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1655: The Magistrate of New Amsterdam wrote a ruling making
an attempt to expel the Jews, "resolved that the Jews who came last
year from the West Indies and now from the Fatherland, must prepare
to depart forthwith."
1655: The Sheriff of New Amsterdam as plaintiff filed suit against
the defendant Abram de la Sina, a Jew, for the crime of keeping his
store open during the hour the church gave a sermon.
1823: The first Jewish publication in America was published by Solomon
Henry Jackson in New York. The publication was called "The Jew"
and was an anti-missionary journal. Jackson is also known for translating
and publishing the first Sephardic siddur in English-Hebrew in 1826.
1843: The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of New York past a resolution
prohibiting the performing of ceremonies at funerals of persons intermarried
with Christians.
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1943: Over 2,500 Jews in Salonica are crammed into 593 rooms
in the Baron de Hirsh Ghetto. The ghetto was surrounded with high
wooden fences, topped with barbed wire. Signs in German, Greek and
Ladino warned Jews not to leave, under penalty of death.
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1911: Died, Rabbi Jacob de Botton of Salonica at age 68.
1917: Djemal Pasha offers to give the Jews free access to the Western
Wall in Jerusalem to pray if they provide the sum of 80,000-100,000
Francs.
1919: Died, Abraham (Albert) Antebi, head of the Alliance Israelite
Universelle in Constantinople. He was born at Damascus in 1899.
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1942: Algiers radio announced that all firms, property and legal
titles owned in part or full by Jews have been put under "Aryan" administration.
This came after the dismissal of 3,000 Jews from the French civil
service just a couple months prior.
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1909: Alianza Hispano-Israelita formed in Spain to bring about
the return of Spanish Jews.
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1943: The Bulgarian army started to liquidate Jewish property.
All confiscated gold and silver was deposited it in sealed packages
in the Bulgarian National Bank. Many Bulgarian officials became rich
from stealing from the Jews.
1944: An internal memo of this week from the United States Government
War Refugee Board states that the United States was negotiating the
purchase of a ship for $400,000. The S.S. Necat would be donated to
the Turkish Red Crescent after evacuating 5,000 Jewish refugee children
from Romania to Palestine.
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1856: A letter from the Hahambashi discusses "reforms" to institute
in the Jewish community. The Judeo-Spanish language is discussed,
"As the language taught by the Jews of the Levant is not, properly
speaking, a language, and cannot be useful to the youth, we order
the creation of free schools for the poor where Turkish, Greek, French,
and Italian will be taught."
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1688: On this night a large group of secret Jews planned to
escape the island of Majorca by escaping on an English ship, they
were looking for religious freedom. A storm delayed their departure,
and their plan was betrayed. All those planning to leave were put
in prison. In the spring of 1691 these prisoners were sentenced at
an auto-de-fe, where 37 were burned at the stake.
1912: Greek town of Zante was devastated by an earthquake. The Jewish
quarter was destroyed, and more than 100 Jewish families are homeless.
1912: Marco Besso of Trieste and Errea Cavalieri of Ferrara were both
elected as Senators in Italy.
1918: Government of Greece decides to exempt Jewish Ottoman subjects
living in Greece from regulations prohibiting commercial transactions
with subjects of enemy states.
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1820: The revolutionary military leader and defacto Spanish
leader, Riego of Spain issued a decree ending the Inquisition. Even
so, this was contested, and the last person to suffer under the Inquisition
was in 1826.
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1856: Reported in The News of the World was the report that
in Constantinople a Turkish woman who could not locate her child for
several hours started to scream after local Greeks told her Jews had
dragged her child by force into the house to drain its blood for use
on Passover. A crowd gathered and started to smash the windows of
the home, and was only held back by the French soldiers. The child
later was found by the mother.
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1917: British take Baghdad from the Ottoman Turks.
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1909: Medical Congress in Sophia decided to print brochures
in Ladino at request of Christian Delegate, for the benefit of Jews
unfamiliar with the Bulgarian language.
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1656: Jews in New Amsterdam are not allowed to hold services
because of a decision of the Dutch West India Company.
1908: Major fire in the Jewish quarter of Haskoy, Constantinople,
Turkey destroys 500 houses. There were over 5,000 Jews left without
shelter. A cablegram was sent from Constantinople to Oscar S. Straus,
U.S. Secretary of Commerce and Labor asking for assistance.
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1535: David
dei Rossi a Jewish merchant from Italy who set out for the Orient
in 1534, writes his wife Sarah the following observation of life in
Ottoman Palestine, "Hatred of the Jew is, in contrast to our homeland,
unknown here, and the Turks hold the Jews in esteem. In this country
and in Egypt, Jews are the chief officers and administrators of the
customs.
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1912: Decree from the Turkish Ministry of the Interior to the
Governor of Jerusalem permits Jews to place benches and light candles
in front of the Western Wall.
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1743: The New-York Weekly Journal reported a Jewish funeral
procession in New York was attacked by a mob. According to "one learned
Christian" witness to it, the mob had, "insulted the dead in such
a vile manner that to mention all would shock a human ear."
1911: Election for Grand Council of the Jewish Community of Constantinople
takes place. Ashkenazim boycott the elections. Five Ashkenazim who
were elected by the votes of Sephardim do not accept office.
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1917: One hundred and ninety Jews from Palestine migrate to
Cyprus on an Ottoman mail steamer.
1942: The 60,000 Jews in Tunisia are restricted to publishing only
one newspaper.
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1655: Dutch Minister Johannes Megapolensis wrote a letter to
the Amsterdam Classis. In it, he attacks the Jews who had
recently arrived in New Amsterdam.
1913: King of Greece assassinated at Salonica. False charges ran in
the Greek newspapers that the killer was Jewish, later found out killer
was not, but was a mentally ill Greek.
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1867: The Ashkenazim of the holy land sought permission to slaughter
their own meat. The Ashkenazim appealed to the British to intervene
for them. In the formal letter of request to the Consul, it stated
that both the Muslims (and the Sephardim) understood, "that the Ashkenazim
were not true Israelites." This concerned the Ashkenazim because they
made money selling certain cuts of meat to the Muslims, and if the
Muslims did not consider them Jews, they would not by their meat.
1909: Sultan of Turkey ratifies election of the Hahambashi Haim Nahoum
who has an audience with the Sultan.
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1915: American Jewish Relief Committee apportions $30,000 for
Jews in Palestine, $1000 per month (for 6 months) for Palestinian
soup kitchens, and $3000 per month (for 10 months) to Turkish Jews
outside of Palestine.
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1759: A letter was received in New York at the Spanish and Portuguese
Synagogue from Newport, Rhode Island. It was a request from the congregation
at Newport asking for funds to help build a synagogue. New
York sent financial assistance, and on May 28 the congregation at
Newport sent a letter of thanks, signed by 10 of its members, back
to New York.
1776: The President of Congress, John Hancock, arranged to send George
Washington $250,000 cash to be used to maintain the siege of Boston.
Hancock wrote in the letter that accompanied the funds sent that he
had selected three "gentlemen of character whom I am confident will
meet your notice." One of these men was Moses Franks of Philadelphia.
1919: The National Jewish Council in Constantinople asks the British
High Commander for the discharge of all Jewish soldiers from the Ottoman
army. They state the Jewish soldiers endured terrible suffering, as
they were used to build roads across Anatolia. Thousands died due
to lack of food, illness, insufficient equipment and cruel treatment.
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1862: Died, Uriah Phillips Levy, Commodore of the United States
Navy in Philadelphia. Levy was a descendant of the original 23 Jews
who settled in New Amsterdam in 1654. He was buried in the Cypress
Hill Cemetery in the Congregation Shearith Israel portion. On his
stone was written, "He was the father of the law for the abolition
of the barbarous practice of corporal punishment in the United States
Navy."
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1784: Reverend Gershom Mendes Seixas returned to New York City
from Connecticut and took up his position as Minister. He
returned while New York City was evacuated by the British, and most
of the members of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue were in the
safety of Connecticut and Philadelphia. Seixas was very patriotic,
and was thanked by President George Washington at one time. Seixas
instituted a recital of a prayer for the government in English, it
having been always read in Spanish prior.
1924: Died, Moses Cattaui Pashe, President of the Jewish Kehillah
of Cairo, Egypt.
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1847: A sermon delivered at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue,
Bevis Marks, was in regard to the Irish Potato Famine. The
sermon was delivered by Rev. D. A. De Sola: "For devastation has gone
forth through the land, Death stalks around, with disease in its train..."
1911: Reports of massacre and looting of Moroccan Jews.
1944: A Turkish Jew who was an eyewitness in Greece reported to the
United States government that on this date the Germans deported all
the registered Jews of Athens.
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1271: Jaime freed all the Jews in Murviedro of debts from Christians.
It should be noted this is after the Christians burned down a synagogue,
and then were forced to rebuild it themselves.
1903: The Jewish quarter of Port Said, Egypt is invaded
and looted by Arabs in consequence of an earlier ritual murder charge
(September 17, 1902).
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1943: Wilfrid B. Israel, a German born Jew and ardent Zionist
departed London for Lisbon. Once in Portugal he stayed in the peninsula
for two months, where he found over 1,500 stateless Jews in Spain.
He issued 200 of them certificates to go live in Palestine, and did
what he could to intervene on the other's behalf.
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1901: Anti-Jewish riots in Smyrna, Turkey in consequence with
the disappearance of a child who was said to have been slaughtered
by the Jews for 'ritual murder.' Though the riots continued for four
days, the child was eventually found and paraded through the streets
to show he was indeed alive.
1906: At the insistence of the Chief Rabbi of Bulgaria, the Minister
of the Interior of Bulgaria issues a circular to his governors to
take every form of precaution against anti-Semitism over Easter.
1912: A Jew, for the first time, receives appointment as an officer
in the Ottoman Turkish Army upon graduation from the Imperial Military
Academy.
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1873: After accusations of ritual murder surfaced in Turkey,
letters were sent to the Christians leader in Marmara, Gallipoli,
Bursa, Salonica, Smyrna, Manisa, Chios, Adrianople, Janina, Silistria
and other cities to warn of this behavior. The letters were formulated
by the Turkish Jewish leadership in conjunction with the Greek Patriarch.
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1912: By decree of the King of Italy, Jews in Tripoli can organize.
1921: Winston Churchill, British Colonial Secretary, greets 10,000
Jews on Mt. Scopus in Palestine. Both the Chief Sephardic and Ashkenazic
Rabbis were in attendance, they gave him a Sefer Torah.
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1492: King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain signed an edict
for the expulsion of the Jews from Spain.
1951: A new synagogue was dedicated in Istanbul, Neve Shalom. The
building holds more than 1,000 people, and the 400,000 Lira it cost
to be built was raised by the Jewish community of Galata, Pera, and
Chichli.
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1799: A Marrano named Lorenzo Beltran was sentenced for Judaizing
at an auto-de-fe in Seville. He was the last Macron that the Inquisition
went after.
1943: This was the deadline the Germans gave Spain to repatriate any
Spanish nationals of the Jewish "race."
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