Tammuz

[1 Tammuz]

• Yaakov and family went down to Mitzrayim (according to one source. This would be the establishment of the first voluntary Jewish settlement outside of Eretz Yisrael).
• Many Jews were killed by a riotous mob in Seville, 1391. The riots spread throughout Spain.
• Yahrzeit of Rabbi Shlomo Kluger, 1869.
• Massacre of 2300 Lithuanian Jews by Lithuanians, 1941.

[2 Tammuz]

• Rabbi Shmuel b. Yechiel of Cologne was killed by Crusaders, 1096. Earthquake hits Eretz yisrael, 1927.

[3 Tammuz]

• Yehoshua “commanded” the Sun and the Moon to stand still.
• Rabbi Menashe b. Yisrael petitioned for permission to practice Judaism in England. Permission was granted by the Council of State, 1656.
• Yahrzeit of Rabbi Bernard Illowy, 1871. A staunch opponent of the Reform movement, he was the first Orthodox rabbi with a PhD from Europe to settle in the U.S.
• 1500 Jews of Kovno and 11,000 Jews in Kishinev were killed, 1941.
• Emperor Alexander II of Russia gave the Jews permission to print Jewish books, 1871.
• The Yahrzeit of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

[4 Tammuz]

• Yahrzeit of Rabbeinu Tam, 1171.
• Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg was imprisoned, 1286.
• 40 Jews killed on charges of ritual murder, 1286.
• 1000 Jews in Poland tortured and killed by Cossacks, 1648.
• Jerusalem bombed for the first time in its history, 1948.

[5 Tammuz]

• Yechezkeil’s first prophecy, 502b.c.e.
• Memorial fast day for approx. 50,000 Ukrainian Jews killed in 1768.

[6 Tammuz]

• Crusaders massacred Jews of Mehr, 1096.
• 24 wagonloads of Sifrei Kodesh burned in Paris, 1242.
• Hebrew date of the raid at Entebbe.

[7 Tammuz]

• Ukrainian rioter kill many Jews, 1919.
• Hundreds of Jews of Yurburg, Lithuania executed by the Nazis, 1941.

[8 Tammuz]

• Jews expelled from Genoa, 1567.
• Queen-Mother of Spain abolished the Inquisition, 1834.
• Pogrom in Bialystok, 1903.

[9 Tammuz]

• Nevuchadnezer’s army breached the walls of Jerusalem, 586bce.
• Pompey captured Jerusalem and killed 12,000 Jews, 63bce.
• Anti-Jewish riots in Austria, 1230.

[10 Tammuz]

• Tzidkiyahu HaMelech was captured by the Babylonians, 586bce.
• 12 Jews of Cologne were martyred, 1266.
• Fast observed by the Jewish community of Frankfort on the Maine to mark the escape of the Jewish quarter from a major fire, 1720.

[11 Tammuz]

• Purim of Tammuz for Jews of Algiers to mark their escape from attack by the Spanish army, 1774.

[12 Tammuz]

• Massacre of the Jews of Weiner-Neustadt, Austria, 1298.
• Jews denounced to the Inquisition received the right to face their accusers, 1298. This had not always been so. It is an issue in many episodes of Jewish and World history, ranging from the Roman Coliseum through European dictatorships to the McCarthy senate hearings.
• Yahrzeit of the Baal HaTurim, 1340.
• Nazis executed 5000 Jews in the fortress of Kovno, 1941.
• Yahrzeit of Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, HY”D, 1941.

[13 Tammuz]

• First printed edition of Sefer HaChinuch, 1523. It still makes the great Bar Mitzva gift 477 years later.
• The Jew badge was decreed for all Jews in the Baltic States, 1941.
• Minsk (Russia) was captured by the Germans, 1942 trapping about 40,000 Jews in the city.

[14 Tammuz]

• 250 Jews were killed in Rothenburg, Germany, 1298.
• 30 Jews of Schaffhausen (Switzerland) were burned at the stake on ritual murder charges, 1401.

[15 Tammuz]

• Chur, son of Miriam was killed attempting to dissuade the people from demanding the golden calf. As such he is the first Jew to die “Al Kiddush HaShem”, in defense of his faith.
• Druse Arabs attacked the Jews of Tzfat, 1838.

[16 Tammuz]

• The golden calf emerged from the fire into which gold of Bnei Yisrael was thrown.
• Pope confiscated all manuscripts of the Talmud, 1239.

[17 Tammuz]

• Fast day and beginning of the Three Weeks.
• The first Luchot were broken.
• King Menashe placed an idol in the Beit HaMikdash.
• The Korban Tamid was discontinued in the second Beit HaMikdash.
• 4000 Jews were killed in Toledo, Spain, 1391. The riots spread to many other Spanish Jewish communities bringing death and poverty in its wake.
• The destruction of Spanish Jewry began on the 17th of Tammuzand was completed (so to speak) 101 years later on Tish’a b’Av.
• The American colonies declared their independence, 1776.
• 4000 Jews of the ghetto in Bialystok were shot, 1941.

[18 Tammuz]

• Moshe Rabeinu destroyed the Golden Calf
• Louis IX decreed that all Jews must wear the distinctive yellow badge, known as the badge of shame.
• Massacre of the Jewish community of Morgentheim, Austria, 1298.
• Purim of Candia (Crete), from 1583.

[19 Tammuz]

• Moshe ascended Har Sinai a second time. (Rashi says that Elul 1 to Yom Kippur was the third time)
• The first 14 members of BILU reached Yafo, 1882.
• 6000 Lithuanian Jews were killed in Viszalsyan camp – 1941.
• Yahrzeit of Rabbi Yitzchak HaLevi Herzog, first chief rabbi of the State of Israel, 1959.

[20 Tammuz]

• Jews of Telz, including the heads of the yeshiva, were killed by the Nazis, 1941.
• Nazis destroyed the Kovno ghetto, 1944.
• Knesset bill, 1950, granting every Jew the absolute right to settle in Israel.

[21 Tammuz]

• Jews were barred from settling in Brazil, 1567. (Somehow, barring Jews from settlement in Brazil does not seem as as heinous as a gov’t of Israel talking about dismantling settlements or relinquishing sovereignty over them.)
• Don Lope de Vera y Alarcon HY”D, Spanish nobleman, convert to Judaism, known as Judah the Believer, was killed by the Inquisition, 1644. The Inquisition “stayed in business” for 182 more years – to the day -executing its last victim in 1826.
• Yahrzeit of Rabbi Shlomo Polyatchek, 1928.
• Bendin (Poland) ghetto uprising, 1942.

[22 Tammuz]

• Marranos were permitted to leave Portugal, 1557.
• Yahrzeit of the “Pardes Rimonim”, 1570.

[23 Tammuz]

• Crusaders captured Jerusalem, 1099.
• Chmielnicki hordes attack Vilna, 1655, killing many Jews.

[24 Tammuz]

• Crusaders gathered the Jews of Jerusalem into a shul and set it aflame, 1099. All perished in the fire. Jews were barred from the city for the following 88 years.
• Yahrzeit of Rabbi Yaakov Joseph (RJJ), 1902.

[25 Tammuz]

• Jews of Lithuania received a Charter of Privilege, 1388. (Interesting how differently one country behaved towards the Jews in different periods of time. And how other countries also varied in their behavior, but not matched to others.)
• Anti-Jewish rioters attacked the funeral procession of Rabbi Yaakov Joseph in New York City, 1902.

[26 Tammuz]

• Yahrzeit of Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried, author of Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (and other works), 1886. It was estimated that over a 250,000 copies of the KSA were extant at the time of the authors death. Imagine how many copies since then has been printed and sold.
• Jews of Upina, Lithuania were executed by the Nazis, 1941.

[27 Tammuz]

• Pope Innocent III promulgated a Church doctrine that the Jews were doomed to perpetual servitude and subjugation because they had killed Jesus, 1205. (The charge of deicide against the Jews was not officially removed from Church doctrine until 1963. There are still many Christians who believe in the guilt of the Jews, and many who act upon that belief.)
• The third expulsion of the Jews of France, 1322. (One wonders why they kept coming back.)
• A Jew and the Russian naval officer who converted to Judaism, having been influenced and/or taught by that Jew, were both burned at the stake in St. Petersburg, 1738.
• Jews of Holstein, Germany were granted equality, 1893.

[28 Tammuz]

• 41 Jews were burned at the stake in Breslau, 1453. the rest of the
• Jews were expelled.
• Jews of Brussels were ordered expelled, 1716.
• Jews of Hebron were attacked by Arabs, 1835.
• 5000 Jews of Rovno, Polish Ukraine, were killed by the Nazis, 1942.
• Note: Every time I include an item relating to a specific town, I realize that most people probably never heard of the place. But I know that some people have. And a few, or even one, maybe came from there. Or a member of the family. And the item means something special to that person. 41 Jews here, 5000 Jews there, 30,000 somewhere else, 1 Jew in yet another place. Places and times and numbers all vary. The death of a Jew, anywhere, any place, any time – because they were Jewish – affects (or should) us all.

[29 Tammuz]

• Yahrzeit of Rashi, “best friend” of anyone who learns Torah or Talmud, 1105.
• The entire male Jewish population of Grodz, Lithuania was killed by the Nazis, 1941.