October 6, 1973 — Yom Kippur War Begins
More than 70,000 Egyptian infantrymen and 1,000 tanks cross the Suez Canal on bridges erected overnight as Syria attacks Israeli positions in the Golan Heights, starting the Yom Kippur War. Egyptian artillery and warplanes bombard Israeli positions in the desert, and troops breach the Bar-Lev Line and secure a bridgehead. Syria follows an artillery bombardment by sending 40,000 men and two armored divisions into the Golan.
October 7, 2009 — Crystallographer Yonath Wins Nobel
Crystallographer Ada Yonath, 70, a native of Jerusalem and part of the chemistry faculty at the Weizmann Institute, is awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz for studies on the structure and function of the ribosome. Yonath is the first Middle Eastern woman to win a science Nobel. She also is the first woman anywhere since 1964 and the fourth overall to win the chemistry prize.
October 8, 1576 — Jews are Ousted from Safed
Ottoman Sultan Murad III orders 1,000 “rich and prosperous” Jewish residents of Safed to be moved to the city of Famagusta in Cyprus in the hope that they will spur economic development on the island. An additional 500 Jews from Safed are forced to move to Cyprus a year later. The Ottomans commonly use the policy of surgun (expulsion) to transfer groups within the empire for strategic purposes.
October 9, 1994 — Hamas Abducts Israeli Soldier
Hamas terrorists abduct soldier Nachshon Wachsman in central Israel by offering him a ride while wearing kippot and playing Hasidic music. A video shows Wachsman, who has U.S. citizenship, with his hands and feet bound. Hamas seeks the release of Sheik Ahmed Yassin and 200 other Palestinian prisoners by Oct. 14. Israel attempts a rescue, but Wachsman and the commander of the rescue team, Capt. Nir Poraz, are killed.
October 10, 1983 — Shamir is Named Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir becomes Israel’s seventh prime minister after fellow Likudnik Menachem Begin resigns for health and personal reasons. Shamir serves until an election in July 1984, which results in a national unity government led by Shimon Peres for two years, followed by Shamir for two years. Shamir is elected prime minister again in 1988 and serves until being defeated by Labor’s Yitzhak Rabin in 1992.
October 11, 1938 — Arab Congress Rejects Partition
Arab leaders meeting in Cairo adopt the Resolutions of the Inter-Parliamentary Congress, a response to the British Peel Commission’s 1937 proposal to partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. The Arabs reject partition and call for an end to Jewish immigration but accept the “sacrifice” of allowing Jews already in Palestine to remain. The British White Paper of 1939 largely adopts the Arab views on immigration and partition.
October 12, 1938 — Peace Educator Salomon is Born
Gavriel Salomon, the founder of the Center for Research on Peace Education at Haifa University and the dean of the university’s Faculty of Education from 1993 to 1998, is born. An advocate for coexistence programs and improved Arab education, Salomon wins the Israel Prize in 2001 for his contributions to Israeli education and to the pedagogical uses of communication and computer technology.
Items are provided by the Center for Israel Education (israeled.org), where you can find more details.