Via Aish.com: In 1656, the Jewish elders of Amsterdam issued an excommunication notice against Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza was a philosopher who postulated that God and nature are equivalent, and that the Bible is purely allegorical. Spinoza is known as the “Jewish Atheist,” and he is…
From Aish.com: Today in 1881, the first shipload of Russian Jewish immigrants arrived in New York City. This began the mass immigration of eastern European Jews to America, and in the next half-century over 2 million Jews would flee Russian pogroms for the safety of…
Sponsored by Aish.com: In 1977, a neo-Nazi group planned to march in Skokie, Illinois, in a largely Jewish neighborhood that was home to many Holocaust survivors. It was believed that the march would be disruptive, and the city refused to allow it. The American Civil…
David “Mickey” Marcus (1902-1948) was an American Jew who volunteered to fight for the Israeli army in the 1948 War of Independence. Marcus was a tough Brooklyn street kid who attended West Point and then law school. In World War II, Marcus rose to the…
Sponsored by Aish.com: In 1960, Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was captured in Argentina. Eichmann was in charge of implementing the “final solution” to exterminate Jews in the concentration camps. In one seven-week period alone, Eichmann transported 400,000 Hungarian Jews to the gas chambers. Eichmann was…
Sponsored by Aish.com: In 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…
Sponsored by Aish: In 1492, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain signed a decree expelling all Jews who refused to convert to Christianity. Tomas de Torquemada served as “Grand Inquisitor,” charged with uncovering those who continued to practice Judaism in secret (called Conversos or…
Sponsored by Aish: In 355 BCE, the Jews celebrated their successful defeat of Haman’s anti-Semitic mobs, an event we commemorate today with the Purim holiday.We read the Megillah (Scroll of Esther), dress up in costumes, and celebrate how the Jews of Persia narrowly escaped annihilation,…