This Day in History – 25 Nisan/April 5

25 Nisan

In 5693/1933, shechitah was banned in Germany by the Nazi government.

In 5698/1938, an embargo went into effect on the property of Austrian Jews.

Yahrtzeiten

5340/1580, Harav Moshe di Trani, zt”l, the Mabit

5598/1838, Harav Dan of Radvil, zt”l

5636/1876, Harav Chaim Halberstam, zt”l, the Divrei Chaim of Sanz

5659/1899, Harav Moshe Ulman, zt”l, mechaber of She’eilos U’teshuvos Yerios Shlomo

5698/1938, Harav Yehoshua Heshel Rabinowitz of Manestritsh, zt”l

5738/1978

Harav Avraham Yehoshua Heshel Weinberg, zt”l, the Slonimer Rebbe of Tel Aviv

Harav Avraham Yehoshua Heshel Weinberg was born in 5658/1898. His father, Harav Yissachar Leib of Slonim, was the son of the Divrei Shmuel and a grandson of the Yesod HaAvodah.

Reb Avraham Yehoshua Heshel was brought up in the court of his grandfather the Divrei Shmuel in Slonim. He married the daughter of Harav David Weidenfeld of Warsaw, a known talmid chacham, who was also the father-in-law of the Beis Yisrael of Ger in his zivug sheini, after the War.

After his marriage, Reb Avraham Yehoshua Heshel settled in Warsaw, near his father-in-law.

Following the petirah of his father on 28 Nisan 5688/1928, Reb Avraham Yehoshua Heshel was asked to lead the Slonimer Chassidus, but he was reluctant to become Rebbe; he would travel from Warsaw to Slonim from time to time, on set dates.

After the petirah of his father’s brother, Harav Avraham — who was Rebbe in Bialystok and later in Baranovich — on Rosh Chodesh Iyar 5693/1933, Reb Avraham Yehoshua Heshel agreed to move to Slonim as Rebbe.

In 5695/1935, Reb Avraham Yehoshua Heshel moved to Eretz Yisrael and settled in Tel Aviv, where he opened a beis medrash for the Slonimer Chassidim in the city.

He wrote an encyclopedic work based on Chazal’s words from the Gemara and Midrashim on all topics mentioned in Tanach. Seven volumes have been published thus far of his monumental set, Otzar Arachei HaTorah B’ohalei Yissachar, named for his father.

Reb Avraham Yehoshua Heshel was niftar on 25 Nisan 5738/1978, at the age of 80. He was buried in Bnei Brak, near the kever of the Ozherover Rebbe.

Reb Avraham Yehoshua Heshel had two sons: Harav Shmuel, who was deputy mayor of Bnei Brak, and Harav Aryeh, Rosh Yeshivas Shuvu Banim.

Zechuso yagen aleinu.

April 5

In 1621, the Mayflower sailed from Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts on a month-long return trip to England.

In 1792, President George Washington cast his first veto, rejecting a congressional measure for apportioning representatives among the states.

In 1862, during the Civil War, the month-long siege of Yorktown began in Virginia.

In 1887, in Tuscumbia, Ala., Anne Sullivan achieved a breakthrough as her blind and deaf pupil, Helen Keller, learned the meaning of the word “water” as spelled out in the Manual Alphabet.

In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order creating the Civilian Conservation Corps and an anti-hoarding order that effectively prohibited private ownership of gold.

In 1964, Army General Douglas MacArthur died in Washington at age 84.

In 1986, two American servicemen and a Turkish woman were killed in a bombing in West Berlin; this incident prompted a U.S. air raid on Libya more than a week later.

In 1988, a 15-day hijacking ordeal began as gunmen forced a Kuwait Airways jumbo jet to land in Iran.