This week in Jewish history: Truman recognizes Israel, Russia issues May Laws

A highly abridged weekly version of Dust & Stars – Today in Jewish History.

Abba Eban and prime minister David Ben-Gurion visiting US president Harry Truman, 1951. (photo credit: FRITZ COHEN)
Abba Eban and prime minister David Ben-Gurion visiting US president Harry Truman, 1951.
(photo credit: FRITZ COHEN)

May 9, 1945

The Theresienstadt ghetto/concentration camp was liberated by Soviet forces. Of the 155,000 people who passed through, 124,352 were either killed there or were deported to extermination camps.

May 10, 2010

Recognizing its economic achievements, the 31 states of the OECD voted unanimously to invite Israel to become a member. 

May 11, 1888

Birthday of Irving Berlin (Israel Baline), self-taught musician about whom musical theater composer Jerome Kern said: “Irving Berlin has no place in American music. He is American music.” Among Berlin’s many mega-hits are “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” “God Bless America” (the royalties go to the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts), “White Christmas,” “Easter Parade,” “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” and “Cheek to Cheek.”

 THE ENTRANCE TO Theresienstadt. (credit: Maya Zanger-Nadis)
THE ENTRANCE TO Theresienstadt. (credit: Maya Zanger-Nadis)

 Iyar 14

When the Holy Temple was standing, anyone who was unable to bring the Pascal lamb at the proper time on Nisan 14 was able to bring it one month later on Pesach Sheni (Second Passover), the date on which the Jews ate the last of the matzot that they took out of Egypt. Nowadays, in the words of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch: “Second Passover teaches that no situation is ever completely lost.”

May 13, 1939

Some 937 Jews fled Nazi Germany on board the luxury liner MS St. Louis, intending to reach Cuba, and then the US to begin a new life. They were turned away from Cuba, and subsequently the US and Canada, before being forced to return to Europe, where more than 250 were murdered by the Nazis. Captain Gustav Schroeder was posthumously named one of the Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem for his valiant efforts to find them refuge.

May 14, 1948

US President Harry Truman granted Israel de facto recognition just minutes after the new nation was proclaimed. The first legislative act of the provisional government of the State of Israel was to repeal the British White Paper of 1939, which had restricted Jewish immigration and the acquisition of land in pre-state Israel. The next day, the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the nascent Jewish nation.

May 15, 1882

Russian emperor Alexander III issued the May Laws, severely restricting the rights of Jews in the Pale of Settlement. Simultaneously, thousands of Jewish homes were destroyed in pogroms, and hundreds of Jews were killed or wounded. As a result, two million Jews fled Russia.

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