Today in Israeli History: January 19 – January 25

January 19, 1990 — Resolution 242 Author Arthur Goldberg Dies

Arthur Goldberg is sworn in as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 1965. He took the post to try to end the Vietnam War, then helped draft the intentionally vague land-for-peace formula of Resolution 242.

Arthur Goldberg, a former U.S. Supreme Court justice and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, dies at home in Washington at age 81. The Chicago native was a labor lawyer before President John F. Kennedy named him Labor Secretary in 1961, then appointed him to the Supreme Court the next year. Goldberg became U.N. ambassador in 1965 and helped draft and push through U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 after the June 1967 Middle East war.

January 20, 1942 — ‘Final Solution’ is Planned at Wannsee

Nazis gathered at this villa in Wannsee, outside Berlin, to plan the elimination of European Jewry.

After trying mass shootings in the Soviet Union, Gestapo head Reinhard Heydrich convenes leading Nazis at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to draft the “Final Solution” to the existence of European Jewry. The plans call for a shift from the promotion of Jewish emigration to a policy of deportation and resettlement in conquered territory to the east, where Jews will be imprisoned in deadly labor camps and extermination camps.

January 21, 1882 — BILU Founding Launches First Aliyah

BILU pioneers work the fields of Moshava Gedera in 1910.

BILU, whose name comes from the Isaiah verse Beit Yaakov lekhu venelkha (“House of Jacob, let us go”), is founded by 30 students at the home of Israel Belkind in Kharkov, Ukraine. Responding to a wave of Russian pogroms that began in April 1881, BILU sets the groundwork for the First Aliyah of the Jewish people back to the Land Israel. Belkind leads the first group of 14 to Ottoman Palestine less than six months later.

January 22, 2013 — 19th Knesset is Elected

Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu thanks supporters at an election celebration Jan. 22, 2013. By Yotam Ronen/Activestills.

After the dissolution of the Knesset over a budget dispute in October, Israel votes for the 19th Knesset. The results enable Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to remain in power, but he needs eight weeks to form a government because of the loss of right-wing legislative seats. Netanyahu’s Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu, running with a combined list, drop from 42 to 31 members of the Knesset, while Yair Lapid’s new Yeah Atid wins 19 seats.

January 23, 1950 — Knesset Declares Jerusalem the Capital

The King David Hotel and YMCA are seen in Jerusalem in 1950.

The Knesset votes 60-2 to adopt a Cabinet-drafted resolution declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel. Members of the left-wing Mapam and the right-wing Herut abstain. Herut fails in a bid to amend the resolution to explicitly declare all of Jerusalem as the capital, despite the occupation of half the city by Transjordan. Two Communist lawmakers vote no on the resolution because they favor the official U.N. position of an international status for Jerusalem.

January 24, 1941 — Nobel Laureate Dan Shechtman is Born

Dan Shechtman’s work “eventually forced scientists to reconsider their conception of the very nature of matter,” according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Technion — Israel Institute of Technology.

Dan Shechtman, Israel’s 10th Nobel Prize winner, is born in Tel Aviv. Trained at the Technion, where he teaches, he is on sabbatical at Johns Hopkins University when he discovers by studying the diffraction of X-rays through crystals that some crystals grow without a repeating pattern. He publishes his findings on “quasicrystals” in 1984, and, despite scientific ridicule, he is proved correct and wins the Nobel in chemistry in 2011.

January 25, 1956 — Eban, Dulles Discuss Arms Deal

Abba Eban, shown during a U.N. General Assembly debate over a cease-fire along the Suez Canal in November 1956, failed to win a U.S. arms deal for Israel that year. U.N. Photo Library.

Abba Eban, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, and John Foster Dulles, the U.S. secretary of state, discuss a proposal for a $50 million weapons sale in response to Egypt’s agreement to obtain $80 million in arms from the Soviet Union. But the idea for the first major U.S. arms deal with Israel goes nowhere under President Dwight Eisenhower, who in 1960 says Israel receives enough weaponry from France and Britain.

Items are provided by the Center for Israel Education (israeled.org), where you can find more details.