Adar 14, 3405 (355 BCE):
The Jews of Persia celebrated their narrow escape from annihilation at the hands of Haman’s antisemitic mobs, thanks to the bravery of Esther and Mordechai. We commemorate this joyous time to this day with the Purim holiday, during which we read the Megillah (Scroll of Esther), dress up in costumes, give charity to the poor and gifts to friends, and get inebriated. During Jewish leap years, we celebrate Purim in the second month of Adar.
March 15, 1860:
Birthday of Waldemar Haffkine, bacteriologist who developed the first useful vaccine against cholera (inoculating himself first!) and the serum therapy against the plague, in the process saving countless lives. The Haffkine Institute in Mumbai, which he headed, is one of the leading infectious disease clinics in India.
March 16, 1190:
The Jews of York, England, after seeing many of their community murdered in cold blood, decided to commit mass suicide rather than be killed or submit to baptism. The father of each family killed his wife and children before taking his own life.
Even the minority of the Jews who pleaded for mercy and chose conversion were slaughtered. Chronicler William of Newburgh described the mob as acting “without any scruple of Christian conscientiousness” in wiping out the Jewish community of York.
March 17, 1992:
Terrorists detonated a car bomb at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 and wounding 250. Among the victims were children, clergy from a church across the street, and passersby. Iran was responsible for the attack but was never held accountable.
March 18, 1817:
Czar Alexander I of Russia declared the Blood Libel to be false. Due to the infamous accusation that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood in the baking of matzah for Passover, thousands of Jews were massacred through the centuries.
Adar 19, 5693 (1933):
Death of Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, author and revered leader of the Old Yishuv in Jerusalem during the first part of the 20th century, at a time when the community was reestablishing itself after many centuries of exile. He was a man of courage, scholarship, kindness, integrity, and piety, and was instrumental in establishing schools and orphanages.
March 20, 1917:
The Russian Provisional Government granted equality to all Russian Jews (who at the time made up about 50% of the total world Jewish population), abolishing the Pale of Settlement, and over 140 anti-Jewish statutes. On the other hand, the Russian Revolution led to more than 2,000 pogroms, with tens of thousands of Jews murdered, and hundreds of thousands made homeless.
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