On This Day in Jewish History (@onthisdayinjewishistory) is a premier educational Instagram account with over 25,000 followers, dedicated to unearthing and sharing the rich legacy of Jewish heritage. Our captivating, easily shareable graphics breathe life into significant moments from our collective past, presenting them in a visually appealing and accessible format. With our commitment to thorough research and accuracy, the OTD account has become a trusted and respected source for Jewish knowledge, engaging a diverse audience and inspiring a deeper appreciation for the lessons and wisdom found in yesterday’s stories to enlighten our tomorrow.

instagram: @onthisdayinjewishistory
twitter: @dailyjewish

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“For us, the Old City was a symbol of something unfinished. It’s ours. The Old City should be ours. This is our capital. It symbolized what we strove for for nineteen years...”

“Then I saw the proof of what I had previously assumed, that there is in all of us, religious and non-religious alike, in the entire Jewish people, an intense quality of Jewishness that is neither destroyed by education nor blurred by foreign ideologies and values.”

Quotes from soldiers who fought in 1967 in Jerusalem during the 6 Day War in the book titled, “The Seventh Day: Soldiers Talk About the 6 Day War” compiled and written just two months after the war ended by the likes of Amos Oz and Avraham Shapira.

🎥 via @thejerusalemite 

Yom Yerushalayim Sameach 
💙🦁🤍

#israel #jerusalem #liberation #6daywar #jewishhistory

“For us, the Old City was a symbol of something unfinished. It’s ours. The Old City should be ours. This is our capital. It symbolized what we strove for for nineteen years...”

“Then I saw the proof of what I had previously assumed, that there is in all of us, religious and non-religious alike, in the entire Jewish people, an intense quality of Jewishness that is neither destroyed by education nor blurred by foreign ideologies and values.”

Quotes from soldiers who fought in 1967 in Jerusalem during the 6 Day War in the book titled, “The Seventh Day: Soldiers Talk About the 6 Day War” compiled and written just two months after the war ended by the likes of Amos Oz and Avraham Shapira.

🎥 via @thejerusalemite

Yom Yerushalayim Sameach
💙🦁🤍

#israel #jerusalem #liberation #6daywar #jewishhistory
...

#onthisday, 1965, Eli Cohen, a prominent Israeli spy with Syrian-Jewish roots in Egypt, was executed. Fluent in Arabic, English, and French, Cohen was perfect for Israeli Intelligence who recruited him in 1960. 

Posing as a Syrian businessman in Buenos Aires, he built strong ties with Syrian communities and officials. Moving to Damascus in 1962, his connections led him to crucial Syrian military intelligence. He cleverly suggested planting Eucalyptus trees at military sites, feigning non-fortification and shade for soldiers. This intel proved crucial for Israel during the 6 Day War that we celebrate on this very day. Over the years, he rose prominently in the echelons of power within Syria.

Despite warnings, Cohen's Morse Code transmissions were intercepted by Syrian counter-intelligence in 1965, leading to his arrest. Even under torture, he gave no evidence against Israel. His execution, laden with anti-Zionist and antisemitic signs, was broadcasted on Syrian television. 

His last message to his wife emphasized forgiveness, strength, and hope for a better future. His body remains unrecovered.

The letter reads:

“My darling Nadia, and my dear family,
I am writing you these last words, minutes before my end, with the hope that you stay together forever.

I beg my wife to forgive me, to take care of herself and our children. Look after them, raise them up and educate them well, and don't deprive them or yourself of anything…

Do what you must, don't deprive the children of a father. I give you my blessing. I beg you my dear Nadia do not spend your life weeping for what has passed.

Concentrate on yourself; look forward to a better future!

I send you my last kisses to you and to the children: Sophie, Irit, and Shaoul and to the rest of my family, especially my mother…

Please pray for my soul.”

🕯️ May his memory be a blessing and an inspiration. 

ה׳ יקום דמם
✍🏽 @onthisdayinjewishistory
💬 share & save
🗣️ educate others

#jewishhistory #elicohen #hero #israel

#onthisday, 1965, Eli Cohen, a prominent Israeli spy with Syrian-Jewish roots in Egypt, was executed. Fluent in Arabic, English, and French, Cohen was perfect for Israeli Intelligence who recruited him in 1960.

Posing as a Syrian businessman in Buenos Aires, he built strong ties with Syrian communities and officials. Moving to Damascus in 1962, his connections led him to crucial Syrian military intelligence. He cleverly suggested planting Eucalyptus trees at military sites, feigning non-fortification and shade for soldiers. This intel proved crucial for Israel during the 6 Day War that we celebrate on this very day. Over the years, he rose prominently in the echelons of power within Syria.

Despite warnings, Cohen`s Morse Code transmissions were intercepted by Syrian counter-intelligence in 1965, leading to his arrest. Even under torture, he gave no evidence against Israel. His execution, laden with anti-Zionist and antisemitic signs, was broadcasted on Syrian television.

His last message to his wife emphasized forgiveness, strength, and hope for a better future. His body remains unrecovered.

The letter reads:

“My darling Nadia, and my dear family,
I am writing you these last words, minutes before my end, with the hope that you stay together forever.

I beg my wife to forgive me, to take care of herself and our children. Look after them, raise them up and educate them well, and don`t deprive them or yourself of anything…

Do what you must, don`t deprive the children of a father. I give you my blessing. I beg you my dear Nadia do not spend your life weeping for what has passed.

Concentrate on yourself; look forward to a better future!

I send you my last kisses to you and to the children: Sophie, Irit, and Shaoul and to the rest of my family, especially my mother…

Please pray for my soul.”

🕯️ May his memory be a blessing and an inspiration.

ה׳ יקום דמם
✍🏽 @onthisdayinjewishistory
💬 share & save
🗣️ educate others

#jewishhistory #elicohen #hero #israel
...

#onthisday, we remember and honor what is the commonly held yahrtzeit (date of passing) of Rabbi Moshe Hayyim Ben Yaakov Hai and Diamante Luzzatto - the Ramhal, of blessed & righteous memory.

Born in Padua, and spending time in Frankfurt, Amsterdam and finally Akko, the Ramhal's effect on this world is felt globally and across every community. 
His work 'Messilat Yesharim' acted as a precursor to the Lithuanian Mussar movement, his '138 Openings' an essential introduction for both Sephardic and Hasidic Kabbalists, ‘Derech HaShem’ is for many individuals looking to connect to a Higher Source - their first real encounter. His poetry and plays for the romantics, his grammatical works for the academics, his words of comfort for the broken hearted. 

Some wish to use this array of works to portray a man of contradiction or compromise, others wish to hide aspects of him to claim them his own, but what is ignored is how all his works underline the necessity of the proliferation of good, and there is no contradiction or compromise there, nor can such a noble goal be claimed by any one movement. 

In a world where many are searching for the good, know that we can find it in the works of the Ramhal. There is some work of his appropriate for everyone: use this day to find yours.

🕯️May the memory of his righteous soul be a blessing and inspiration to us all. May we receive full and total peace in his merit.

✍🏽 Lawrence S. 
💬 share & save
🗣️ educate others

#onthisday, we remember and honor what is the commonly held yahrtzeit (date of passing) of Rabbi Moshe Hayyim Ben Yaakov Hai and Diamante Luzzatto - the Ramhal, of blessed & righteous memory.

Born in Padua, and spending time in Frankfurt, Amsterdam and finally Akko, the Ramhal`s effect on this world is felt globally and across every community.
His work `Messilat Yesharim` acted as a precursor to the Lithuanian Mussar movement, his `138 Openings` an essential introduction for both Sephardic and Hasidic Kabbalists, ‘Derech HaShem’ is for many individuals looking to connect to a Higher Source - their first real encounter. His poetry and plays for the romantics, his grammatical works for the academics, his words of comfort for the broken hearted.

Some wish to use this array of works to portray a man of contradiction or compromise, others wish to hide aspects of him to claim them his own, but what is ignored is how all his works underline the necessity of the proliferation of good, and there is no contradiction or compromise there, nor can such a noble goal be claimed by any one movement.

In a world where many are searching for the good, know that we can find it in the works of the Ramhal. There is some work of his appropriate for everyone: use this day to find yours.

🕯️May the memory of his righteous soul be a blessing and inspiration to us all. May we receive full and total peace in his merit.

✍🏽 Lawrence S.
💬 share & save
🗣️ educate others
...

#onthisday, 1948, David Ben Gurion and other founders gathered at the former home of Mayor Meir Dizingoff in Tel Aviv and declared independence. The decision was made regardless of strong advice against such action from outside parties.

The next day, following abrupt celebrations around Israel and the Jewish world, the war that had been on and off since November, 1947 fully broke.

At the outset of the war, the IDF did not formally exist yet (which would happen on June 27th, 1948). Jewish / Israeli defense was made up of the Haganah, Etzel, and Lechi. The Haganah made up the largest quantity of soldiers and still did not possess artillery, armor, an air force, and barely enough bullets.

By the summer of ‘48, Israel would raise an army of 100,000 organized under the IDF banner (not without its own internal struggles, see “Altalena Affair”), receive much needed aid of artillery, armor, and air force (many through international volunteers, see “Harold Smoky Simon”), and benefit from the discoordinated Pan Arab attack - each nation with its own individual military objectives.

By mid-1949, the war would end with ceasefires, Israel retaining its independence, and pushing beyond the original indefensible borders they had accepted under Partition.

Yet, victory was not attained without a cost as about 1% of Israel’s population died in the fighting - many of whom were Holocaust survivors or Jewish refugees from neighboring Arab countries who had begun to seize and expel their Jewish citizens.

While the Hebrew translates to ‘Day of Independence’, history has reminded the Jewish people that independence didn’t just happen to them, nor was it sanctified by a declaration to be free.

Yom Ha’atzmaut is therefore the symbolic avengement of the lives lost that we remember on Yom HaZikaron and throughout Jewish history - a reaffirmation of the Jewish fight for life following unspeakable suffering for thousands of years without agency.

It’s a joyous reminder that the Jewish people celebrate freedom with the ever-present understanding that things could have very well not panned out this way.

🎥 ShlichimMetrowest on YouTube 

#israel #jewishhistory #independenceday

#onthisday, 1948, David Ben Gurion and other founders gathered at the former home of Mayor Meir Dizingoff in Tel Aviv and declared independence. The decision was made regardless of strong advice against such action from outside parties.

The next day, following abrupt celebrations around Israel and the Jewish world, the war that had been on and off since November, 1947 fully broke.

At the outset of the war, the IDF did not formally exist yet (which would happen on June 27th, 1948). Jewish / Israeli defense was made up of the Haganah, Etzel, and Lechi. The Haganah made up the largest quantity of soldiers and still did not possess artillery, armor, an air force, and barely enough bullets.

By the summer of ‘48, Israel would raise an army of 100,000 organized under the IDF banner (not without its own internal struggles, see “Altalena Affair”), receive much needed aid of artillery, armor, and air force (many through international volunteers, see “Harold Smoky Simon”), and benefit from the discoordinated Pan Arab attack - each nation with its own individual military objectives.

By mid-1949, the war would end with ceasefires, Israel retaining its independence, and pushing beyond the original indefensible borders they had accepted under Partition.

Yet, victory was not attained without a cost as about 1% of Israel’s population died in the fighting - many of whom were Holocaust survivors or Jewish refugees from neighboring Arab countries who had begun to seize and expel their Jewish citizens.

While the Hebrew translates to ‘Day of Independence’, history has reminded the Jewish people that independence didn’t just happen to them, nor was it sanctified by a declaration to be free.

Yom Ha’atzmaut is therefore the symbolic avengement of the lives lost that we remember on Yom HaZikaron and throughout Jewish history - a reaffirmation of the Jewish fight for life following unspeakable suffering for thousands of years without agency.

It’s a joyous reminder that the Jewish people celebrate freedom with the ever-present understanding that things could have very well not panned out this way.

🎥 ShlichimMetrowest on YouTube

#israel #jewishhistory #independenceday
...

#onthisday, Lag Ba’Omer 5780 (2020), @onthisdayinjewishistory began. Marking today as our 3rd year anniversary (our own #onthisday) 

Photography has the rule of thirds for composing various kinds of visual images. It is a tool designed to enhance the presentation of what is being depicted. 

In Judaism, the number three means something different. When something happens three times, it’s a “Chazaka”, ie “established” or “set”.

It is said in the Kabbalah that the soul consists of three parts, neshamah—breath—being the highest, ruach which serves as the middle and denotes wind or spirit and nefesh which translates as repose and confers rest. 

Today marks the third anniversary of @onthisdayinjewishistory. What emerged was the birth of a lifelong commitment to research, writing and composition, documenting the trials and tribulations of Jewish triumph and tragedy. 

Indeed, a 24/6 operation that started with two friends with a deep love for Jewish history and has since blossomed with a whole team of experienced researchers, writers, designers, editors and developers. Eight hundred posts and over twenty four thousand followers later, our fire continues to burn. 

2,000 years ago, #onthisday, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai lit the fire of Kabbalah through the Zohar, the hidden dimensions of Torah revealed. Today, in our way, we continue the mission he began. To keep the fire of Jewish pride and identity growing strong. 

Nothing happens on its own, it takes a village to keep this machines running. And while it’s not always spiritual, it’s never not meaningful where an appreciation and grounding of the process remains at the forefront of our vision.

Thank you for following, thank you for supporting 🙌🏽🔥🤍

#jewishhistory #lagbaomer #anniversary #lighttheworld

#onthisday, Lag Ba’Omer 5780 (2020), @onthisdayinjewishistory began. Marking today as our 3rd year anniversary (our own #onthisday)

Photography has the rule of thirds for composing various kinds of visual images. It is a tool designed to enhance the presentation of what is being depicted.

In Judaism, the number three means something different. When something happens three times, it’s a “Chazaka”, ie “established” or “set”.

It is said in the Kabbalah that the soul consists of three parts, neshamah—breath—being the highest, ruach which serves as the middle and denotes wind or spirit and nefesh which translates as repose and confers rest.

Today marks the third anniversary of @onthisdayinjewishistory. What emerged was the birth of a lifelong commitment to research, writing and composition, documenting the trials and tribulations of Jewish triumph and tragedy.

Indeed, a 24/6 operation that started with two friends with a deep love for Jewish history and has since blossomed with a whole team of experienced researchers, writers, designers, editors and developers. Eight hundred posts and over twenty four thousand followers later, our fire continues to burn.

2,000 years ago, #onthisday, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai lit the fire of Kabbalah through the Zohar, the hidden dimensions of Torah revealed. Today, in our way, we continue the mission he began. To keep the fire of Jewish pride and identity growing strong.

Nothing happens on its own, it takes a village to keep this machines running. And while it’s not always spiritual, it’s never not meaningful where an appreciation and grounding of the process remains at the forefront of our vision.

Thank you for following, thank you for supporting 🙌🏽🔥🤍

#jewishhistory #lagbaomer #anniversary #lighttheworld
...

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