This Day in History – 4 Av/July 11

4 Av

In 3314/447 B.C.E., the silver and gold that Ezra and his followers brought to build the second Beis Hamikdash was weighed.

In 3317/444 B.C.E., Nechemiah began to construct a wall around Yerushalayim. The construction lasted 52 days.

In 5704/1944, the Lublin concentration camp was liberated by the Russian army.

Yahrtzeiten

5343/1583, Harav Avraham Luzatto, zt”l

5380/1620, Harav Menachem Azaryah, zt”l, the Rama of Pano

5382/1622, Harav Avraham ben Harav David, zt”l, Rav of Lvov and mefaresh of the Rif

5661/1901, Harav Tzvi Meir Hakohen Rabinowitz, zt”l, Rav of Radomsk, son of the Tiferes Shlomo

5664/1904, Harav Efraim Taub of Kuzmir, zt”l

5701/1941, Harav Benzion Halberstam, the second Bobover Rebbe, mechaber of Kedushas Tziyon, Hy”d. He was killed along with thousands of other Jews by the Nazis, y”s, in a forest near Lvov.

5703/1943, Harav Yehoshua Heshel Horowitz Sternfeld, Hy”d, of Chenchin-Elkosh

5764/2004, Harav Shimon Nosson Notta Biderman, zy”a, Rebbe of Lelov-Yerushalayim

5662/1902

Harav Tzvi Meir Hakohen Rabinowitz, zt”l, Rav of Radomsk, son of the Tiferes Shlomo

Harav Tzvi Meir Hakohen Rabinowitz was born in 5601/1841. His father was Harav Shlomo of Radomsk, the Tiferes Shlomo.

From his earliest youth, he was seen as an outstanding masmid, and was also known for his vast memory. The Tiferes Shlomo once said of his son, “He is a shelf full of sefarim.”

Reb Tzvi Meir would rise many hours before dawn, and after breaking the frozen waters in the mikveh, would learn works of Kabbalah, mainly of the Arizal. After day broke, he would learn a Gemara shiur with the bachurim.

Following his father’s petirah, on 29 Adar 5626/1866, Reb Tzvi Meir, fondly known as Reb Hirsh Meir, was appointed Rav in Radomsk in place of his father.

Reb Tzvi Meir was renowned for his mesirus nefesh in his avodas Hashem.

He was niftar on 4 Av, 5662/1902, at the age of 61. He was buried the next day, near his father, in the Ohel of Radomsk.

His sons were Harav Emanuel Gershon, Rav in Modzhitz; Harav Yitzchak Mordechai, Rav in Polana; and Harav Yisrael Pinchas, who served as Rav in Radomsk.

Many of Reb Tzvi Meir’s chiddushim and divrei Torah on the Torah remain in manuscript form.

Zecher tzaddik livrachah.

July 11

In 1767, John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States, was born in Braintree, Mass.

In 1798, the U.S. Marine Corps was formally re-established by a congressional act that also created the U.S. Marine Band.

In 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton during a pistol duel in Weehawken, N.J.

In 1859, Big Ben, the great bell inside the famous London clock tower, chimed for the first time.

In 1952, the Republican national convention, meeting in Chicago, nominated Dwight D. Eisenhower for president and Richard M. Nixon for vice president.

In 1979, the abandoned U.S. space station Skylab made a spectacular return to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere and showering debris over the Indian Ocean and Australia.

In 1988, nine people were murdered when suspected Palestinian terrorists attacked hundreds of tourists aboard a Greek cruise ship, the City of Poros, which was steaming toward a marina in suburban Athens.

In 1995, the U.N.-designated “safe haven” of Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina fell to Bosnian Serb forces, who then carried out the killings of 8,000 Muslim men and boys.