Feb. 28, 1929:
Birthday of Frank Gehry (born Goldberg), the Canadian-born American architect whose iconic buildings worldwide have led him to be labeled by many as “the most important architect of our age.”
Adar 1, 4824 (1164):
Yahrzeit of Avraham Ibn Ezra, biblical commentator, poet, mathematician, author, and philosopher. An unsuccessful businessman, he wrote of himself: “If I were to take up shroud-making, men would stop dying; if I sold candles, the sun would never set.”
March 2, 1859:
Birthday of Shalom Aleichem (Solomon Rabinovitz), author known as the “Yiddish Mark Twain,” whose stories were made into the musical Fiddler on the Roof.
The humor and pathos with which he portrayed the simple lives of the shtetl touched a chord in the Jewish immigrant community that was unmatched by any other Yiddish writer.
In 1916, some 200,000 people followed his funeral cortège from Manhattan to his burial site in Queens. “No matter how bad things get, you’ve got to go on living, even if it kills you,” he wrote.
Adar (II) 3, 3412 (349 BCE):
The building of the Second Temple on the site of the First Temple in Jerusalem was completed (Ezra 6:15).
Begun under King Cyrus when the Persians took over the Babylonian Empire in 371 BCE, its rebuilding was interrupted for 18 years and resumed under Darius II, the Persian king who is said to be the son of Esther.
The Second Temple lacked much of the glory of the First Temple – there was no Ark of the Covenant or daily miracles. The Second Temple would stand for 420 years before being destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.
March 4, 1949:
The first permanent government of Israel, headed by David Ben-Gurion, assumed office.
March 5, 1953:
The “Doctors’ Plot” trial began, in which some of Russia’s most prestigious doctors – mostly Jews – were falsely accused of a plot to poison top Soviet political and military leaders. Scores of Soviet Jews were fired from their jobs, arrested, sent to gulags, or executed. Upon Joseph Stalin’s death, the trials were canceled.
Adar 6, 2488 (1273 BCE):
According to Seder Olam 8, Moses completed his review of the Torah, which began 36 days earlier on Shvat 1, and he extended his farewell blessings to the Jewish people. He then wrote down the completed Five Books of Moses. The scroll was placed in the Holy Ark, next to the Ten Commandments.
The above is a highly abridged weekly version of Dust & Stars – Today in Jewish History. To receive the complete newsletter highlighting all the seminal events and remarkable Jews who have changed the world: dustandstars.substack.com/subscribe.