhead declares partition unworkable after Arab riots.
1937
Central conference of American Rabbis reaffirm basic reform philosophies in the Colombus Platform.
1938Dammam Well No. 7 discovers commercial quantities of oil. Barge exports to Bahrain.
1938Oil discovered in Kuwait.
Nov. 9, 1938
Kristallnacht — German Jewish synagogues burned down.
1938
Charles E. Coughlin, a Roman Catholic priest, launches media campaign in America against Jews.
1938
The Dominican Republic is the only country out of 32 at theEvian Conference willing to help Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany.
Sept. 29, 1938
Chamberlain declares "peace in our time" after allowing Hitler to annex the Sudetenland in the Munich Agreement.
1938
Catholic churches ring bells and fly Nazi flags to welcom Hitler's troops in Austria.
1938
Hershel Grynszpan, 17, a German refugee, assassinates Ernst von Rath, the third secretary to the German embassy in Paris.
1938
More than 100,000 Jews march in an anti-Hitler parade in New York's Madison Square Garden.
1939First tanker-load of oil is exported aboard D.G. Scofield.
1939
President Roosevelt appoints Zionist and Jewish activist Felix Frankfurter to the Supreme Court.
1939
Jewish immigration severely limited by British White Paper.
1939
S.S. St. Louis, carrying 907 Jewish refugees from Germany, is turned back by Cuba and the United States.
1939
Jewish songwriter Irving Berlin introduces his song "God Bless America." He also wrote "White Christmas".
October 14, 1939
Jewish fashion CEO and icon Ralph Lauren is born.
1940
Nazis establish ghettos in Poland.
1940
British government authorizes the Jewish Agency to recruit 10,000 Jews to form Jewish units in the British army.
1940
British refuse illegal immigrant ship, the Patria, permission to dock in Palestine.
1940
Chabad-Lubavitch purchases their iconic headquarters in New York City
September 24, 1940
The blatantly anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda film “Jud Suss” premieres in Berlin
1941
British and France guarantee Syrian independence.
1941
Lohamei Herut Yisrael (Lehi) or Stern Gang underground movement formed.
May 15, 1941
Palmach, strike force of Haganah, set up.
September 29, 1941
1942
Rabbi Stephen S. Wise publicizes Riegner report confirming mass murder of European Jews.
1942
1942
Nazi leaders refine the "Final Solution" -- genocide of the Jewish people -- at Wannsee Conference.
1943
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
1943
Palmach parachutes into enemy lines in Europe.
1943
British deport illegal immigrants to Cyprus.
1943
Raphael Lemkin, an international lawyer who escaped from Poland to the U.S. in 1941, coins the term genocide to describe the Nazi extermination of European Jews.
1943
Zionist Biltmore Conference, held at Biltmore Hotel in New York, formulates new policy of creating a "Jewish Commonwealth" in Palestine and organizing a Jewish army.
November 18, 1943The chief of the BBC orders his employees to downplay the attrocities of the Holocaust, warning them not to broadcast or publish anything that might try to “correct” anti-Semiticsentiments throughout Europe.
1944CASOC renamed Arabian American Oil Co.(Aramco).
1944
Jewish Brigade formed as part of British forces.
1944
FDR establishes War Refugee Board. For most victims of Nazism, it comes too late.
1944
Camp for Jewish war refugees is opened at Oswego, New York.
November 1, 1944
Jewish singer/songwriter Richard "Kinky" Friedman is born.
1939/1942-1945
1945
International tribunal for war crimes is established at Nuremberg.
1945
Bess Myerson becomes the first Jewish woman to win the Miss America Pageant.
1945
Covenant of League of Arab States, emphasizing Arab character of Palestine, signed in Cairo by Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Transjordan, and Yemen.
1945
United Nations established.
1945
President Truman asks Britain to allow 100,000 Jews into Palestine.
1945
Arab League Council decides to boycott goods produced by Zionist firms in Palestine.
March 22, 1945
Two convicted members of the Stern Gang hanged for Murder of Lord Moyne in Cairo prison.
November 3, 1945
Winningest Jewish MLB player in history, Ken Holtzman, is born.
January 19, 1946
Member of Jewish underground destroyed a power station and a portion of the Central Jerusalem prison by explosives. Two persons were killed by the police..
January 20, 1946
Jewish underground members launched an attack against the British-controlled Givat Olga Coast Guard Station located between Tel Aviv and Haifa. Ten persons were injured and one was killed. Captured papers indicated that the purpose of this raid was to take revenge on the British for their seizure of the refugee ship on January 18. British military authorities in Jerusalemquestioned 3,000 Jews and held 148 in custody..
April 25, 1946
Jewish underground attacked a British military installation near Tel Aviv. This group which contained a number of young girls, had as its goal the capture of British weapons. British authorities rounded up 1,200 suspects..
June 24, 1946
The Irgun radio "Fighting Zion" wams that three kidnapped British officers are held as hostages for two Irgun members, Josef Simkohn and Issac Ashbel facing execution as well as 31Irgun members facing trial..
June 27, 1946
Thirty Irgun members are sentenced by a British military court to 15 years in prison. One, Benjamin Kaplan, was sentenced to life for carrying a firearm..
June 29, 1946
British military units and police raided Jewish settlements throughout Palestine searching for the leaders of Haganah. The Jewish Agency for Palestine was occupied and four top official arrested. .
July 1, 1946
British officials announced the discovery of a large arms dump hidden underground at Meshek Yagur. 2659 men and 59 women were detained fo the three day operation in which 27 settlements were searched. Four were killed and 80 were injured..
July 3, 1946
Palestine High Commissioner, Lt. General Sir Alan Cunningham commuted to life imprisonment the death sentences of Josef Simkhon and lssac Ashbel, Irgun members.
July 4, 1946
Tel Aviv. British officers, Captains K Spencer, C. Warburton and A. Taylor who had been kidnapped by Irgun on June 18 and held as hostages for the lives of Simkohn and Ashbel, were released in Tel Aviv unharmed. At this time, Irgun issued a declaration of war against the British claiming that they had no alternative but to fight. .
July 22, 1946
The west wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem which housed British Military Headquarters and other governmental offices was destroyed at 12:57 PM by explosives planted in the cellar by members of the Irgun terrorist gang. By the 26 of July, the casualties were 76 persons killed, 46 injured and 29 still missing in the rubble. The dead included many British, Arabs and Jews. .
July 24, 1946
London. The British government released a White Paper that accuses the HaganahIrgun and Stern gangs of "a planned movement of sabotage and violence" under the direction of the Jewish Agency and asserts that the June 29 arrest of Zionist leaders was the cause of the bombing.
July 28, 1946
The British Palestine Commander, Lt. General Sir Evelyn Barker, banned fraternization by British troops with Palestine Jews whom he stated "cannot be absolved of responsibility for terroristic acts." The order states that this will punish "the race . . . by striking at their pockets and showing our contempt for them." .
July 29, 1946
Police in Tel Aviv raided a workshop making bombs..
July 30, 1946
Tel Aviv is placed under a 22hour-a-day curfew as 20,000 British troops began a house-to-house sweep for members of the Jewish underground. The city is sealed off and troops are ordered to shoot to kill any curfew violators.
July 31, 1946
A large cache of weapons, extensive counterfeiting equipment and $1,000,000 in counterfeit Government bonds were discovered in Tel Aviv's largest synagogue. Also, two ships have arrived at Haifa with a total of 3,200 illegal Jewish immigrants. .
August 2, 1946
British military authorities ended the curfew in Tel Aviv after detaining 500 persons for further questioning..
August 12, 1946
The British Government announced that it will allow no more unscheduled immigration into Palestine and that those seeking entry into that country will be sent to Cyprus and other areas under detention. Declaring that such immigration threatens a civil war with the Arab population, it charges a "minority of Zionist extremists" with attempting to force an unacceptable solution of the Palestine problem..
August 12, 1946
Two ships carrying a total of 1,300 Jewish refugees arrived at Haifa. The port area was isolated on August 11 by British military and naval units. The first deportation ship sailed for Cyprus with 500 Jews on board.
August 13, 1946
Three Jews were killed and seven wounded when British troops were compelled to fire on a crowd of about 1,000 persons trying to break into the port area of Haifa. Two Royal Navy ships with 1,300 illegal Jewish immigrants on board sailed for Cyprus. Another ship with 600 illegal immigrants was captured and confined in the Haifa harbor. .
August 26, 1946
British military units searched the coastal villages of Casera and Sadoth Yarn for three Jews who bombed the transport "Empire Rival" last week. Eighty-five persons, including the entire male population of one of the villages were sent to the Rafa detention center..
August 29, 1946
Jerusalem. the British Government announced the commutation to life imprisonment of the death sentences imposed on 18 Jewish youths convicted of bombing the Haifa railroad shops..
August 30, 1946
British military units discovered arms and munitions dumps in the Jewish farming villages of Dorot and Ruhama.
Sept. 8, 1946
Jewish underground members cut the Palestine railroad in 50 places..
Sept. 9, 1946
Tel Aviv. two British officers were killed in an explosion in a public building..
Sept. 10, 1946
British troops imposed a curfew and arrested 101 Jews and wounded two in a search for saboteurs in Tel Aviv and neighboring Ramat Gan. Irgun took the action against the railways on September 8, as a protest..
Sept. 14, 1946
Jewish underground members robbed three banks in Jaffa and Tel Aviv, killing three Arabs. Thirty-six Jews were arrested..
Sept. 15, 1946
Jewish underground attacks a police station on the coast near Tel Aviv but were driven off by gunfire. .
October 2, 1946
British military units and police seized 50 Jews in a Tel Aviv cafe after a Jewish home was blown up. This home belonged to a Jewish woman who had refused to pay extortion money to theIrgun. .
October 6, 1946
Jerusalem. An RAF man was killed by gunfire..
October 8, 1946
Two British soldiers were killed when their truck detonated a kind mine outside Jerusalem. A leading Arab figure was wounded in a similar mine explosion in Jerusalem and more mad mines were found near Government House..
October 31, 1946
The British Embassy in Rome was damaged by a bomb, believed to have been phased by Jewish underground members. Irguntook responsibility for the bombing on November 4..
November 3, 1946
Two Jews and two Arabs were killed in clashes between Arabs and a group of Jews attempting to establish a settlement at Lake Hula in northern Palestine. .
November 5, 1946
British authorities released the following eight Jewish Agency leaders from the Latrun concentration camp where they had been held since June 29: Moshe Shertok, Dr. Issac Greenbaum, Dr. Bernard Joseph, David Remiz, David Hacohen, David Shingarevsky, Joseph Shoffman and Mordecai Shatter. A total of 2,550 Haganah suspects have also been released as well as 779 Jews arrested in the wake of the King David bombing. .
November 7, 1946
Railroad traffic was suspended hr 24 hours throughout Palestine following a fourth Irgun attack on railway facilities in two days.
November 9-13, 1946
Nineteen persons, eleven British soldiers and policemen and eight Arab constables, were killed in Palestine during this period as Jewish underground members, using land mines and suitcase bombs, increased their attacks on railroad stations, trains and even streetcars. .
Nov. 14, 1946
London. The Board of Deputies of British Jews condemned Jewish underground groups who threatened to export their attacks to England. .
Nov. 18, 1946
Police in Tel Aviv attacked Jews, assaulting many and firing into houses. Twenty Jews were injured in fights with British troops following the death on November 17 of three policemen and an RAF sergeant in a land mine explosion..
Nov. 20, 1946
Five persons were injured when a bomb exploded in theJerusalem tax office. .
Dec. 2-5, 1946
Ten persons, including six British soldiers, were killed in bomb and land-mine explosions. .
Dec. 3, 1946
A member of the Stern Gang was killed in an aborted hold-up attempt. .
Dec. 26, 1946
Armed Jewish underground members raided two diamond factories in Nathanya and Tel Aviv and escaped with nearly $107,000 in diamonds, cash and bonds. These raids signaled an end to a two-week truce during the World Zionist Congress..
1947
Partition of India and Pakistan.
January 1, 1947
Dov Gruner was sentenced to hang by a British military court for taking part in a raid on the Ramat Gan police headquarters in April of 1946. .
January 2, 1947
Jewish underground staged bombings and machine gun attacks in five cities. Casualties were low. Pamphlets seized warned that the Irgun had again declared war against the British. .
January 4, 1947
Jerusalem. British soldiers have been ordered to wear sidearms at all times and were forbidden to enter any cafe or restaurant. .
January 5, 1947
Eleven British troops were injured in a hand grenade attack on a train carrying troops to Palestine. The attack took place near Benha, 25 miles from Cairo..
January 8, 1947
British police arrested 32 persons suspected of being members of the Irgun's "Black Squad" in raids on Rishomel Zion and Rehoboth. .
January 12, 1947
One underground member drove a truck filled with high explosives into the central police station and exploded it, killing two British policemen and two Arab constables and injuring 140 others, and escaped. This action ended a 10-day lull in the violence and the Stern Gang took the credit for it. .
January 14, 1947
Yehudi Katz is sentenced to life in prison by a Jerusalem court for robbing a bank in Jaffa in September of 1946 to obtain funds for the underground..
January 22, 1947
Sir Harry Gumey, Chief Secretary, stated that the British administration was taxing Palestine $2,400,000 to pay for sabotage by the Jewish underground groups. .
January 22, 1947
Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech Jones informed the House of Commons 73 British subjects were murdered by underground members in 1946 and "no culprits have been convicted." .
January 27, 1947
London. Britain's conference on Palestine, boycotted by the Jews, reconvened. Jamal el Husseini, Palestine Arab leader, declared that the Arab world was unalterably opposed to partition as a solution to the problem. The session then adjourned..
January 29, 1947
London. It was officially announced that the British Cabinet decided to partition Palestine. .
January 29, 1947
Irgun forces released former Maj. H. Collins, a British banker, who they kidnaped on January 26 from his home. He had been badly beaten. On January 28, the Irgun released Judge Ralph Windham, who had been kidnapped in Tel Aviv on January 27 while trying a case. These men had been taken as hostages for Dov Bela Gruner, an Irgun member under death sentence. The British High Commissioner, Lt. Gen. Sir Alan Cunningham, had threatened martial law unless the two men were returned unharmed. .
January 31, 1947
General Cunningham ordered the wives and children of all British civilians to leave Palestine at once. About 2,000 are involved. This order did not apply to the 5,000 Americans in the country..
February 3, 1947
The Palestine Govemment issued a 7-day ultimatum to the Jewish Agency demanding that it state "categorically and at once" whether it and the supreme Jewish Council in Palestine will call on the Jewish community by February 10 for "cooperation with the police and armed forces in bringing to justice the members of the terrorist groups." This request was publicly rejected by Mrs. Goldie Meyerson, head of the Jewish Agency's political department. .
February 4, 1947
British Oistrict Commissioner James Pollock disclosed a plan for military occupation of three sectors of Jerusalem and orders nearly 1,000 Jews to evacuate the Rehavia, Schneler and German quarters by noon, February 6.
February 5, 1947
The Vaad Leumi rejected the British ultimatum while the Irgunpassed out leaflets that it was prepared to fight to the death against the British authority.
The first 700 of some 1,500 British women and children ordered to evacuate Palestine leave by plane and train for Egypt. British authorities, preparing for military action, order other families from sections of Tel Aviv and Haifa which will be turned into fortified military areas.
February 9, 1947
British troops removed 650 illegal Jewish immigranS from the schooner "Negev" at Haifa and after a struggle forced them aboard the ferry "Emperor Haywood" for deportation to Cyprus. .
February 14, 1947
The British administration revealed that Lt. Gen. Sir Evelyn Barker, retiring British commander in Palestine, had confirmed the death sentences of three Irgun members on February 12 before leaving for England. The three men, Dov Ben Rosenbaum, Eliezer Ben Kashani and Mordecai Ben Alhachi, had been sentenced on February 10 to be hanged for carrying firearms. A fourth, Haim Gorovetzky, received a life sentence because of his youth. Lt. Gen. G. MacMillian arrived inJerusalem on February 13 to succeed Gen. Barker. .
February 15, 1947
The Sabbath was the setting for sporadic outbreaks of violence which included the murder of an Arab in Jaffa and of a Jew in B'nai B'rak, the kidnapping of a Jew in Petah Tikvah and the burning of a Jewish club in Haifa.
March 9, 1947
Hadera. A British army camp was attacked..
March 10, 1947
Haifa. A Jew, suspected of being an informer, was murdered by Jewish underground members..
March 12, 1947
The British Army pay corps was dynamited in Jerusalem and one soldier killed. .
March 12, 1947
British military units captured most of the 800 Jews whose motor ship "Susanne" ran the British blockade and was beached north of Gaza on this date. A British naval escort brought the "Ben Hecht," the Hebrew Committee of National Liberation's first known immigrant ship, into Haifa, and its 599 passengers were shipped to Cyprus. The British arrested the crew, which included 18 US. seamen..
March 13, 1947
British authorities announced 78 arrests as a result of unofficial Jewish cooperation, but two railroads were attacked, resulting in two deaths, and eight armed men robbed a Tel Aviv bank of $65,000. .
March 14, 1947
Jewish underground members blew up part of an oil pipeline in Haifa and a section of the rail line near Beer Yakou .
March 17, 1947
British authorities ended marshal law which had kept 300,000 Jews under house arrest for 16 days and tied up most economic activity..
March 17, 1947
A military court sentenced Moshe Barazani to be hanged for possessing a hand grenade. .
March 18, 1947
Underground leaflets admitted the murder of Michael Shnell on Mount Carmel as an informer. .
March 22, 1947
British officials announced the arrest of five known underground members, and the discovery near Petah Tikvah of the body of Leon Meshiah, a Jew presumably slain as a suspected informer. .
March 28, 1947
The Irgun blew up the Iraq Petroleum Co. pipeline in Haifa..
March 29, 1947
A British army officer was killed by Jewish underground membesr when they ambushed a party of horsemen near the Ramle camp. A raid on a Tel Aviv bank yielded $109,000. .
March 30, 1947
Units of the British Royal Navy, answering an SOS, took the disabled " Moledeth" with 1,600 illegal Jewish refugees on board under tow some 50 miles outside Palestinian waters. .
March 31, 1947
Jewish underground members dynamited the British-owned Shell-Mex oil tanks in Haifa, starting a fire that destroyed a quarter-mile of the waterfront. The damage was set at more than $1,000,000, and the British government in Palestine has stated that the Jewish community will have to pay for it. .
April 2, 1947
The "Ocean Vigour" was damaged by a bomb in Famagusta Harbor, Cyprus. The Haganah admitted the bombing. .
April 3, 1947
A court in Jerusalem sentenced Daniel Azulai and Meyer Feinstein, members of the Irgun, to death for the October 30 attack on the Jerusalem railroad station. The Palestine Supreme Court admitted an appeal of Dov Bela Gruner's death sentence.
April 3, 1947
The transport "Empire Rival" was damaged by a time bomb while en route from Haifa to Port Said in Egypt. .
April 7, 1947
The High Court denied a new appeal against the death sentence of Dov Bela Gruner, and a British patrol killed Moshe Cohen. .
April 8, 1947
Jewish undergroud members killed a British constable in revenge for the Cohen death..
April 10, 1947
London. The British Government requested France and Italy to prevent Jews from embarking for Palestine. .
April 11, 1947
Jerusalem. Asher Eskovitch, a Jew, was beaten to death by Muslims when he entered the forbidden Mosque of Omar. .
April 13, 1947
Guela Cohen, Stern Gang illegal broadcaster, escaped from a British military hospital..
April 14, 1947
A British naval unit boarded the refugee ship "Guardian" and seized it along with 2,700 passengers after a gun battle in which two immigrants were killed and 14 wounded..
April 16, 1947
In spite of threats of reprisal from the Irgun, the British hanged Dov Bela Gruner and three other Irgun members at Acre Prison on Haifa Bay. Jewish communities were kept under strict curfew for several hours. Soon after the deaths were announced, a time bomb was found in the Colonial Office in London but was defused..
April 17, 1947
Lt. Gen. G. Macmillan confirmed death sentences for two more convicted underground members, Meier Ben Feinstein and Moshe Ben Barazani, but reduced Daniel Azulai's sentence to life imprisonment. .
April 18, 1947
Irgun's reprisals for the Gruner execution were an attack on a field dressing station near Nethanaya where one sentry was killed, an attack on an armored car in Tel Aviv where one bystander was killed and harmless shots at British troops in Haifa. .
April 20, 1947
A series of bombings by Jewish underground members in retaliation for the hanging of Gruner injured 12 British soldiers..
April 21, 1947
Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani killed themselves in prison a few hours before they were scheduled to be hanged. They blew themselves up with bombs smuggled to them in hollowed-out oranges. .
April 22, 1947
A troop train arriving from Cairo was bombed outside Rehovoth with five soldiers and three civilians killed and 39 persons injured.
April 23, 1947
The British First Lord of the Admiralty, Viscount Hall, defended the Labor Government's policy in Palestine and he acknowledged in the House of Lords that Britain would not "carry out a policy of which it did not approve" despite any UN action. He blamed contributions from American Jews to the Jewish Palestinians as aiding the underground groups there and cited the toll since August 1, 1945: 113 killed, 249 wounded, 168 Jews convicted, 28 sentenced to death, four executed, 33 slain in battles. Viscount Samuel urged increased immigration. .
April 23, 1947
The Irgun proclaimed its own "military courts" to "try" British troops and policemen who resisted them. .
April 25, 1947
Stern Gang squad drove a stolen post office truck loaded with explosives into the Sarona police compound and detonated it, killing five British policemen. .
April 26, 1947
Haifa. The murder of Deputy Police Superintendent A. Conquest climaxed a week of bloodshed. .
May 4, 1947
The walls of Acre prison were blasted open by an Irgun bomb squad and 251 Jewish and Arab prisoners escaped after a gun battle in which 15 Jews and 1 Arab were killed, 32 (including six British guards) were injured and 23 escapists were recaptured. The Palestine Govemment promised no extra punishment if the 189 escapees still at large will surrender. .
May 4, 1947
The Political Action Committee for Palestine ran a series of advertisements in New York newspapers seeking funds to buy parachutes for young European Jews planning to crash the Palestine irnmigration barrier by air. .
May 8, 1947
A Jew was ambushed and shot to death by an Arab group near Tel Aviv, and three Jewish owned Tel Aviv shops whose owners refused to contribute money to Jewish underground groups were burned down. .
May 12, 1947
Jewish underground members killed two British policemen..
May 12, 1947
The British authorities announced that 312 Jewish political prisoners were held in Kenya, East Africa, 20 in Latrun and 34 in Bethlehem..
May 15, 1947
The Stern Gang killed two British lieutenants and injured seven other persons with two derailments and three badge demolitions..
May 16, 1947
Haifa Assistant Police Superintendent, Robert Schindler, a German Jew, was killed by the Stern gang, and a British constable was killed on the Mt Carmel-Haifa road nearJerusalem..
May 17, 1947
The 1,200 ton Haganah freighter "Trade Winds" was seized by the Royal Navy off the Lebanon coast and escorted into Haifa, and over 1,000 illegal immigrants were disembarked pending transfer to Cyprus. .
May 19, 1947
The British government protested to the United States government against American fund-raising drives for Jewish underground groups. The complaint referred to a "Letter to the Terrorists of Palestine" by playwright Ben Hecht, American League for a Free Palestine co chairman, first published in the New York "Post" on May 15. The ad said, "We are out to raise millions for you.".
May 22, 1947
Arabs attacked a Jewish labor camp in the south, retaliating for aHaganah raid on the Arabs near Tel Aviv May 20. Some 40,000 Arab and Jewish workers united the same day in a one day strike against all establishments operated by the British War Ministry..
May 23, 1947
A British naval party boarded the immigrant ship "Mordei Haghettoath" off South Palestine and took control of its 1,500 passengers. Two British soldiers were convicted in Jerusalem of abandoning a jeep and army mail under attack..
May 28, 1947
Syria. Fawzi el-Kawukji who spent the war years in Germany after leading the 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine, told reporters in Damascus that an unfavorable decision by the UN inquiry group would be the signal for war against the Jews in Palestine. "We must prove that in case" of an Anglo-American war with Russia, "we can be more dangerous or useful to them than the Jews," he added. .
May 28, 1947
Jewish underground members blew up a water main and a shed in the Haifa oil dock areas and made three attacks on railway lines in the Lydda and Haifa areas..
May 31, 1947
The Haganah ship "Yehuda Halevy" arrived under British naval escort with 399 illegal Jewish immigrants; they were immediately transferred to Cyprus..
June 4, 1947
The Stern Gang sent letter bombs to high British governmental officials. Eight letter bombs containing powdered explosives were discovered in London. Recipients included Ernest Bevin, Anthony Eden, Prime Minister Attlee and Winston Churchill..
June 5, 1947
Washington. President Truman asked all persons in the US to refrain from helping Jewish underground groups. The American Jewish Committee and Jewish Labor Committee condemned Ben Hecht's campaign..
June 6, 1947
New York Secretary General of the UN, Trygve Lie has forwarded a request to all countries a request by the British that they guard their fronties against departure of illegal immigrants bound for Palestine.
June 18, 1947
Haganah disclosed that one of its men was killed by a booby trap which foiled an Irgun plot to blow up British Military Headquartes in Tel Aviv. .
June 28, 1947
The Stern Gang opened fire on British soldiers waiting in line outside a Tel Aviv theater, killing three and wounding two. Another Briton is killed and several wounded in a Haifa hotel. This action was claimed by Jewish underground members to be in retaliation for British brutality and the alleged slaying of a missing 16 year old Jew, Alexander Rubowitz while he was being held in an Army barracks on May 6. .
June 29, 1947
New York. The UN Committee votes 9-0 to condemn the acts as "flagrant disregard" of the UN appeal for an interim truce asStern Gang wounded four more Bdtish soldiers on a beach at Herzlia. Major Roy Alexander Farran surrendered voluntarily after his escape from custody in Jerusalem on June 19. He had been arrested in connection with the Rubowitz case. .
June 30, 1947
The Palestine goverrunent permitted oil companies to raise paces of benzine nearly 10% to pay for $1 million damage suffered when Jewish underground members blew up oil installations at Haifa on March 31. .
July 2, 1947
lrgun members robbed a Haifa bank of $3,200 while both the Stem gang and the Irgun warned the British that their provocative acts in Palestine must end before a truce can be effected. The Guaternalan and Czech members of the UN Commission visited two Jewish convicts in Acre Prison..
July 12, 1947
Dr. Adem Altman, president of the United Zionist Revisionists, told a party rally in Jerusalem that the Revisionists would settle for nothing less than an unpartitioned free Jewish state in Palestine and Trans-Jordan. Irgun announced in Jerusalem that two British sergeants kidnaped in Nathanaya are being held in Tel Aviv and have been sentenced to death by Irgun courtmartial. .
July 14, 1947
Netanya. The British imposed mastial law and placed the 15,000 inhabitants of Netanya under house arrest. They made 68 arrests and sentenced 21 persons to 6 months each in the Latrun detention camp. .
July 17, 1947
Netanya. The Irgun in five mine operations against military traffic to and from Nathanya killed one Briton and injured 16. .
July 18, 1947
Steamer Exodus repelled by forces from shores of Palestine, (formerly the "President Warfield") was escorted into Haifa by British naval units after a battle, William Bernstein and two immigrants were killed and more than 30 injured.
The blockade runner itself was badly damaged. The remainder of the 4,554 passengers, the largest group of illegal immigrants to sail for Palestine in a sister ship, were put aboard British prison ships for removal to Cyprus. The American captain, Bernard Marks, and his crew were arrested. The ship sailed from France.
July 19, 1947
Haifa. Rioting, quickly suppressed, broke out among the passengess of the "Exodus 1947" when they learned they were to be resumed to France. .
July 19, 1947
The Palestine Government charges that a Jewish "campaign of lawlessness, murder and sabotage" has cost 70 lives and $6 million in damage since 1940. .
July 21, 1947
Before officially admitting that 4,529 passengers of the "Exodus 1947" who had been transferred to three British ships, were being sent not to Cyprus but back to France, the Palestine Government took the precaution of first placing Jesusalem's 90,000 Jews under nightly house arrest. .
July 23, 1947
Haganah sank the British tansport "Empire Lifeguard" in Haifa harbor as it was discharging 300 Jewish immigrants who had officiallyy been admitted to Palestine under quota. Sixty-five immigrants were killed and 40 were wounded. The British were able to refloat the ship..
July 26, 1947
Jewish underground members blew up the Iraqi Petroleum Co. pipeline 12 miles east of Haifa and destroyed a Mt. Carmel radar station..
July 27, 1947
An ambush and mines cost the British seven more casualties, all wounded..
July 28, 1947
Two small Haganah ships loaded with 1,174 Jews from North Africa were intercepted by British naval units off Palestine and brought into Haifa. The illegal immigrants were transshipped aboard British transports and taken to Cyprus..
July 29, 1947
The British authorities hanged three Irgunists in Acre prison despite appeals from Jewish leaders. The condemned, Myer Nakar, Absalom Habib and Jacob Weiss, had fought in the Czech underground during the war. They were convicted of blowing up Acre Prison on May 4 and liberating 200 Arabs and Jews. .
July 29, 1947
The 4,429 Exodus 1947 illegal immigrants who sailed from Sete, France, July 11 for Palestine only to be shipped back by the British aboard three transports, refused to debark as the vessels anchored off Port de Douc, France. Only a few who were aboard went ashore. The French government informed the refugees that they do not have to debark but will be welcomed if they do. The transports are the "Runnymede Park," "Ocean Vigour" and "Empire Valour.".
July 30, 1947
Irgun members announced that they have handed two British sergeants, Marvyn Paice and Clifford Martin, whom they had held as hostages since duly 12, for "crimes against the Jewish community." The two were seized when death sentences on the three Irgun members were confirmed by the British authorities. Two more British soldiers were killed by a land mine near Hadera. British troops attacked the Jewish colony of Pardes Hanna in revenge for the murders..
July 31, 1947
The bodies of the two murdered Bdtish sergeants were found hanging from eucalyptus trees one and a half miles from Netanya about 5:30 AM. A booby trap blew Martin's body to bits when it was cut down. Enraged British troops stormed into Tel Aviv, wrecked shops, attacked pedestrians and sprayed a bus with gunfire killing five Jews: two men, two women and a boy..
August 1, 1947
Thirty-three Jews are injured in an anti-British riot at Tel Aviv during the funeral procession of five civilians killed by British soldiers on July 31. In Jerusalem a Jewish underground attack on the British security zone in Rehavia was repulsed with one attacker killed and two captured..
August 2, 1947
The body of an unidentified Jew was found on a road near Tel Aviv. He was believed to have been kidnapped by men in British uniforms two weeks ago. Total casualties in Palestine since mid-July: 25 persons slain, 144 wounded. The dead include 15 Britons, two Jewish underground membmers, eight civilians. Anti-British slogans, swastikas and dollar signs are painted onto British consulates in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles.
August 3, 1947
The Bank of Sharon in Ramat Gan was robbed by Jewish underground, $8,000 stolen..
August 4, 1947
An Irgun leader in Paris states that his organization has sentenced high British military and civilian offficials in Palestine to death "in absentia" and will hang them upon capture..
August 5, 1947
Striking at dawn, British security forces arrested 35 leading Zionists and sent them to the Latrun detention camp in an attempt to wipe out the Irgun leadership.In reprisal, Irgunists blew up the Department of Labor in Jerusalem, killing three British constables. Those arrested included Mayor Israel Rokach of Tel Aviv; Mayor Oved Ben Ami of Nathanya; Mayor Abraham Kdnitzki of Ramat Gan; Adeh Altman, president of the radical Revisionist Party; Menahem Arber, leader of the Revisionist youth organization, B'rith Trumpeldor, which is outlawed; Max Kritzman, Dov Bela Gruner's attomey, and David Stem, brother of the late founder of the Stern Gang. All those arrested except the three mayors were Revisionists. Among many papers confiscated was correspondence from Soviet Russian agents in Italy and Bulgaria and extensive plans to poison the water supply of the non-Jewish parts of Jerusalemwith botulism and other bacteria. Bacteria was supplied by Soviet sources through Bulgaria.
August 15, 1947
A mine derailed a Cairo-Haifa troop train north of Lydda, killing the engineer, and Irgunist claimed the incident was part of its campaign to disrupt all the Palestine rail traffic. .
August 16, 1947
Arab-Jewish clashes have brought death to 12 Arabs and 13 Jews and heavy property destruction this week in the regions of Jewish Tel Aviv and Arab Jaffa. Strife was renewed on august 10 when Arabs killed four Jews in a Tel Aviv cafe, in reprisal for the deaths of two Arabs in a Haganah raid in Fega two months ago.Haganah responded to the Arab actions by bombing a house in an Arab orange grove near Tel Aviv, killing eleven Arabs, including a woman and four children. .
August 18, 1947
The shops of five Jewish merchants in Tel Aviv were destroyed by the Irgun because the owners refused to give money to that organization. .
Sept. 9, 1947
Hamburg, Germany. In a bitter three hour fight aboard the "Runnymede Park," 350 British troops completed a two-day forced debarkation of 4,300 "Exodus 1947" illegal Jewish refugees from three ships in Hamburg, Germany. First ashore yesterday were the "Ocean Vigour's" 1,406; a few put up token resistance and five passengers sustained minor injuries. Early today, the "Empire Rival's" 1,420 passengers debarked peaceably after a home made bomb was found in the ship's hold. .
Sept. 10, 1947
Washington D.C. Secretary of State George C. Marshall disclosed that the US had urged Britain to reconsider sending the "Exodus" group to Germany, but Britain replied tht there were no facilities for housing them elsewhere because the French did not want them and there were a number of vacant detention camps in Germany. .
Sept. 11, 1947
Paris. The French government has now announced tht it would admit the '`Exodus" refugees if they were not forcibly deported from Germany and on the understanding that they will be admitted eventually to Palestine. .
October 13, 1947
A terrorist bomb damaged the US. consulate general inJerusalem, injuring two employees slightly. Similar bombings occurred at the Polish consulate general last night and at the Swedish consulate on September 27. .
Nov. 14, 1947
Jewish underground members killed two British policemen inJerusalem and two soldiers in Tel Aviv to raise the total casualties in three days of violence to 10 Britons and five Jews killed, and 33 Britons and five Jews wounded. The outbreaks began after British troops killed three girls and two boys in a raid on a farmhouse arsenal near Raanana on November 12. The underground retaliated yesterday by throwing hand grenades and firing a machine gun into the Ritz Cafe in Jerusalem. .
Nov. 16, 1947
About 185 European Jews landed near Netanya from a small schooner and escaped before the British could intercept them. A larger vessel, the "Kadimah," was seized and brought to Haifa where 794 Jews were transshipped to a British transport for Cyprus..
Nov. 17, 1947
The British administration disclosed that it will sell state owned real estate along the Haifa waterfront, from which it expects to make $8 million. It will also invest in England about $16 million from bonds that had been sold to Palestinians. Zionists strongly protested this as they said it would denude Palestine of its assets. There was no comment from the administration to these charges. .
Nov. 22, 1947
An Arab was killed in Haifa by the Stern Gang following the killings of four other Arabs near Raanana on November 20..
Dec. 1, 1947
The Arab League announced on December 1 that premiers and foreign ministers of seven Arab states would meet in Cairo next week to plan strategy against partition. In Palestine: Jerusalemand the Jaffa Tel Aviv boundary zone were centers of week-long strife which began when seven Jews were killed throughout Palestine on November 30 and the mayor of Nablus, Arab nationalist center, proclaimed jihad or a holy war. British High Commissioner Sir Alan Cunningham warned the Arab Higher Command on December 1 that Britain was determined to keep order so long as it held its mandate, and police stopped Arab agitators from raising crowds in Jerusalem..
Dec. 2, 1947
Arabs looted and burned a three block Jewish business district inJerusalem on December 2, the first day of a three day Arab general strike during which 20 Jews and 15 Arabs were killed. When British troops failed to intervene, Haganah came into the open for the first time in eight years to restrain large scale Jewish retaliation and also guard Jewish districts. Some Haganah men were arrested for possessing weapons. The day's strife caused $1 million worth of damage and resulted in a 21 hour curfew being applied to Arab Jerusalem for the rest of the week. The curfew was extended to outlying roads on December 3 to stop stonings of Jewish traffic and keep rural Arabs out of the capital. Max Pinn, head of the Jewish Agency's Trade and Transfer Deparunent was killed on December 2 when Arabs stoned his auto near Ramleh On this day dews stoned Arab buses inJerusalem. On December 2, Haganah claimed to have mobilized 10,000 men in the intercity trouble zone, and the Arab Legion of Trans-Jordan reported on this date that it had reinforced Jaffa. Seven Jews were killed in Jaffa-Tel Aviv on this date. There were lesser attacks in Haifa this week. Also, the Syrian Parliament enacted a draft law and voted $860,000 for the relief of Palestinian Arabs. On the same day Arabs attacked the Jewish part of Aleppo. .
Dec. 3, 1947
On the Jaffa-Tel Aviv boundary, which also is under around-the clock curfew, the week's heaviest battle was a six-hour clash between Haganah and Arabs on December 3 in which seven Jews and five Arabs were killed and 75 persons injured. .
Dec. 5, 1947
The United States Department of State announced on December 5,1947 that they were placing an embargo on all American arms shipments to the Middle East. On December 5, British military reinforcements were sent to Aden after four days of Arab-Jewish fighting in which 50 Jews and 25 Arabs were killed. .
Dec. 13, 1947
On December 13, bombings by the Irgun killed at least 16 Arabs and injured 67 more in Jerusalem and Jaffa and burned down a hundred Arab houses in Jaffa. In Syria, an anti-Jewish attack in rebaliation for the Irgun actions burned down a 2,750-year old synagogue in Aleppo and destroyed the priceless Ben-Asher Codex, a 10th century Hebrew Bible of original Old Testament manuscripts. .
Dec. 14, 1947
Regular troops of the Arab Legion of the Trans-Jordan Army killed 14 Jews and wounded nine Jews, two British soldiers and one Arab when they atbcked a bus convoy approaching their camp near Lydda. The Arabs said the Jews attacked them first. .
Dec. 17, 1947
British troops came to the aid of police sending off a raid by 100 Arabs on the Jewish settlement of Nevatim, seven miles west of Beersheba..
Dec. 18, 1947
Haganah killed 10 Arabs in a reprisal raid on Khisas in the north of the country..
Dec. 19, 1947
Reliable reports from Damascus state that Arab guerrillas are massing there in preparation to launching an attack into Palestine before the first of the year. .
Dec. 20, 1947
Haganah carried out another said on Arabs by atbcking the village of Qazasa near Rehovoth. One Arab was killed and two were wounded. .
Dec. 25, 1947
Emir Mohammed Zeinati, an Arab landowner, was killed in Haifa for selling land to the Jews. Stern gang members machine-gunned two British soldiers in a Tel Aviv cafe. .
Dec. 26, 1947
Armed Jewish underground members raided two diamond factories in Netanya and Tel Aviv and escaped with $107,000 in diamonds, cash and bonds. The Stern gang distributed leaflets reporting that Israel Levin, a member, was killed in Tel Aviv on December 24 for trying to betray a Stern Gang member. .
Dec. 29, 1947
Irgun members kidnaped and flogged a Briitish major and thzee sergeans in rebliation for the flogging of Benjamin Kimkhim who was also sentenced to 18 years in prison on December 27 for robbing a bank. The major, E. Brett, was seized in Netanya and the sergeants in Tel Aviv and Rishon el Siyon. Each got 18 lashes, the same number Kimkhim seceived. An Irgun bombing at the Damascus Gate in Jesusalem killed 11 Arabs and two Britons. .
Dec. 30, 1947
The Dollis Hill Synagogue in London was set on fire and 12 sacred scrolls wese destroyed by argry British citizens..
1947
1947
Arab Higher Committee for Palestine rejects UN Partition Plan.
1947
Three Jews are hanged for involvement in Acre Prison break and two British sergeants are executed in reprisal.
1947
Scrolls dating from approximately 22 B.C.E. are discovered atQumran, near the Dead Sea.
1947Construction begins on Tapline for Saudi oil.
January 4, 1948
A series of bombings inflicted heavy Arab casualties.14 were killed and 100 injured when the Stern gang destroyed the Arab National Committee headquarters in Jaffa. .
January 5, 1948
Jerusalem. 15 Arabs were killed after Haganah bombed the Semirarnis Hotel..
January 7, 1948
14 Arabs were killed by two Irgun bombs at Jerusalem's Jaffa gate.
January 12, 1948
Stem gang members looted Barclay's Bank in Tel Aviv of $37,000.
January 13, 1948
The U.S. War Assets Administration received orders from Army Secretary Kenneth Royal to cancel its sale of 199 tons of M-3 explosive to a purchasing agent of the Jewish Agency, which got 73 tons out of the country before the rest was seized
Jan. 14-15, 1948
The FBI arrested six New York men on charges of trying to shipHaganah 60,000 pounds of TNT, which was seized in Jersey Gty after having been bought from the Letterkenny Arsenal Ordnance Depot in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
January 25, 1948
Following the deaths of ten Jews and two Arabs killed in a battle outside Jerusalem, British authorities stated that 721 Arabs, 408 Jews, 19 civilians and 12 British policemen (a total of 1,160) had been killed in an eight-week period that 1,171 Arabs, 749 Jews, 13 civilians and 37 British officers had been wounded.
1948Standard Oil of New Jersey and Socony-Vacuum (both now ExxonMobil) buy interest in Aramco; company headquarters moved from San Francisco to New York.


Modern Israel & the Diaspora
(1948-Present)


No comments:

Post a Comment