Today in Jewish History

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28 Nisan

In 1912, the RMS Titanic sank after crashing into an iceberg in the North Atlantic. The Titanic was the largest passenger and most luxurious steamship in the world at the time, accommodating over 2,000 passengers. Promoters bragged that it was "the ship that even God couldn't sink." The sinking resulted in the deaths of more than 1,500 people, ranking it as one of the worst peacetime maritime disasters in history, and by far the most famous. Here is a unique Jewish angle: As the ship began to sink, and passengers struggled for one of the few spots in a lifeboat, Leah Aks carried her baby Frank to the deck, trying to get on line to be rescued. In the pandemonium, one man's nerves snapped and he grabbed Leah's baby and threw him overboard. Leah was hysterical at having lost her precious baby, but she managed to get herself into a lifeboat and was saved. Two days later, she saw a woman holding a child -- her baby Frank! An argument ensued and the other woman refused to give up the baby, claiming it as her own. Leah said, "I can prove this is my child -- he is circumcised." (In Europe at that time, only Jewish children were circumcised.) The baby was duly reunited with his mother.

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29 Nisan

In 1945, U.S. soldiers liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp. Although not technically an extermination camp (prisoners were used as slave labor in local armament factories), mass killings took place at Buchenwald, and many inmates died in the course of gruesome medical experiments. Elie Wiesel, who went on to write stirring accounts of the Holocaust, for which he earned the Nobel Peace Prize, was an inmate at Buchenwald. Toward the end of the war, the Nazis evacuated inmates from Buchenwald to Flossenberg, where they were liberated.

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30 Nisan

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Chaim Vital (1543-1620), the primary disciple of the famed kabbalist, the Arizal. Rabbi Vital was born in Tzfat, studying under the great Rabbi Moshe Alshech and Rabbi Moshe Cordevero. The Arizal, who died at age 38, taught Rabbi Vital for only two years. But Rabbi Vital diligently transcribed the Arizal's teachings, which have served as the basis for all subsequent study of kabbalah. Rabbi Vital also authored his own kabbalistic work, Aitz Chaim.

Nissan 30 is also the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Yaakov Emden (1698-1776), known by the acronym Yavetz. Born in Germany, Rabbi Emden was the son of a great rabbi known as the Chacham Tzvi. Emden was a controversial figure who relentlessly opposed the Shabbatai Tzvi messianic movement, and accused the great Rabbi Yonason Eibshutz of being a follower of that movement. Shabbatai Tzvi was a dangerous character who had declared himself the Jewish messiah, and predicted that 1666 would be the year of Israel's redemption. When the prediction did not come true, Shabbatai Tzvi converted to Islam, leaving behind a distraught Jewish community. Rabbi Emden's scholarship is preserved in a set of responsa, She'eilat Yavetz.

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Iyar 2

In 1948, the Jewish soldiers of the Hagganah captured the city of Tzfat and the port of Haifa, just days prior to Israel's declaration of independence. Despite the disadvantages in numbers, organization and weapons, the Jews prevailed in the crucial battles, capturing several major towns and temporarily opening the strategic road to Jerusalem.

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Iyar 3

In 1556, 24 Jews were burned at the stake in Italy, by order of Pope Paul IV. These were Conversos -- Portuguese Jews who had had been forcibly converted to Christianity, yet continued to practice their Judaism in secret. During the Inquisitions designed to discover Conversos, an estimated 32,000 Jews were burned at the stake.

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4 Iyar

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveichik of Brisk (1810-1892), famed talmudic scholar and author of the Beis HaLevi commentary. Legend says that his first wife divorced him after mistakenly thinking he was an ignoramus. In 1854, Rabbi Soloveichik joined the leadership of the famed Voluzhin Yeshiva, the center of Jewish scholarship at that time. He was known for his great piety; it is said that his fear of sin was comparable to an ordinary person's fear when his life is in danger. He became rabbi of Brisk, Lithuania, thus launching the famous Brisker rabbinic dynasty; his son was the famed Rabbi Chaim Soloveichik.

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5 Iyar

In 1948, the State of Israel declared its independence, in a ceremony led by David Ben-Gurion in Tel Aviv. The first act of the new government was to remove British restrictions on Jewish immigration. The Declaration of Independence granted full civil rights to Arab citizens of Israel, and called for peace and cooperation with neighboring Arab countries. The following day, the armies of five Arab nations attacked Israel. Despite decades of hardship, terror and wars, Israel has become a world leader in research and agriculture -- and most of all, the center of spiritual inspiration for the Jewish world.

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6 Iyar

In 1881, a wave of pogroms swept 166 towns in southern Russia, after Jews were blamed for the assassination of Czar Alexander II. In these pogroms, thousands of Jewish homes were destroyed, and hundreds of Jews were killed and injured. The new czar, Alexander III, blamed the Jews for the riots and issued a series of harsh restrictions against the Jewish community. In the wake of these pogroms, some 2 million Jews fled Russia, many settling in the United States.

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7 Iyar

In 1943, the first Jewish agricultural settlement was established in the Negev, Kibbutz Gevulot. David Ben-Gurion believed that the Negev -- encompassing about half the land mass of Israel -- was the fledging country's great frontier. Though the Negev was virtually uninhabited and thought by many to be uncultivable, Ben-Gurion believed that the desert could be tamed and turned into an asset. Many agricultural innovations, such as the use of hydroponics, have been developed in order to cultivate the Negev. And today, Beersheba -- first known as the biblical watering hole for Abraham's sheep -- is a modern city of 190,000.

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8 Iyar

In 1516, the Jews of Venice were forced to move to an enclosed area, the site of an old metal foundry. The Italian word for foundry is "ghetto," thus giving rise to a byword that would, over the centuries, describe the persecution of Jews. In 1555, for example, Pope Paul IV created the Roman Ghetto, and in the 20th century the Nazis forced Jews into dozens of ghettos -- the Warsaw Ghetto alone held 450,000 people (30% of the entire population of Warsaw), crammed into a tiny area.

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9 Iyar

In 1948, the Arab Legion captured the police station on Mount Scopus, isolating it from the rest of Jerusalem. One month earlier, a convoy of 78 Jewish medical personnel en route to Mount Scopus were killed in a merciless Arab ambush. After 1948, Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital both closed their Mount Scopus facilities and relocated to western Jerusalem. When Jerusalem was reunited in 1967, these facilities reopened on Mount Scopus.

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10 Iyar

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Yitzhak Alfasi (1013-1103), popularly know by the acronym, Rif. Alfasi was born in Morocco, and studied in Tunisia under the famed Rabbeinu Chananel. Alfasi ushered in the era of "Rishonim" (lit: the first ones), the important rabbinic period which culminated in the 16th century Code of Jewish Law. Rabbi Alfasi wrote Sefer HaHalachot, the first codification of talmudic law and a precursor to the great codes of Maimonides and Rabbi Yosef Karo. Alfasi served for 40 years as head of the Jewish community of Fez, Morocco. At age 75, two informers denounced him to the government on a spurious charge, and he moved to Spain. The most famous of his many students is Judah HaLevi, author of the Kuzari.

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PKRAUSE

yes while I was gone more history was done

dgrimm60

Hey dgrimm Happy Sabbath and glad your back.

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11 Iyar

This date marks the death of Judah P. Benjamin (1811-1884), an American-Jewish statesman. Benjamin was the second Jew to serve in the U.S. Senate, representing Louisiana. When another senator accused Benjamin of being an "Israelite in Egyptian clothing," he replied: "It is true that I am a Jew, and when my ancestors were receiving their Ten Commandments from the immediate Deity, amidst the thundering and lightnings of Mount Sinai, the ancestors of my opponent were herding swine in the forests of Great Britain." Two U.S. presidents (Franklin Pierce and Millard Fillmore) offered to nominate Benjamin as the first Jew to the U.S. Supreme Court, but Benjamin declined. During the Civil War, Benjamin served in the cabinet of the Confederacy -- variously as Attorney General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State. (Remarkably, he was the only Confederate cabinet member who did not own slaves.) In the immediate aftermath of the war, there surfaced an unfounded rumor, tinged with anti-Semitism, that Benjamin had masterminded the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Fearing that he could never receive a fair trial, he burnt his personal papers and fled to England under a false name. Benjamin was buried in Paris.

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12 Iyar

In 1967, Egypt blocked the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping. On May 17, Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser demanded that UN monitoring forces evacuate the Sinai, a request with which UN Secretary-General U Thant cowardly complied. Nasser began the re-militarization of the Sinai, and concentrated tanks and troops on the border with Israel. On May 22, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, and blockaded the Israeli port of Eilat in the Gulf of Aqaba. The Egyptian blockade violated international law and Israel demanded that it cease. When Egypt failed to act, Israel launched a pre-emptive attack that destroyed 300 airplanes -- nearly the entire Egyptian Air Force -- in a matter of hours. Within days Israel had captured the entire Sinai Peninsula; this would be the bargaining chip for the Israeli-Egyptian Peace Accords of 1979.

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13 Iyar

In 1427, a decree was issued ordering all Jews expelled from Berne, Switzerland. Jews have wandered and settled in over 100 lands on five continents. Throughout the Middle Ages, Jews were subject to frequent expulsions. And amazingly, 90 percent of Jewish families were uprooted in the 20th century -- with mass immigration to America and Israel, and the tragic Holocaust. This is prophesied in Leviticus 26:33: "I will scatter you among the nations..." Yet amidst it all, the Jewish people have miraculously maintained their distinct national identity.

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Or should we say that history matches the Bible?

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14 Iyar

In 1960, Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was captured in Argentina. Eichmann was in charge of implementing the "final solution" to exterminate Jews in the concentration camps. In one seven-week period alone, Eichmann transported 400,000 Hungarian Jews to the gas chambers. Eichmann was captured through the efforts of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal and the Israeli Mossad (Secret Service). Eichmann was later put on trial in Israel, which was broadcast worldwide and featured the wrenching testimony of many Holocaust survivors. Eichmann was convicted and executed by hanging, the only capital punishment ever carried out in Israel. His body was cremated and ashes scattered at sea, so that no nation would serve as Eichmann's final resting place.

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16 Iyar

In the Hebrew year 2448, Manna fell for the first time in the desert of Sene. This came one month after the Exodus, as the supply of matzah the Israelites took from Egypt had run out. The Manna fell six days a week; a double-portion fell on Friday to include Shabbat. Unlike other miracles that were one-time events, the Manna continued to fall day after day throughout the 40 years of Jewish wandering in the desert.

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17 Iyar

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Yechezkel Landau (1713-1793), a brilliant scholar and leader known popularly by the title of his commentary, Nodeh BiYehuda. Rabbi Landau was born in Poland, and became rabbi of the large and influential community of Prague. He also authored Dagul Mervavah on the Shulchan Aruch and Tzelach on the Talmud. Rabbi Landau interceded with the government on various occasions to counter anti-Semitic measures. In one famous incident, the local bakers of Prague had secretly plotted to poison the bread and sell it only to the Jews. Late one night, there was a knock on Rabbi Landau's door. It was one on the bakers, who decades earlier Rabbi Landau had reached out to help. Out of gratitude, this man revealed the plot, and thousands of Jewish lives were saved.

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18 Iyar

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (100-170 CE), the great scholar and leader during the Roman period following the destruction of the Second Temple. After criticizing the Roman government, Rabbi Shimon was forced to go into hiding with his son for 13 years. They lived in a cave, studying Torah, and subsisting on carob and water. Rabbi Shimon is credited with authoring many works of Jewish law, including the Zohar, the primary source of Jewish mysticism, which he revealed to his students on his final day. Lag B'Omer -- literally the "33rd day of the Omer" -- is the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Shimon and, according to his wishes, is observed as a day of great celebration. Jews throughout Israel light huge bonfires, symbolically illuminating the deeper truths of Torah, as revealed by Rabbi Shimon. The main celebration is at Meiron, the Rabbi Shimon's burial site, where tens of thousands of people gather to light torches, sing and dance in his honor.

Iyar 18 is also the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Moshe Isserles (1530-1572), known by the acronym Rema. His most famous work was notes on the Code of Jewish Law (Shulchan Aruch); these opinions are regarded as the definitive source for Ashkenazi Jewry. The Rema was born and died in Krakow, Poland, where he served as rabbi of the city. Not only a Talmudic and legal scholar, he was also learned in Kabbalah, and studied history, astronomy and philosophy. He penned a Torah scroll that was preserved for centuries in his synagogue in Krakow, until being destroyed in the Holocaust.

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19 Iyar

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Meir of Rotenburg (1215-1293), a great Talmudic commentator and leader of German Jewry, known by the acronym Maharam. When leaving Germany, Rabbi Rotenburg was arrested on false charges, and a huge ransom was imposed for his release. The money was raised, but he forbade it to be paid, on the grounds that it would encourage further hostage-taking of Jewish leaders. At great personal sacrifice, he preferred to remain in prison, in order to save many others from a similar fate. He died in captivity seven years later, however his body was not surrendered for another 14 years, when a Jew named Alexander Suskind gave away most of his fortune to ransom the body -- on condition that he would later have the honor of being buried alongside Rabbi Rotenburg.

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Iyar 20

In 1311 BCE (Hebrew year 2449), the Jewish people left Mount Sinai to go to Israel. If the Jews hadn't complained about the difficulties of traveling in the desert, they would have entered the Land of Israel immediately. As it was, they wandered in the desert for 40 years before entering the land.

On this date in 1800, D.M. Dyte, an English Jew, saved the life of King George III of England. King George was attending a theater presentation, when a lunatic in the audience fired a gun pointblank at the king. Two bullets missed their target, passing harmlessly over the king's head. It was revealed that D.M. Dyte had struck the would-be assassin's arm as he pulled the trigger. As a reward, Dyte asked for (and was granted) a monopoly on the sale of opera tickets.

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[Gail]

George III? Mad King George?

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Iyar 21

In 1882, the Jewish agricultural settlement of Alliance was founded in New Jersey. Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe proposed this settlement as a utopian experiment, with the thought that through agriculture the Jewish people would become emancipated. Ultimately, the Alliance idea failed, as an industrializing, urban America proved more powerful than the settlers' plan.

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