Today’s Yahrtzeits & History – 29-30 Sivan

Yahrtzeits, Shabbos, 30 Sivan

Rav Shlomo Kluger (1783-1869), author of Sefer HaChaim (a commentary on Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim), and Chochmas Shlomo. Rav Kluger was born to Rav Yehuda Aharon, rabbi of Komarow. Rav Yehuda Aharon was a sickly man who died before age 40, leaving his son a homeless orphan. One day, R’ Yaakov Kranz (the “Dubno Maggid”) met the young boy wandering the streets of Zamosc, Poland, and he took him in. The Dubno Maggid arranged teachers for his charge, including R’ Mordechai Rabin, rabbi of Zamosc, and R’ Yosef Hochgelernter. A prolific author and posek, he wrote of himself that he had authored “115 large works on Tanach and the entire Talmud, and commentaries on the early and later poskim.” This statement was written in 1844, 25 years before his petira. Ha’eleph Lecha Shlomo, his best-known work of halachic responsa, has 1,008 chapters. He also authored Imrei Shefer on Chumash. Rav Kluger served as Rosh Beis Din in Grodi, Galicia, and Rav in Broide.

Rav Meir of Kretchenif (1908)

Today in History – 29 Sivan

· First public warning of rising anti-Semitism in the U.S. was given in a sermon by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, 1873.
· Chovevei Tzion was founded in America, 1897.
· Russiabanned all Zionist meetings, 1903.
· Dr. Yaakov Yisrael Dehan was murdered by the Hagana, 1924. As a young, zealous secular Zionist, Dehran moved to Eretz Yisrael to make a difference. He did not see eye-to-eye with the Zionists’ approaches and began to develop close ties to Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld and Rav Diskin. Eventually, using his legal and oratory skills, he became the spokesman and advocate of the charedi community. He was working with the king of the Trans-Jordan to build an autonomous religious settlement east of the Jordan River. However, his works were sabotaged by the Zionists when they killed him as he was coming from praying maariv. The order was likely given by David Ben Gurion, or by Yitzchak Ben Tzvi (Israel’s 2nd president).
· Germanyoccupied Kovno and Vilna in 1941, and killed the Jews of Gorzhdy, Lithuania.
· Air France flight 139 (Tel Aviv-Athens-Paris) was hijacked en route to Paris by the PLO and redirected to Entebbe, Uganda, 1976.

Today in History – 30 Sivan

· Crusaders massacred the Jews of Mehr, 1096.
· Second expulsion of Jews from France, 1322.
· Residence tax on Hungarian Jews was abolished, 1846.
· Henry Ford retracted and apologized for the publication of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 1927. He remained an anti-Semite until the end of his life.
· Numerous Jews were killed in a pogrom at Jassy, Romania, 1941.
· British arrested 100 Jews in Palestine on the “Black Sabbath”, 1946.

{Yahrtzeits licensed to Matzav.com by Manny Saltiel and Anshe.org/Matzav.com Newscenter}