c 1476 BCE- The children of Israel arrived at Eilim where they discovered 12 springs of water. They remained there for 20 days.

 

4th century BCE- Egyptian representatives appeared in the court of Alexander the Great, demanding that the Jews pay restitution for all the Egyptian gold and silver they took along with them during the Exodus.

Gevihah the son of Pesisa, a simple but wise Jew, requested the sages' permission to present a defense on behalf of the Jews. Gevihah asked the Egyptians for evidence that the Jews absconded with their wealth. "The crime is clearly recorded in your Torah," the Egyptians gleefully responded. "In that case," Gevihah said, "the Torah also says that 600,000 Jews were unjustly enslaved by the Egyptians for many, many years. So first let us calculate how much you owe us..." The court granted the Egyptians three days in which to prepare a response. When they were unable to do so they fled on the following day, the 25th of Nisan, and never returned. In Talmudic times, the day when the Egyptian delegation fled was celebrated as a mini-holiday.

 

1801- Soldiers, incited by ritual charges, riot and kill 128 Jews in Bucharest.

 

April 16, 1871- All civic limitations imposed on Jews of the German Empire were lifted. This brought medieval anti-Semitism to a conclusion but ten years later, almost to the day, Germany opened a new epoch of modern anti-Semitism. (26 Nissan 1881)

 

April 21, 1933- King Christian X of Denmark attended the 100th anniversary celebration of a synagogue in Copenhagen, to demonstrate his solidarity with the Jews. During the Holocaust, King Christian served as a rare example of refusal to cooperate in the murder of Jews. Almost all of the Jews of Denmark survived the war, while those in almost every other Nazi-occupied nation had their ranks decimated.

In September 1943, the Nazis decided to deport all Danish Jews to the death camps -- but overnight a rescue organization was established and Danes from all walks of life helped to ferry some 6,000 Jews to safety in Sweden. Remarkably, less than two percent of the Jewish population of Denmark perished -- and Denmark later apologized for sending 19 Jews to concentration camps. One story (probably apocryphal, and popularized by Leon Uris in his book, Exodus) says that King Christian X bravely promised to wear a yellow star if the Jews would be forced to do so.

 

April 21, 1933- Shechita (the form of slaughter required for kosher meat) is banned in Germany by the Nazi government.

 

April 17, 1936- Anti-Jewish riots broke out in the Land of Israel.

 

April 17, 1938- An embargo went into effect on the property of Austrian Jews.

 

April 11, 1961- The trial of Adolph Eichmann on charges of genocide opened in Jerusalem.

 

Torah Portion

unknown

 

 

or view this week's triennial cycle reading.

Today is

Yom Chamishi, 18 Adar II, 5784

Thursday, March 28, 2024

 

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