May 5, 1959 — Museum Marks First Yom HaShoah
Kibbutz Lohamei HaGetaot (the Ghetto Fighters) in the western Galilee welcomes twenty five hundred people to commemorate the first official Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) under a law passed four weeks earlier. Founded by Holocaust survivors and resistance fighters, the kibbutz in 1949 opened the world’s first Holocaust museum, the Itzhak Katzenelson Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Heritage Museum, known as the Ghetto Fighters’ House.
May 6, 1986 — Israel Helps U.S. With ‘Star Wars’
Israel and the United States sign a secret agreement that calls for Israel to participate in research for the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative. The program, commonly referred to as “Star Wars,” aims to develop a space-based system to destroy nuclear ballistic missiles en route. One of a series of security agreements between the countries in the 1980s, this one facilitates Israel’s development of the Arrow and Iron Dome anti-missile systems.
May 7, 1953 — Histadrut Admits Arabs
The Histadrut, the trade union that was launched in 1920 to represent Jewish workers in Palestine and that covers seventy five percent of Israeli labor by 1953, opens its membership to the state’s one hundred and eighty five thousand Arab citizens. As cited by The Jerusalem Post, the move is an important step in fully integrating Arab citizens into the young state and represents the maturation of the Histadrut beyond its original purpose to protect Jewish workers against cheaper Arab labor.
May 8, 1947 — Zionist American Rabbi Addresses U.N.
Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, who in 1943 founded the American Zionist Emergency Council and in 1945 became president of the Zionist Organization of America, addresses the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine as part of a Jewish Agency delegation led by David Ben-Gurion. Silver calls on the United Nations to honor the Balfour Declaration’s promises and to recognize the need for a destination for Jewish immigrants.
May 9, 1979 — Post-Shah Iran Executes Jewish Leader
Habib Elghanian, a Tehran businessman and leader of Iran’s Jewish community, is executed by the revolutionary Islamic government after his conviction in a twenty minute trial of being a Zionist spy and “corrupter on Earth.” Elghanian was a frequent visitor to Israel who built the Shimshon Tower in Tel Aviv with his brothers and purchased the house that became Israel’s embassy in Tehran. His execution accelerates Jewish emigration from Iran.
May 10, 1994 — Arafat Calls for Jihad to Free Jerusalem
In a secretly recorded address at a mosque in Johannesburg, Yasser Arafat declares that the Oslo Accords, signed eight months earlier, are just a step toward Islam’s conquest of Jerusalem. The Palestine Liberation Organization leader compares Oslo to a treaty that Muhammad signed in 628 with the tribe that controlled Mecca, only to declare the treaty void at the first opportunity and conquer the city. The speech undermines Oslo progress.
May 11, 1965 — Israel Museum Opens
The Israel Museum, the state’s largest, opens in Jerusalem with more than five hundred thousand items. The museum had long been discussed and gained momentum in the early 1960s with support from foreign benefactors, including the U.S. government, and the efforts of Teddy Kollek, who became the head of the museum’s board in 1964. The museum includes the Shrine of the Book, which houses pieces of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Items are provided by the Center for Israel Education.
