Sponsored by Aish.com: In 1757, volumes of the Talmud were burned in Kamenetz-Podolsk, Russia. The instigators were followers of Jacob Frank, a Jewish merchant who claimed to be the messiah and successor of the false messiah, Shabbatai Tzvi. Frank’s followers broke away from Judaism and created a new religion known as the Frankists, a quasi-Jewish, quasi-Christian religion. The local bishop...
Today in Jewish History – Elul 15
Sponsored by Aish.com: In 1827, Czar Nicholas I decreed that all Jewish boys be forcibly conscripted into the Russian Army at age 12. Called “cantonists,” these boys were kidnapped from their parents’ home, and tortured repeatedly with the implication that conditions would improve if they’d accept Christianity. (Many died of their wounds.) The boys were indoctrinated in...
The Night of the Murdered Yiddish Poets
In 1952, the last year of Stalin’s life, 15 Soviet Jews, including five prominent Yiddish writers and poets, were secretly tried and convicted of capital offenses, including treason, espionage, and bourgeois nationalism. They were targeted because of their involvement in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and because of their heartfelt response as Jews to Nazi atrocities in occupied Soviet...