This Day in History – 6 Iyar/May 6

In 4773/1013, many Jews of Cordova, Spain, were massacred by the soldiers of Suleiman ibn Al-Hakim.

In 5680/1920, Great Britain’s mandate to govern Eretz Yisrael began.

In 5708/1948, the British mandate over Eretz Yisrael came to an end, exactly 28 years after it began. The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon immediately invaded Eretz Yisrael.

Yahrtzeiten

5104/1344, Rabbeinu Levi ben Gershom, zt”l, Ralbag

5527/1767, Harav Yitzchak Halevi Horowitz of Hamburg, zt”l

5608/1848, Harav Moshe of Sambur, zt”l, son of Harav Yitzchak Eizik of Kamarna

5669/1909, Harav Yosef Meir, zt”l, the Imrei Yosef of Spinka

5706/1946, Harav Yaakov Chaim Perlow of Stolin, zt”l

5715/1955, Harav Menachem Mendel Halberstam, zy”a, Stropkover Rebbe of Williamsburg, mechaber of Divrei Menachem

5762/2002, Harav Refael Levin, zt”l, Rosh Yeshivah of Beis Aryeh and son of Harav Aryeh Levin, “the tzaddik of Yerushalayim”

5591/1831

Harav Moshe of Zhvil, zt”l

Born in 5530/1770, Harav Moshe Goldman was the fourth son of Harav Yechiel Michel, the Zlotchover Maggid, a talmid of the Baal Shem Tov and of the Mezeritcher Maggid. Reb Yechiel Michel compared his five sons to the Chamishah Chumshei Torah.

Reb Moshe married the daughter of Harav Dovid, Rav of Gravitz.

Like his father he was a maggid, traveling from village to village to spread Yiddishkeit. With the petirah of his father on 25 Elul 5546/1786, Reb Moshe, although reluctant, was persuaded to become Rebbe by Harav Mordechai of Neshchiz. He established his court in Zhvil, Volhynia, Ukraine, and was the forebear of the famed Zhviller dynasty.

Esteemed by the generation’s leading Rebbes, he was especially close to Harav Pinchas of Koritz.

Reb Moshe was niftar on 6 Iyar 5591/1831 and was succeeded by his son Harav Yechiel Michel, named for his grandfather.

Zechuso yagen aleinu.

May 6

In 1840, Britain’s first adhesive postage stamp, the Penny Black, officially went into circulation five days after its introduction.

In 1863, the Civil War Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia ended with a Confederate victory over Union forces.

In 1882, President Chester Alan Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigrants from the U.S. for 10 years. (Arthur had opposed an earlier version with a 20-year ban.)

In 1889, the Paris Exposition formally opened, featuring the just-completed Eiffel Tower.

In 1910, Britain’s Edwardian era ended with the death of King Edward VII; he was succeeded by King George V.

In 1935, the Works Progress Administration began operating under an executive order signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In 1937, the hydrogen-filled German airship Hindenburg burned and crashed in Lakehurst, N.J., killing 35 of the 97 people on board and killing a Navy crewman on the ground.

In 1942, during World War II, some 15,000 Americans and Filipinos on Corregidor surrendered to Japanese forces.

In 1962, in the first test of its kind, the submerged submarine USS Ethan Allen fired a Polaris missile armed with a nuclear warhead that detonated above the Pacific Ocean.

In 1981, Yale architecture student Maya Ying Lin was named winner of a competition to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

In 1994, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and French President Francois Mitterrand formally opened the Channel Tunnel between their two countries.