Today’s Yahrtzeits & History – 28 Tammuz

Rav Elazar of Lizhensk (1806). He was the oldest son of the Rebbe Reb Elimelech of Lizhensk. He put together his father’s sefer, Noam Elimelech, which contains several letters of Rav Elazar in the back. His sons were Rav Naftali of Lizhensk and Rav Mendel Ber of Pshevorsk; his son-in-law was Rav Chaim Meir Yechiel Shapira of Moglenitz

Rav Moshe (ben Tzvi Hirsch) Teitelbaum, av beis din of Ujhely, Hungary (1759-1841), author of Yismach Moshe, founder of Satmar and Sighet dynasties. He was a direct descendent of the Rema. He served as Rav and Av Beis Din of Shinova at the age of 26. He made a shiduch with his only daughter to a chasid of the Chozeh of Lublin, and shortly thereafter became a follower himself. He taught Rav Yechezkel Shraga Halberstam of Shinova.

Rav Yeshayahu Meshulam Zusha Twersky (1881). Son of Rav Aharon of Chernobyl and father of Rav Shlomo Bentzion of Chernobyl.

Rav Shlomo (ben Yosef) Ganzfried (1804-1886), born in Ungwar, Hungary. His father died while he was still young, and he was raised by the Rav of Ungwar, Rav Tzvi Hirsch Heller. He is the author of Kitzur Shulchan Aruch.

Rav Nachman (ben Chaim Aryeh) HaKohen Kahana (1904). He was the Av Beis Din of Spinka. He was the son-in-law of the first Spinka Rebbe, the Imrei Yosef. He wrote sefer Orchos Chaim on Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim.

Rav Yaakov Shaul Elyashar (1817-1906). Born to Rav Eliezer Yerucham Elyashar in Tzefas, young Yaakov Shaul moved with his mother at the age of six to Yerushalayim; his father dies a year later. His mother’s second husband, Rav Binyamin Mordechai Navon, took the boy under his wing. In 1883, Rav Yaakov Shaul accepted to become Rishon Letzion. At the inauguration, he also received the title of Chacham Bashi by the Turkish rulers. Rav Yaakov Shaul authored the sefer Yissa Bracha. His son, Rav Nissim Elyashar, founded a charedi community in Yerushalayim and named it Givat Shaul, in his father’s honor.

Rav Chaim Friedlander (1923-1986), mashgiach in Ponovezh. He is considered one of the closest disciples of Rav Dessler. Author of Sifsei Chaim and Mesilos Chaim B’Chinuch.

Today in History – 28 Tammuz

· The Catholic Church burns 41 Jews at the stake in Breslau, Germany, then expels the remaining Jews, 1453.
· The ghetto in Florence, Italy was established, 1571.
· Jews of Brussels were ordered expelled, 1716.
· Soon after the colony of Georgia was settled by General James Oglethorpe, the first group of Jews arrived in Savanna from England, 1733. The approximately 40 Jews included Dr. Samuel Nunez, a former court physician, and Abraham de Leon, who introduced viniculture to the colony. Later that same month a group of 12 indigent German Jewish families also arrived. Oglethorpe was originally against allowing the Jews to remain, until the doctor helped stop an epidemic. (In the 1700’s, Sephardic Jews were considered richer, more educated and more aristocratic than the poorer and more primitive German Jews. One hundred and fifty years later, the German Jews looked down on Eastern European Jews as more primitive, and 100 years after that, the Askenazic German and East European Jews looked down on the Sephardic Jews.)
· Jews of Chevron were attacked by Arabs, 1835.
· German elections resulted in the reactionary element having a dominant voice in the Reichstag, 1878. This date is considered the birthday of modern German anti- Semitism.
· Austria-Hungaryissued an ultimatum to Serbia after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The dispute led to World War I.
· League of Nations confirmed Britain’s mandate to administer Palestine, 1922.
· The Spanish Civil War began, 1936, which ended April 1st, 1939, with the victory of the rebels and the founding of a dictatorship led by the Nationalist General Francisco Franco.
· Nazis kill 5000 Jews in Rovno, Polish Ukraine, 1942.