This Day in History – 14 Elul/August 20

14 Elul

In 5700/1940, the Nazis decreed that Jews had no rights to any property.

In 5701/1941, the Jews of Vilna were confined to the ghetto and 1,668 Jews of Radomysl, Poland, were executed by the Nazis. Hy”d.

Yahrtzeiten

5560/1800, Harav Yitzchak Gotinyu of Izmir, Turkey, zt”l, author of Beit Yitzchak

5688/1928, Harav Yaakov Malul, Rav of Vezan, zt”l

5627/1867

Harav Yosef Yoska Ashkenazy, zt”l, mechaber of Ohel Yosef

Harav Yosef Yoske was the son of Harav Yisrael Ashkenazi, author of Halachah Adam M’Yisrael, his chiddushim on masechtos Brachos, Shabbos, Eruvin, Pesachim and Rosh Hashanah. Reb Yisrael served as Rav in Zlavin and in Lokatch.

He was a grandson of Harav Avraham Abele of Ludmir and Brobshov, who in turn was a grandson of Harav Meir Zak, the Rav of Lvov (Lemberg).

He married the daughter of Rav Shmuel, Rav in Tchortkov and Zhvallin.

Reb Yosef Yoske was Rav in Fudamkin, near Brod. He was a gaon in Torah, a Chassid, and a kadosh. He was the mechaber of Ohel Yosef on masechtos Brachos, Eruvin, Pesachim, Yoma, Sukkah and Beitzah. His son Rav Yitzchak Yaakov, Rav in Poritzen, published the sefer with an appendix of his own chiddushim.

Reb Yosef Yoske was niftar on 14 Elul, 5627/1867.

Yehi zichro baruch.

Aug. 20

In 1833, Benjamin Harrison, 23rd president of the United States, was born in North Bend, Ohio.

In 1862, The New York Tribune published an open letter by editor Horace Greeley calling on President Abraham Lincoln to take more aggressive measures to free the slaves and end the South’s rebellion.

In 1866, President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over, months after fighting had stopped.

In 1910, a series of forest fires swept through parts of Idaho, Montana and Washington, killing at least 85 people and burning some 3 million acres.

In 1940, during World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill paid tribute to the Royal Air Force before the House of Commons, saying, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

In 1953, the Soviet Union publicly acknowledged it had tested a hydrogen bomb.

In 1955, hundreds of people were killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria.

In 1968, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations began invading Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring” liberalization drive.

In 1977, the United States launched Voyager 2, an unmanned spacecraft carrying a 12-inch copper phonograph record containing greetings in dozens of languages, samples of music and sounds of nature.

In 1988, a cease-fire in the war between Iraq and Iran went into effect.

Eight British soldiers were killed by an Irish Republican Army land mine that destroyed a military bus near Omagh, County Tyrone in Northern Ireland.

In 1992, shortly after midnight, the Republican National Convention in Houston re-nominated President George H.W. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle.