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1,000-year milestones include printing of the Bible

by NEW YORK (JTA) -- Here is a list of Jewish dates over the past 1,000 years, compiled from "The Timetables of Jewish History." Th, 1009 -- The oldest existing text of the full Hebrew Bible is written.

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1096 -- Participants in the First Crusade massacre Jews in several Central European cities, beginning centuries of pogroms linked to the Crusades.

1124 -- Records of a Jewish gate in Kiev attest to the presence of a Jewish community there.

1144 -- Jews in Norwich, England, are accused of murdering a Christian child in what is believed to be the first ritual murder charge. This blood libel, as well as others in England that follow in the 12th century, incites anti-Jewish violence.

1195 -- Moses ben Maimon, also known as Maimonides and Rambam, completes "The Guide of the Perplexed," considered the most important work of medieval Jewish thought.

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.

1290 -- King Edward I banishes all Jews from England. It is the first of numerous expulsions of European Jews during the Middle Ages.

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.

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.

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, Israel. Luria's ideas give rise to a new form of Jewish mysticism.

1648 -- Ukrainian peasants led by Bogdan Chelmniecki revolt against their Polish landlords and Jewish agents. About 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.

1740 -- The Ba'al Shem Tov, the founder of Chassidism, takes up residence in what is now part of Ukraine.

1791 -- France emancipates its Jews, beginning the period known as the Enlightenment.

1794 -- The Russian Empire establishes the Pale of Settlement, where Jews are required to live.

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.

1897 -- The First Zionist Congress, held in Basel, Switzerland, heralds the growth of modern Zionism.

1939-1945 -- The Nazis kill 6 million Jews.

1948 -- The state of Israel is established.

For more JTA stories, go to http://www.jta.org


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