November

[November 1]

• Jews of England imprisoned, 1210, by orders of King John.

[November 2]

• Nazis liquidated Riga ghetto, 1943.
• Weizmann Institute of Science dedicated in Rehovot, 1949.
• Order from Berlin to suspend killing of Jews at Auschwitz, 1944.
• 12,000 Jews massacred by Chmielnicki’s forces, 1648.
• Balfour Declaration issued, 1917.

[November 3]

• First settlers to Petach Tikva area, 1878.
• Jews of Paris expelled, 1394.

[November 4]

• Jews of Florence, Italy rounded up and deported, 1943.

[November 5]

• Israel Captured Sharm-el- Sheikh, 1956.
• Last of Aden’s Jews arrives in Israel, 1967.
• King Casimir III of Poland (good to the Jews) died, 1370.
• Jacob Barsimon and Asher Levy of New Amsterdam (later New York) petitioned for the right to stand guard and be relieved of the special tax imposed on the Jews because they didn’t do guard duty – which were not allowed to do. (This was not an uncommon “game” played by many of our Diaspora “hosts”. Forbid the Jews from some aspect of communal life and then exact from them an exorbitant tax for their non-participation in society. Or — how about this one? —require their wearing a yellow badge or a special humiliating hat and then charge them a large amount of money for being exempt from wearing it.)
• Congregation Bracha V’Shalom of Surinam was dedicated, 1685. It was one of the oldest congregations in America.

[November 6]

• First anti-Semitic attack over the radio in the U.S. was broadcast, 1938.
• Jews of Austria forbidden to have first names of Christian saints, 1834.
• Abe Beame, first Jewish mayor of New York City, 1973.
• Chana Senesh (Szenes) was executed in Budapest, by the Nazis, 1944.
• 500 Jews of Kolomyya, Galicia and 15,000 Jews of Rowno, Poland were massacred by the Nazis, 1941.
• 12,000 Jews of Minsk were executed by the Nazis, 1942.

[November 7]

• British capture Gaza from Turkey, 1917.
• Solomon Molcho, Marrano kabbalist and mystic, was burned at the stake, 1532.

[November 8]

• Get this one – the U.S. agrees not to protest against Swiss discrimination against American Jews (go ahead; read it again), 1855 (a commercial treaty was at stake).
• First gov’t. census in Israel counts 712,000 Jews and 68,000 Arabs.

[November 9]

• Kristallnacht, 1938, during which 300 shuls and hundreds of Jewish businesses and homes were destroyed.
• Ulysses S. Grant (future president of the U.S.A.) orders Jews barred from service under his command, 1862.
• Jews of Pressburg (now Bratislava) were expelled by order of Queen Maria, 1526.

[November 10]

• U.N. General Assembly adopted the Zionism is Racism resolution, 1975.
• [November 11]
• Armistice Day ending World War I, 1918.
• Israel and Egypt sign a 6-point cease-fire agreement, 1973.

[November 12]

• Hermann Goering announced consideration of Madagascar as a home for European Jewry, 1938 (imagine what if…).
• Jews of Lodz, Poland ordered to wear yellow armband, 1939.

[November 13]

• Talmudic volumes were burned in Russia, 1757.
• Czar Nicholas I of Russia issued a decree calling for the establishment of a school for Jewish students and a seminary to train rabbis and teachers, 1844.
• First Israeli train arrives in Gaza, after Israeli occupation, 1956.

[November 14]

• Ghettos in Radom, Cracow, and Galicia set up by the Nazis, 1942.

[November 15]

• Jewish students were barred from German schools, 1938.

[November 16]

• Many Jews were killed in riots in Paris, 1380.
• Warsaw ghetto was sealed by the Nazis, 1940.
• The British occupied Tel Aviv, 1917.
• Yeshiva University came into existence (as a university), 1945, first American university under Jewish auspices.

[November 17]

• Birthday, 331 c.e. of Emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus, who favored the return of Jerusalem to the Jews.
• Jews of England were imprisoned, and many were martyred, 1278.
• Italian anti-Semitic code, patterned after the Nuremberg Laws published, 1938.

[November 18]

• Jewish community of Ferrara, Italy miraculously escaped disaster when a violent earthquake struck, 1571.
• Jerusalem’s new reservoir was opened, 1958, ending a long history of water problems that made Jerusalem more vulnerable to siege.

[November 19]

• Emma Lazarus died, 1887. The SHLA”H arrived in Jerusalem, 1621.

[November 20]

• Anwar Sadat spoke to the Knesset, 1977.
• Earliest known Yiddish letter from America, 1785 (Yiddish in the United States became “fashionable” in the 1880’s).
• First anti-Semitic attack over radio in the U.S. by Father Caughlin, 1938.
• Jewish population of Israel reached one million, 1949.
• All Jewish wine was dumped by Arabs and heavy fines imposed on the Jewish community of Jerusalem, 1521.
• The Arabs blamed the Jewish use of wine for a severe water shortage. (interesting that 478 years later – just the other day – -Arabs are still blaming the Jews for water problems.)

[November 21]

• First chassidic town in the U.S. (New Square) elects its mayor, 1961.
• An English missionary petitioned the Czar of Russia to restore the Jewish independence in the land of Israel, 1818.
• Ashdod port open for business, 1965.

[November 22]

• U.N. General Assembly approved the right of the Palestinians to a sovereign state at the expense of Israel, 1974.
• Strasbourg prohibits circumcision and the wearing of beards, 1793. It ordered the burning of all books in Hebrew.

[November 23]

• Herzliya founded, 1924.
• Anti-Jewish riots in Bucharest claimed many Jewish lives, 1593.

[November 24]

• “Life Certificates” were distributed to some Jews of the Vilna Ghetto, 1941.

[November 25]

• The Patria, a steamer carrying illegal immigrants sank in Haifa port, 200 dead, 1940.
• American forces retake New York from the British, 1783.
• Jews who had fled the British were able to return. Austrian soldiers killed many Jews in Prague, 1744.
• Charles IV issued protection for the Jews of Strasbourg, 1357. Two years later 1,000 Jews were burned and the remainder forcibly baptized – well-poisoning rumors proved greater than royal protection.
• Abudarham’s Siddur first published in Lisbon, 1489.

[November 26]

• First Crusade proclaimed by the Council of Clermont, 1095.
• Recapture of Rostov by Russian forces marks the first major setback suffered by Germany in World War II, 1941.
• Himmler ordered the destruction of Auschwitz’s crematoria, 1944.

[November 27]

• The American Joint Distribution Committee is founded, 1914.
• Chaim Weizmann born, 1874.

[November 28]

• The Judenrat established by the Nazi governor-general of Poland, 1939.

[November 29]

• KAF-TET B’NOVEMBER, United Nations votes in favor of partition of Palestine, thus paving the way to the establishment of the State of Israel. Religious Zionists see this U.N. vote as “permission of the nations” for our return to Eretz Yisrael. Mass Jewish Aliya is then not in violation of the famous oaths and restrictions imposed byYirmiyahu upon the exiled Jewish People.

[November 30]

• 27,000 Jews of Riga ghetto taken for execution, 1941.
• Arab terrorist campaign began, 1947.