This Day, October 28, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
OCTOBER 2897: Emperor Nerva is forced by the Praetorian Guard, to adopt general Marcus Ulpius Trajanus as his heir and successor. Trajan would not become Emperor until Nerva died in January of the...
View ArticleThis Day, October 29, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
OCTOBER 29539 BCE: On the secular calendar, Babylonfell to Cyrus the Great of Persia. This is a significant date because it marked the start of the return of the exiles to Eretz Israelwhere the...
View ArticleThis Day, October 30, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
OCTOBER 301270: Eighth Crusade comes to an ignominious end. The crusade started under the banner of France’s anti-Semitic King Louis IX. But he died of stomach ailment in August. Effective leadership...
View ArticleThis Day, October 31, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
OCTOBER 31445 BCE: In Jerusalem Ezra, the Scribe reads the Scroll of the Law, the Torah, to the Jews of Judea as described in Nehemiah 9:1. 475: Twenty five years after the redaction of the Jerusalem...
View ArticleThis Day, November 1, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
November 11179: Philip II is crowned King of France. In 1180, Phillip would order the arrest of all Jews living in his realm based on charges of ritual murder. It should come as no surprise that two...
View ArticleThis Day, November 2, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
November 21285: King Peter III of Aragon passed away. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, Pedro III “protected the Jews from the hatred of the clergy, who destroyed their vineyards and disturbed...
View ArticleThis Day, November 3, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
November 3166 BCE (15th of Cheshvan, 3595): Mattathais ben Yochanan passed away.361: Roman Emperor Constantius II died. Constantius II enhanced the anti-Jewish policies begun by his father. Under his...
View ArticleThis Day, November 4, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
November 4 1310: King Jaime II issued a royal decree exempting Judah Bonseynor from all taxes to which the Aljama of Barcelona was usually required to pay. “The king also ordered that neither...
View ArticleThis Day, November 5, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
November 51370: King Casimir IIIof Polandpassed away. Born in 1310, he came to the throne in 1333. From the Jewish point of Casimir III was seen as a cut above the average ruler. He was favorably...
View ArticleThis Day, November 6, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
November 6355: Roman Emperor Constantius II promotes his cousin Julian to the rank of Caesar, entrusting him with the government of the Prefecture of Gaul. Constantius II followed the pro-Christian...
View ArticleThis Day, November 7, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
November 7305 B.C.E.: Ptolemy, a Macedonian general who had fought by the side of Alexander the Great, became King of Egypt. Alexander’s empire broke into three parts after his death. Jerusalem and...
View ArticleThis Day, November 8, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
November 830: Birthdate of Marcus Cocceius Nerva, the Roman Emperor who changed the way in which the special tax on Jews was collected so that would not be the humiliating experience created by his...
View ArticleThis Day, November 9, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
November 9 694: Opening meeting of the Seventeenth Council of Toledo during which the Visigoth Catholic monarch, King Egica publicly charged the Jews with planning to "exterminate and [destroy] their...
View ArticleThis Day, November 10, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
November 101217: During the Fifth Crusade, King Andrew II of Hungary defeated Sultan Al-Adi in what would prove to by a pyric on the banks of Jordan River. The Moslems retreated into fortified...
View ArticleThis Day, November 11, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
November 11603 BCE (7th of Kislev): King Jehoiakim burned the scroll which had been dictated by the prophet Jeremiah to Barcuh ben Heriah.518 BCE: A delegation of Babylonian Jews arrived in Jerusalem...
View ArticleThis Day, November 12, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
November 121414(Cheshvan, 5175): The Disputation of Tortosa, which had begun in February of 1413 came to an end after nine months. At the final session of the disputation the the Jews were forced to...
View ArticleThis Day, November 13, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
November 13354: Birthdate of St. Augustine of Hippo. While St. Augustine may be held in high regard by the Roman Catholic Church, he held the Jews in especially low regard. In his famous work The...
View ArticleThis Day, November 14, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
November 14109 BCE(25 Cheshvan, 3652): John Hyrcanus defeated the Samaritansin Samaria and destroyed their temple. The Samaritans were a mixed race who had been in conflict with the Jews since the end...
View ArticleThis Day, November 15, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
November 151215: Pope Innocent III opened the convocation of the Fourth Lateran Council, considered the most important council of the Middle Ages. By its conclusion it issued seventy reformatory...
View ArticleThis Day, November 16, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin
November 16 42 BCE: Birthdate of Tiberius, 2nd Roman emperor. The stepson of Augustus reigned from 14 to 37 C.E. A competent general with a sour disposition, Tiberius came to the thrown through the...
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