B"H
Yom Yom
B"H Yom Yom from
Day by Day in Jewish History
by Rabbi Abraham P. Bloch z"l
From THU 1st day Pesach to THU the 29th of Nissan
[15 Nissan]
Sara was brought to the house of Par'o. G-d made a covenant with Avraham. The angels appeared to inform Avraham that a son would be born to Sara. Birth of Yitzchak. Yitzchak summoned Eisav and requested that he prepare a tasty meal for him and receive his blessing. [This tradition was apparently based on the wording of Isaac's blessing: "May G-d give you of the dew of heaven". The Talmud fixed Nisan 15 as the beginning of the harvest season and the end of the rainy season. Thereafter rain is harmful but dew is beneficial.[Moses saw the burning bush. The Egyptian first-born were slain. First day of Pesach. The beginning of the Exodus. The Assyrian army of Sancherev, which had threatened Jerusalem, was destroyed. Yahrzeit of Job. Vashti was executed by order of Achashveirosh. Esther appeared before Achashveirosh to plead for the Jews. The defenders of Masada committed suicide, 73 C.E. The last resistance to the Roman conquest of Eretz Yisrael came to an end. An order to seize of all Portuguese Jewish children, ages 4-14 for forced conversion, 1497. The Vilna Gaon was born, 1720.
[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.
[16 Nissan]
Birth of Levi, third son of Yaakov. Jews had crossed the Jordan into Eretz Yisrael. The Omer was offered for the first time by the Jews in Eretz Yisrael. King Saul's seven sons were killed. Chizkiyahu HaMelech completed the rededication of the Beit HaMikdash. Haman was hanged. Mordecai was appointed chief minister to replace Haman. The alleged murder of William of Norwich, led to the first charge of ritual murder against Jews in the Middle Ages. The timing of ritual libels with Pesach is no coincidence. Arabs killed and wounded many Jews in Jerusalem, 1920.
[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.
[17 Nissan]
Solomon Etting, prominent businessman of Lancaster, Pa., was the first native American Jew to receive a limited authorization to function as a shohet, 1782. [The early American Jewish community, though mainly traditional, was too small to train its own religious functionaries and too distant to attract European scholars.]
[April 22]
Jews of Bavaria were granted equality, 1872. The first Jewish settlers arrived in Amsterdam, Holland, 1593.
[18 Nissan]
Par'o was informed that the Jews had escaped. A number of London Jews suffered martydom following ritual charges, 1279. Purim of the Bomb was celebrated by the Jews of Fossano, south of the Alps, to commemorate their escape from massacre, 1796.
[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.
[19 Nissan]
Par'o set out in pursuit of the Jews. Adolf Hitler made his first appearance on the anniversary of the day on which the first anti-Semite in Jewish history set out in pusuit of the Jewish people. Yahrzeit of Rabbi Menahem Zemba, HY"D. He was killed in the Warsaw ghetto, 1943. Yahrzeit of Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan, leader of Mizrachi, scholar and author, 1949.
[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.
[20 Nissan]
Par'o and his pursing army caught up with the Jews encamped at Pi-HaChirot by the sea. Yahrzeit of Rav Hai Gaon, the last of the geonim of Pumpedita, 1038. [The death of Rav Hai Gaon brought to a close the glorious epoch of Babylonian Jewry. For more than eight centuries Babylonia was the center of Jewish culture and creative scholarship. Its leaders provided the guidance and direction of Jewish religious development throughout the world. After the decline of Babylonian Jewry, the center of Jewish culture shifted in succeeding stages to North Africa, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Turkish Empire, and Eastern Europe. The post-Nazi period has witnessed the emergence of two new centers of Jewish learning - Israel and the United States.]
[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.
[21 Nissan]
Jacob left Laban's home to return to Eretz Yisrael. Par'o's decree against Jewish male infants was canceled. Jews crossed the Red Sea. Moshe and the people of Israel sand the Shira.
[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.
[22 Nissan]
Yehoshua began his march around Yericho. The encirclement of Jericho, which led to its destruction within seven days, constituted the first Jewish military action in ancient Eretz Yisrael.
[April 27]
Widespread Russian pogroms started in Elisabethgrad, 1881.
[23 Nissan]
A fast-day was observed by the Jewish community of Cologne in commemoration of anti-Jewish violence during the Second Crusade, 1147. Haganah captured the strategic village of Katamon, 1948.
[April 28]
Mussolini was executed by Italian partisans, 1945.
[24 Nissan]
The Jews paused at Mara after their crossing of the Red Sea. It was at Mara that the Jews spent their first Shabbat in the desert. [According to the Talmud, Moshe received preliminary instruction in Mara pertaining to a several of religious laws, in anticipation of the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. Jews were enjoined for the first time to observe the seven Noahite laws, to honor their parents, and to rest on the Shabbat. A talmudic passage elsewhere implies that the Shabbat laws dated from their arrival in the "wilderness of Sin" on Iyar 15.
[April 29]
Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Vilna, Poland, 1938. U.S. 7th army liberated Dachau, 1945.
[25 Nissan]
The Jews of the Exodus arrived at Elim, where they discovered 12 springs. They remained there for 20 days.
[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.
[26 Nissan]
The traditional yahrzeit of Joshua.
[May 1]
100 47 Jews were killed by Arabs in Jaffa, 1921. Jews from Eretz Yisrael bound for next page
Malta died when their ship was sunk by a German plane, 1943. Goebbels, Nazi minister of propaganda, committed suicide, 1945.
[27 Nissan]
Designated Holocaust Day, in commemoration of the martyred six million Jews and the fighters of the ghettos, by a resolution of the Knesset, 1951.
[May 2]
Massacre of the Jewish community of Bisenz, Austria, 1605. Pope calls upon all Christian princes to send back to Spain the Jews who had fled from the Inquisition, 1481.
[28 Nissan]
Fall of Jericho. An Arab attack on Petach Tikva was repelled by the Jewish settlers, 1936.
[May 3]
Jews of Speyer were massacred in the first Crusade, 1096. Council of Hanover ordered the severance of all business connections beteen Jews and Christians, 1588. Many Jews killed in anti-Jewish riots in Lemberg, 1667.
[29 Nissan]
3 Jews killed and many wounded by Arabs in Petach Tikva, 1921. Yahrzeit of Yitzchak Ben Zvi, 1963.
[May 4]
Tel Aviv was sacked by Arabs, 1917.
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