NEW YORK, Dec. 6 (JTA) — The following is a list of some of the important Jewish dates of the last 1,000 years, with an emphasis prior to the 20th century:
1009 — The oldest existing text of the full Hebrew Bible is written.
1070 — Rashi, a French Jewish thinker, completes his commentaries on most of the Bible.
1096 — Participants in the First Crusade massacre Jews in several Central European cities, beginning centuries of pogroms linked to the Crusades. In 1099, Jerusalem falls to the Crusaders.
1124 — Records of a Jewish gate in Kiev attest to the presence of a Jewish community there.
1139 — Judah Halevi completes his influential philosophy of Judaism known as “The Kuzari.” He is a friend of commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra, who also left Spain for the life of a wandering Jewish scholar.
1144 — Jews in Norwich, England are accused of murdering a Christian child in what is believed to be the first ritual murder charge. The blood libel, as well as others in England that follow in the 12th century, incites anti-Jewish violence.
1195 — Moses Maimonides completes “The Guide to the Perplexed,” considered the most important work of medieval Jewish thought.
1232 — The Jewish community of Marrakesh, Morocco, is re-established, leading to massacres of Jews caused by Islamic political revolt and grass-roots hatred.
1239 — Pope Gregory IX orders the kings of France, England, Spain and Portugal to confiscate Hebrew books. Following this edict, the Talmud is condemned and burned in France and Rome.
1286 — Moses de Leon of Spain completes a commentary of the Torah. The Zohar remains a central text of Jewish mysticism.
1290 — King Edward I banishes all Jews from England. It is the first of numerous expulsions of European Jews during the Middle Ages.
1333 — Casimir the Great takes power in Poland and brings with a him a sympathetic attitude toward the Jews, who benefit as a result.
1488 — The first complete edition of the Hebrew Bible is printed in Soncino, Italy.
1492 — The Jews of Spain are expelled as part of the Spanish Inquisition. The majority flee to Portugal, and eventually to North Africa and Turkey.
1516 — Jews in Venice are relegated to a ghetto, the most extreme segregation to which Jews had been submitted. Over time, Jews in many lands are similarly segregated.
ca. 1525-1609— The life of Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague, creator of the legendary Golem, the mythical creature that protects Prague Jews from their enemies.
1526 — The Prague Haggadah, which contains the oldest known printed Yiddish poem, is published.
1543 — German religious reformer Martin Luther writes “About the Jews and Their Lies,” considered the first modern anti-Semitic tract.
1559 — Pope Paul IV allows the first printing of the Zohar, a Jewish mystical text.
1565 — The Shulchan Aruch, Joseph Caro’s authoritative code of Jewish law, is first printed in Venice.
1569 — The Kabbalist Isaac Luria settles in Safed. Luria’s ideas give rise to a new form of Jewish mysticism.
1622-1629 — Persian Jews are forced to convert to Islam.
1648 — Ukranian peasants led by Bogdan Chelmniecki revolt against their Polish landlords and Jewish agents. Some 100,000 Jews die in the uprising.
1654 — Jacob Barsimon, regarded as the first Jew to settle in what will become the United States, arrives in New Amsterdam.
1666 — The false messiah Shabbetai Zevi converts to Islam after being faced with the possibility of death if he remains a Jew.
1719 — Glueckel of Hameln, a Jewish businesswoman, completes her memoirs. These remain an important source of Jewish history and culture of the time.
1740 — The Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of Chasidism, takes up residence at Medzibezh, Podolia, now part of Ukraine.
1777 — The Jews of New York are granted equality under the law.
1791 — France emancipates its Jews, beginning the period known as the Enlightenment, in which Jews are granted equal rights.
1794 — The Russian Pale of Settlement, in which Jews are allowed to live only in certain areas of the Russian Empire, is first established.
1795 — The Third Partition of Poland culminates a process bringing hundreds of thousands of Jews under Russian rule.
1840 — The first Hebrew printing press in India is established.
1840s — The use of the word “Jew” as a verb comes into popular parlance in North America. “To Jew” means to strike a bargain or employ questionable business practices, according to this prejudicial usage.
1880-1925 — Masses of Jews emigrate from Eastern Europe to the United States. More than 2.5 million make their way to the New World.
1881 — The word “pogrom” enters the English language, as Russian mobs begin a series of violent attacks against Jews and their property.
1894 — Sholem Aleichem begins writing the first episode of the life of Tevye the Dairyman.
1898— The First Zionist Congress, held in Basel, Switzerland, heralds the growth of modern Zionism.
1939-1945 — The Nazis kill 6 million Jews across Europe in the worst genocide the world has ever known.
1948 — The State of Israel is established.
1967 — Israel wins the Six-Day War. All of Jerusalem is now in Jewish hands for the first time since 70 C.E.
1993 — Israel and the Palestinian Authority sign the Oslo peace accord.
Source: “The Timetables of Jewish History”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
