This Day in Jewish History

Our Thanks to Phil Chernofsky of the OU/NCSY Israel Center for Including This Material in His Remarkable Torah Tidbits, based on the book Day by Day in Jewish History by Rabbi Abraham P. Bloch z''l

This Day in Jewish History

April

[April 1]

  • Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Jerusalem, 1881.
  • The official Nazi boycott of German Jewish merchants started, 1933.
  • Hebrew University of Jerusalem was opened by Lord Balfour, 1925.
  • The emergence of the Nazi Party, 1920. (This happened on the anniversary of the day that Haman published his decree of extermination of the Jews.)

[April 2]

  • Menahem Begin visited Cairo, Egypt, 1979. (First visit by an Israeli Prime Minister to Egypt.)
  • Jews of Genoa, Italy, were expelled, 1550.
  • A number of London Jews were martyred following ritual charges, 1279.

[April 3]

  • Israel and Jordan signed an armistice agreement, 1949.
  • Emperor Charles V confirmed the privileges of Austrian Jews, 1544.

[April 4]

  • 26 Jews were wounded in Salzburg, Austria, in the first serious outbreak of postwar anti-Semitism, 1951.
  • The Russian revolutionary government granted equality to all Russian Jews for the first time in Russian history, 1917. (In the first decade of the 20th century Russia had, under its effective control and domination, about 50 percent of the total world Jewish population. The grant of equality by the Russian revolutionary government affected, therefore, a major part of world Jewry. By the end of the second decade Russia had under its jurisdiction only about 18 percent of the total Jewish population.)
  • Arabs killed and wounded many Jews in Jerusalem, 1920.

[April 5]

  • Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Dabrowa, Poland, 1938.
  • The Polish army executed 35 young Jews who had helped in the distribution of packages sent by the Joint to the Jewish community of Pinsk, 1919. (The relief activities of the Joint Distribution Committee were used by Russians, in the declining years of Stalin, as a pretext for their anti-Semitic charges of disloyalty against Soviet Jews.) Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Seville, Spain, 1464.

[April 6]

  • Jews of Prussia were granted equality, 1848.
  • The body of Baron Edmond de Rothschild was reinterred in Zichron Yaakov, the wine-producing village which had been established with his help, 1954.
  • First oil tanker to Eilat arrived with Persian Gulf oil, 1957.
  • Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece, 1941.
  • Nazis established two ghettos in Radom, Poland, 1941.

[April 7]

  • The Dutch West India Co. granted Michael Cardoso the right to practice law in Brazil 1645, a privilege no other Jew enjoyed at that time anywhere else. (Imagine how many Jewish lawyers there are today. Did you hear the one about the lawyer and the dentist? - never mind.)
  • First two Nazi anti-Jewish decrees, barring Jews from public service and law, 1933.

[April 8]

  • Nazis establish Kielce ghetto, 1941
  • Soldiers, incited by ritual charges, riot and kill 128 Jews in Bucharest, 1801.

[April 9]

  • Germany invaded Norway and Denmark, 1940.

[April 10]

  • The Chumash with Yiddish translation was published in Cremona, Italy, 1570.

[April 11]

  • Ritual charges resulted in pogroms on the island of Corfu, 1891.
  • Decree ordering the Jews of Barcelona to kneel when meeting a priest with the sacraments, 1302.
  • Tel Aviv was founded, 1909.
  • The cornerstone of the Haifa Technion was laid, 1912.
  • The trial of Adolph Eichmann on charges of genocide opened in Jerusalem, 1961.

[April 12]

  • 30 Jews killed in riots in Cracow, 1464.
  • U.S. forces liberated Buchenwald with its 20,000 inmates, 1945.
  • Knesset resolution, 1951, setting 27 Nissan as Yom HaSho'a.

[April 13]

  • Portuguese Marranos who had reverted back to Judaism were burned to death in Acona, Italy, 1556. A Jewish-led boycott of the port of Acona marked the first community-wide effort by "free" Jews, since the beginning of the Diaspora, to hit back at their enemies.

[April 14]

  • The first transport of Jews of Athens, Greece, left for Auschwitz, 1944.

[April 15]

  • Pope refuses to allow Jews of Cordova, Spain to build a shul, 1250
  • Pope granted liberal privileges to Jews of Rome, 1402.
  • Sinking of the Titanic, 1912.
  • British army liberated Belsen camp and its 40,000 inmates, 1945.

[April 16]

  • Po'al ha-Mizrachi, the religious Zionist labor movement, founded, 1922.
  • All civic limitations imposed on Jews of the German Empire were lifted, 1871. It may be said to have brought medieval anti-Semitism to a conclusion. Ten years later, almost to the day, Germany opened the new epoch of modern anti-Semitism (Nisan 26). The cycle is completed by the anniversary of the opening of the Eichmann trial.

[April 17]

  • Prussian Frederick the Great imposed oppressive restrictions upon Jews, 1750. His anti-Jewish policies foreshadowed the survival of anti-Semitism in the age of "Enlightenment".

[April 18]

  • 3000 Jews of Prague were massacred, 1389.

[April 19]

  • Belgium Jewish underground aided by Christian railroad men derailed a train with Jewish deportees bound for the extermination camps, several hundred Jews were saved, 1943.
  • Anti-Jewish violence broke out in Budapest, Hungary, 1848.
  • The Polish army occupied Vilna and attacked its Jewish community, 1919.
  • Massacre of Marranos of Lisbon, 1506.
  • Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Eretz Yisrael, 1936.

[April 20]

  • Napoleon "promised" the Jews of Eretz Yisrael the "reestablishment of ancient Jerusalem", coupled with a plea for their support, 1799. This was the first promise by a modern government to establish a Jewish state.
  • Adolf Hitler was born, 1889.

[April 21]

  • King Christian X of Denmark, attended the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Crystal Synagogue in Copenhagen to demonstrate his sympathy for the Jews, 1933.

[April 22]

  • Jews of Bavaria were granted equality, 1872.
  • The first Jewish settlers arrived in Amsterdam, Holland, 1593.

[April 23]

  • An order expelling Jews from Moscow was published, 1891.
  • Christians in France were forbidden, under pain of death, to shelter or converse with Jews, by order of Louis XIII, 1615.

[April 24]

  • Vladimir Jabotinsky was sentenced by the British mandatory government of Eretz Yisrael to 15 years of imprisonment for his participation in the Jewish self-defense corps, 1921.

[April 25]

  • The new Austrian constitution guaranteed freedom of the Jewish religion, 1848.
  • A petition signed by 250,000 Germans, 1881, was presented to the government requesting the barring of foreign Jews from admission into Germany. This petition marked the opening of modern German anti-Semitism.

[April 26]

  • The directors of the Dutch West India Co., in 1655, refused to grant permission to Governor Peter Stuyvesant to exclude Jews from New Amsterdam. This put an end to official efforts to bar Jews from North America. The Dutch West India Co. also specified that no restriction of trade be imposed upon the Jewish settlers. Thus it guaranteed not only the physical inviolability of the Jews but also their orderly economic development and progress. The only condition contained in the directive provided that "the poor among them shall be supported by their own nation." This gave further impetus to the growth of Jewish philanthropy in the New World.

[April 27]

  • Widespread Russian pogroms started in Elisabethgrad, 1881.

[April 28]

  • Mussolini was executed by Italian partisans, 1945.

[April 29]

  • Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Vilna, Poland, 1938.
  • U.S. 7th army liberated Dachau, 1945.

[April 30]

  • Decree by Russia forbidding Jews from importing books in any language, 1800.
  • First enclosed and guarded ghetto established by the Nazis in Lodz, 1940.

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