B"H Yom Yom

B"H Yom Yom from Day by Day in Jewish History
by Rabbi Abraham P. Bloch z"l

Covers THU Rosh Chodesh to WED Erev Pesach

[1 Nissan]

• The erection of the Mishkan was completed. Moshe completed the consecration rites of Aaron and his sons. Aaron performed the first sacrificial rites. Death of Nadav and Avihu, sons of Aaron.
• King Hezekiah commenced the reconsecraton of the Temple.
• Cyrus was crowned "King of Babylonia and King of all lands, "538 B.C.E. The crowning of King Cyrus made possible the restoration of an autonomous Jewish community in Eretz Yisrael and the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash. Ezra, who was to restore the primacy of religion in the life of the Jewish community, left Babylonia on the anniversary of Cryus' coronation.
• The plot of Bigtan and Teresh to assassinate Achashveirosh was discovered by Mordechai.
• Ezra and his followers left Bavel for Jerusalem, 457 B.C.E.

[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.

[2 Nissan]

• Moshe performed the first para aduma rite.
• Jews of Mayence, Germany, were massacred, 1283.
• King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella signed a decree expelling Jews from Spain, 1492.
• Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Jerusalem, 1881.

[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.

[3 Nissan]

• A decree expelling Jews form Spain and Sicily was issued, 1492.
• In the Children's Action of 1944, Nazis raided the Kovno ghetto and removed all children for execution. Anti-Jewish persecutions were generally aimed at the people as a whole, regardless of age. There were instances, however, where children were singled out as the victims of a discriminating decree. Pharaoh's order to drown all male infants was the earliest example of this type of legislation.

[April 8]

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

[4 Nissan]

• Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Dabrowa, Poland, 1938.
• A convoy of physicians, scientists, and guards, totaling 75 people, was ambushed on the way to Mt. Scopus, 1948.

[April 9]

• Germany invaded Norway and Denmark, 1940.

[5 Nissan]

• Yehoshua sent scouts to survey Jericho and the surrounding territory
• Rehovot was attacked by Arabs, 1893.
• 2500 Jews of Lublin were massacred and the rest of the Jews were deported, 1942.

[April 10]

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

[6 Nissan]

• The town of Afula was founded, 1925.

[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.

[7 Nissan]

• Jews of York, England, committed mass suicide rejecting an invitation to submit to baptism, 1190.
• Hebrew University opened in Jerusalem, 1925.

[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.

[8 Nissan]

• The feast of Achashveirosh, which lasted for 180 days, came to and end.
• Yahrzeit of Rabbi Eliyahu Shapira of Prague, author of Eliyahu Rabba, 1712.
• First rabbinic opposition to Hasidism was announced in Vilna, 1772. A cheirem, endorsed by the Vilna Gaon, was publshed in 1777 and again in 1781.

[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.

[9 Nissan]

• 57 Jews were killed in Bury St. Edmunds, England, 1190.
• Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Seville, Spain, 1391. (The riots took place on Ash Wednesday and initiated a wave of violence which spread rapidly over the Iberian Peninsula, claiming 50,000 victims before the year was up. A substantial number of Jews escaped with their lives only at the cost of converting. This marked the emergence of Marranos, said to number 200,000, in the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile. They were to provide countless martyrs in the Old and New Worlds for centuries to come.
• Jews of Vienna, Austria, were accused of profaning the host. Many of those who refused to embrace Christianity were burned at the stake, 1421.

[April 14]

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

[10 Nissan]

• Yahrzeit of Miram. The mobile well, which supplied water to the Jews in the desert, dried up.
• The Jews, led by Yehoshua, crossed the Jordan and erected 12 monuments at Gilgal. Tradition also puts Yehoshua's composing of the second paragraph of Birkat haMazon.

[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.

[11 Nissan]

• Brit Mila of the generation of the Wilderness upon entering Eretz Yisrael.
• Yahrzeit of the Ramban, 1270.
• Yahrzeit of the SH'LA 51270. HaKadosh, 1630.

[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.

[12 Nissan]

• Ezra and his followers departed from the River Ahava on their way to Jerusalem, 457 B.C.E.

[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".

[13 Nissan]

• Haman published decree calling for the extermination of all the Jews of the Persian Empire. Esther ordered the 3-day fast for the Jews of Shushan
• Rav Ovadya Bartinuro arrived in Jerusalem, 1488.
• Yahrzeit of Rav Yoseph Caro, 1575.
• Yahrzeit of Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Lubavich, the Zemach Zedek, 1866.

[April 18]

• 3000 Jews of Prague were massacred, 1389.

[14 Nissan]

• Kayin and Hevel offer their sacrifices to G-d.
• Fast of the firstborns.
• The first Korban Pesach by the Jews in Egypt.
• Naomi and Ruth arrived in Beit Lechem.
• Warsaw ghetto uprising broke out, 1943.

[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.

cont. IY"H next issue

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