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 considered the founder of modern biblical criticism. Spinoza believed that there is no Divine intervention,…
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 the U.S. This influx indelibly altered the demographics of American Jewry; according to the U.S.…
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 Liberties Union came to the Nazis' support, and in 1978 a high court upheld the…
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 rank of Colonel in the U.S. Army, where he helped draw up surrender terms for Italy…
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 captured through the efforts of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal and the Israeli Mossad (Secret Service).…