February 13, 1931 — British PM Rejects White Paper
British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald reiterated his nation’s commitment to Jewish settlement in Palestine. George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress.
British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald sends a letter to Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann in which MacDonald disavows the threats to Zionism posed by the Passfield White Paper. The policy proposal, issued in October 1930 in response to the Arab violence of 1929, raises the possibility of restrictions on Jewish immigration and land purchases in Palestine. MacDonald reassures Zionists but angers Palestinian Arabs.
February 14, 1896 — Herzl Publishes “The Jewish State”
Theodor Herzl’s “Der Judenstaat” mentions Palestine and Argentina as places where the Jewish state could be established.
Theodor Herzl’s “Der Judenstaat” (“The Jewish State”) is published in Vienna with a print run of 500 copies. French and English translations soon follow. With the subtitle “An Attempt at a Modern Solution to the Jewish Question,” the pamphlet calls for Jews to organize themselves to gain their own territory, oversee immigration and settlement, and eventually form their own state. He organizes the First Zionist Congress in 1897.
February 15, 1975 — Former Cairo Jewish Leader Salvator Cicurel Dies
AThe flagship Les Grands Magasins Cicurel et Oreco store, owned by Salvator Cicurel until 1956, is seen in downtown Cairo in the 1940s. Lehnert & Landrock.
A former leader of Cairo’s Jewish community and a 1928 Olympic fencer, Salvator Cicurel dies at 81 in Miami. As a national sports figure and the head of a retail empire whose flagship store covered two city blocks in Cairo, Cicurel retained his position during Israel’s War of Independence even though the Egyptian government seized many Jewish-owned businesses. But he was forced to sell after the 1956 Suez war and left Egypt in 1957.
February 16, 1932 — Writer Aharon Appelfeld Is Born
Aharon Appelfeld died in January 2018 while a professor emeritus of Hebrew literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. By Ya’acov Sa’ar, Israeli Government Press Office, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Author Aharon Appelfeld is born near Czernowitz, then part of Romania and now in Ukraine. He and his father are sent to a Nazi concentration camp in 1941, and his mother and grandmother are killed. Appelfeld escapes at 10 and survives on the run until joining the Soviet army as a kitchen boy in 1944. He moves to the Land of Israel in 1946. His works earn him the Bialik Prize in 1979 and the Israel Prize in 1983.
February 17, 1948 — State Department Tries to Stop Partition
President Harry Truman (center) and Secretary of State George Marshall (right), shown with Dean Acheson, disagreed on U.S. endorsement of a Jewish state in Palestine. Harry S. Truman Library & Museum.
The State Department’s policy planning staff sends a memo to President Harry Truman and Secretary of State George Marshall to argue against the implementation of the U.N. partition resolution for Palestine, which the United States voted in favor of. The memo argues that a Jewish state will make Arabs angry at the United States, force the U.S. military to intervene after Arab armies win the war and enable Soviet interve
February 18, 1947 — Britain Asks U.N. to Sort Out Palestine
The U.N. Special Commission on Palestine proposed dividing Palestine into a Jewish state (in blue) and an Arab state (in yellow), with Jerusalem separated from both as an international zone.
Amid rising violence from and between Jews and Arabs, the British government asks the United Nations to decide the future of Palestine, for which the United Kingdom has held the mandate for 25 years. A special U.N. commission takes up the issue in April and delivers a plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. The Jews accept the plan; the Arabs reject it. The U.N. General Assembly approves partition Nov. 29, 1947.
February 19, 2009 — Yemeni Jews Secretly Are Flown to Israel
Like most of their community, Yemeni Jews fly to Israel during Operation Magic Carpet in December 1949. Ten of the few Jews left behind took the same journey Feb. 19, 2009. By David Eldan, National Photo Collection of Israel.
Facing threats from Al-Qaeda and other terrorists, 10 of the fewer than 300 Jews remaining in Yemen are secretly airlifted to Israel by the Jewish Agency. The immigrants include Said Ben Yisrael, the leader of the Jewish community. Yemen’s Jewish population was roughly 50,000 when Israel declared independence in 1948, but almost all were flown to Israel during Operation Magic Carpet in 1949 and 1950.
Items are provided by the Center for Israel Education (israeled.org), where you can find more details.