June 20, 1510:
Birthday of Dona Gracia Mendes Nasi, a Portuguese intellectual and one of the wealthiest women in Renaissance Europe. Employing a combination of commercial activities, loans, and bribes to royalty and popes, she developed an escape network that saved hundreds of conversos from the Inquisition.
June 21, 1948:
The ship Altalena reached the coast of Tel Aviv, carrying more than 800 new immigrants and weapons. The Irgun, a Jewish paramilitary group, claimed they had an agreement with the provisional government of the newly formed Jewish state, headed by David Ben-Gurion, that 20% of the arms would be used by its members to defend Jerusalem. Ben-Gurion, however, refused to accept what he considered an ultimatum and ordered the ship to be fired upon, killing 18 and wounding 10.
The incident almost caused a civil war and was only averted by an impassioned speech made by Irgun leader Menachem Begin on the radio that night, not to take up arms against fellow Jews.
June 22, 1906:
Birthday of Billy Wilder, the Austrian-born American film director, screenwriter, and producer whose career in Hollywood spanned over five decades. Brilliant and versatile, he won Academy Awards as producer, director, and screenwriter. He directed 14 actors in Oscar-nominated performances and was recognized with the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award in 1986, the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award in 1988, and the National Medal of Arts in 1993.
Sivan 27, year unknown:
Rabbi Chananya ben Teradyon, one of the Ten Martyrs, was burned at the stake (Megillat Ta’anit, concluding chapter.). After the Romans discovered him teaching Torah, which they had outlawed, they wrapped him in a Torah scroll and piled bundles of twigs around him. Before setting him afire, they placed damp woolen cloths on him to prolong the agony of being burned to death.
As the flames engulfed him, his disciples asked him, “Master, what do you see?” Rabbi Chananya replied: “I see a scroll burning, but the letters are flying up to heaven.”
June 24, 1322:
After having been allowed back into France in 1315 (after the expulsion in 1306 by King Philip IV), the Jews were once again expelled. This time by King Charles IV, who thus broke the pledge made by his predecessors that the Jews would be able to stay in France for at least 12 years.
Sivan 29, 2448 (1313 BCE):
According to tradition, Moses sent 12 men, one from each tribe, to scout out the Land of Israel in preparation for its conquest (Seder Olam 8). After 40 days, the spies came back and recommended against entering the land. This lack of faith has been mourned (among other reasons) every year since, on Tisha B’Av.
June 26, 1936:
Judith Haspel, a 17-year-old Vienna native who held every Austrian women’s middle- and long-distance freestyle record in 1935, wrote a letter to the Austrian Swimming Association protesting Hitler and refusing to represent Austria in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. “I refuse to enter a contest in a land that so shamefully persecutes my people,” she wrote.
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