May 23, 1965
Eli Cohen, a Mossad spy caught operating under cover among the highest echelons in Syria, was hanged in Damascus. The information he gathered became instrumental to the IDF’s success in the Golan Heights during the Six Day War.
May 24, 1941
Birthday of Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman) – poet, folk and rock icon, and one of the most influential musicians of the past 60 years. He has written and recorded hundreds of songs – many that defined a generation – and was the first musician to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 2016.
May 25, 1991
Operation Solomon, a covert Israeli military operation to airlift Ethiopian Jews to Israel, was completed. Non-stop flights of 35 Israeli aircraft transported 14,325 Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 36 hours. One of the aircraft, an El Al 747, carried at least 1,088 people, including two babies who were born on the flight, and holds the world record for the most passengers on an aircraft.
Iyar 28, 5728 (1967)
Israeli paratroopers liberated the Old City of Jerusalem during the Six Day War, restoring Jewish control of the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site. Soldiers danced, sang, and cried at the Western Wall, the site of Jewish prayers for centuries. Nowadays, Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day) is celebrated on the 28th of Iyar. It includes a special prayer service composed by the Chief Rabbinate, commemorating the reunification of the Holy City, which has stood as the capital of the Jewish nation for 3,000 years.
Iyar 29, 2884 (877 BCE)
Yahrzeit of the prophet Samuel, the last of the judges who led the people of Israel in the four centuries between the passing of Joshua and the anointment of Saul as the first king of Israel in 879 BCE. When Saul failed to properly implement his duties as king, Samuel anointed David to succeed him. Samuel was the author of the biblical books of Judges, Samuel, and Ruth.
May 28, 1948
After weeks of desperate fighting by local residents, Etzel members, and some 80 Haganah soldiers who were outnumbered and out-gunned by the Arab forces, it was decided to surrender the Old City of Jerusalem to Jordan and save the lives of the 2,000 mostly elderly Jews still living there.
May 29, 1453
Sultan Mohammed II, the conqueror of Constantinople, granted equal rights to Jews and other non-Muslim subjects of the Ottoman Empire. This policy provided one of the principal havens for Jewish refugees after the expulsion from Spain in 1492.
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