October - 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

October

[October 7]

Germany decreed that passports of Jews were to be marked with a J, 1939.
Hundreds of Jews in Cracow were killed during Hakafot, 1555.

[October 8]

Nazi pogrom against the Jews of Lodz, 1939.

[October 9]

Major attack in the Negev by Egypt, 1948.
Alexander I appointed a commission to help improve Jewish life in Russia, 1802. Israeli navy acquired its first submarine, 1958.
Casimir III of Poland renews Jewish privileges, 1334.

[October 11]

180 Jews killed in Munich, 1285.

[October 10]

Jews of Tunis and Tripoli massacred, 1864.
Sh'chita banned in Italy, 1938.

[October 12]

First Jewish deportees left Vienna and Bohemia, 1939.
Columbus discovered in America, 1492.
3,400 Jews of Galicia executed by Nazis, 1941.
Decorating the outside of a shul was forbidden in Sicily, 1366.

[October 13]

Censorship of Jewish books in Russia, 1796.
Jordan entered the Yom Kippur war, 1973.
Eliezer Ben Yehuda and friends decide to speak Hebrew exclusively, marking the beginning of the revival of the language in modern times, 1881.

[October 14]

JFoundation stone of the Knesset laid, 1958.
Major fighting between Egypt and Israel resumed, 1948.
Nazi plan for ghettoizing Jews in all big cities announced by Goering, 1938.
Episcopal Church cleared Jews of the charge of killing Jesus, 1964.

[October 15]

Dreyfus was first arrested, 1894.
First mass deporting of German Jews to Eastern European ghettos, 1941.

[October 16]

10 major Nazis were hanged after Nuremberg trials, 1946.

[October 17]

Political rights of Warsaw's Jews suspended, 1808.
Torquemada appointed Inquisitor-General, 1483.
"Zionism is racism", 1975.

[October 18]

Last Crusade ends, 1270.
Nazi war crimes trials open in Nuremberg, 1945.

[October 19]

200 Jews massacred in Germany, 1298.

[October 20]

British White Paper, 1930.

[October 21]

Volumes of the Talmud were burned in Venice, 1553.

[October 22]

Israeli forces sank Egypt's King Farouk (a ship), 1948.
6,300 Jews of Baden deported by the Nazis, 1940.
Cease fire between Israel and Egypt, Yom Kippur war, 1973.

[October 23]

Jews of Barbados forbidden to engage retail trade, 1668 (even there).
Jews of Rome prohibited from erecting tombstones, 1625 (looks like they'd tried everything).
Netanya founded, 1927 (named after the same person that the Israel Center's street is named for).
10,000 Jews of the Vilna ghetto executed, 1941.

[October 24]

20,000 Kharkov Jews fall into Nazi hands, 1941.
Quisling, Nazi head of Norway, executed, 1945.

[October 25]

New road to S'dom, 1948.
Romanian soldiers massacred 26,000 Jews of Odessa, 1941.

[October 26]

Nazis prohibit Sh'chita in Poland supposedly on humanitarian grounds, 1939 (in light of what they were doing to human beings, this could be the ultimate hypocrisy).
Mobs attack Jews of Cracow, 1407.

[October 27]

Belgium bans ritual slaughter, 1940.

[October 28]

10,000 Jews removed from Kovno ghetto for execution, 1941.
Birthday of Montefiore, 1784.

[October 29]

Town of Carmiel in the Galil founded, 1964 (twinned with Baltimore).
Bomb in Knesset wounded David Ben Gurion and four cabinet ministers, 1957.

[October 30]

Anne Frank deported from Auschwitz to Belsen, 1944, where she died five months later.

[October 31]

Pogrom in Odessa cost 300 Jewish lives, 1905.
Earthquake killed several hundred Tzfat Jews, 1759.

This Day in Jewish History Index