August 15, 2005:
The Gaza disengagement began with 14,000 IDF soldiers and police officers forcibly evicting more than 8,500 Jewish residents who chose to remain in their homes in 25 towns in the Gaza Strip.
The government, which had hoped that the disengagement would open “new opportunities” in relations with the Palestinian Arabs, was bitterly disappointed. The vacated settlements were used to launch terrorist attacks against Israel, which included unremitting rocket fire on the Israeli city of Sderot.
August 16, 1929:
After Friday prayers, 2,000 Arabs attacked Jews at the Western Wall. The British government refused to condemn the attack, leading the Arabs to believe that the British supported their riots, which spread to other parts of Israel during the following weeks.
August 17, 1921:
Philip Graves, a correspondent of The London Times, demonstrated that the document the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a forgery, having been plagiarized from a French political pamphlet about Napoleon III.
August 18, 1790:
In response to a letter from the Jewish community of Rhode Island, president George Washington responded: “The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind… a policy worthy of imitation…
“For happily, the government of the United States gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance… May the Children of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants; while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”
Washington’s letter is housed in the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island.
August 19, 1845:
Birthday of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, head of the French branch of the famed banking family. He was known as the “Father of the Yishuv” financing almost singlehandedly the pre-state agricultural villages of Rishon Lezion, Zichron Ya’acov, Gedera, Rosh Pina, and 30 others. He also established Israel’s wine industry by helping Russian Jews plant vineyards in Israel after they had fled the 1880 pogroms.
August 20, 2003:
An Arab terrorist blew himself up on the double-length #2 bus en route from the Western Wall in Jerusalem, killing 23 people and wounding 136, many of them children. The bomber, from a Hamas cell in Hebron, was disguised as an Orthodox Jew.
Following the attack, the Israeli government decided to wage an all-out war against Hamas and other terrorist elements, and froze the diplomatic process with the Palestinian Authority.
August 21, 1973:
Birthday of Sergey Brin, American computer scientist, co-founder of Google, and one of the richest men in America.
While new history unfolds daily, catch up on the old: The above is a highly abridged weekly version of Dust & Stars – Today in Jewish History. To receive the complete newsletter: dustandstars.substack.com/subscribe. Special arrangements are available for organizations.