5250–5559 AM · 1490 CE — 1799 CE
Spain, Safed, Chassidut
83 events of Jewish history and world parallels.
5252 · 1492 CEThe Expulsion of the Jews from Spain5252 · 1492 CEThe European Discovery of America5253 · 1493 CESonghai and Timbuktu5254 · 1494 CEThe Takkanot of Fes: exiles and natives, two hundred and fifty years apart5257 · 1497 CEPortugal, the Anusim and the Inquisition5260 · 1500 CEThe Atlantic Slave Trade5260 · 1500 CEWhere the Exiles Went: The Turning Point of the Diaspora5261 · 1501 CEThe Safavids: Persia becomes Shia5276 · 1516 CEThe Venetian Ghetto5276 · 1516 CESelim I: the Ottomans take the Land of Israel5277 · 1517 CELuther and the Reformation5280 · 1520 CEThe printed Talmud: Bomberg's edition and the pagination that has held for five centuries5281 · 1521 CEThe Fall of the Aztec and Inca Empires5283 · 1523 CEThe Molcho and Reubeni affair: nine years and a stake at Mantua5285 · 1525 CESafed, the City of Kabbalists, and Lekhah Dodi5294 · 1534 CEThe Arizal and Lurianic Kabbalah5297 · 1537 CESuleiman the Magnificent and the walls of Jerusalem5298 · 1538 CEThe renewal of semichah in Safed: an attempt to bring back the Sanhedrin5303 · 1543 CECopernicus: the Earth Moves Around the Sun5305 · 1545 CEThe Silver of Potosí5313 · 1553 CEThe burning of the Talmud in Italy5315 · 1555 CECum nimis absurdum and the Roman ghetto5316 · 1556 CEAkbar and the Mughal Empire5316 · 1556 CEThe Ancona martyrs and the boycott of the papal port5325 · 1565 CERabbi Yosef Karo's Shulchan Aruch and the Rema's Mappah5333 · 1573 CEMe'or Einayim and the quarrel over Jewish chronology5340 · 1580 CEThe Council of Four Lands5351 · 1591 CEThe Livornine: the town where former anusim were not asked about their past5352 · 1592 CEThe Maharal of Prague and the Legend of the Golem5363 · 1603 CETokugawa: Japan closes its borders5364 · 1604 CEThe return of the Nation: the Portuguese anusim open Amsterdam5378 · 1618 CEThe Thirty Years' War5380 · 1620 CEThe First New England Colonies5386 · 1626 CEAmsterdam printing: how "Amsterdam letters" became a mark of quality5390 · 1630 CEThe sack of Mantua: the end of the capital of Italian Jewish culture5392 · 1632 CEThe Taj Mahal5393 · 1633 CEGalileo before the Inquisition5399 · 1639 CETalmud Torah: three congregations become one5400 · 1640 CEUriel da Costa: the recantation, the thirty-nine lashes and the shot5404 · 1644 CEThe Qing dynasty5408 · 1648 CEThe Peace of Westphalia5408 · 1648 CEThe Chmielnicki Massacres (Gezerot Tach ve-Tat)5409 · 1649 CEThe English Revolution and Cromwell5414 · 1654 CERecife: the end of Dutch Brazil and the dispersal that made American Jewry5415 · 1655 CETwenty-three refugees in New Amsterdam: the community they tried to expel5416 · 1656 CEMenasseh ben Israel before Cromwell: the conference that decided nothing5416 · 1656 CEThe Safavid persecutions and the jadīd al-Islām5416 · 1656 CEThe herem on Spinoza5421 · 1661 CEKangxi: sixty-one years on the throne of China5426 · 1666 CEShabbetai Zevi and the False Messiah5435 · 1675 CEThe dedication of the Esnoga5439 · 1679 CEThe Mawzaʿ exile5443 · 1683 CEVienna 1683: the Ottomans roll back from Europe5447 · 1687 CENewton and the Principia5448 · 1688 CEThe Glorious Revolution5458 · 1698 CEThe Baal Shem Tov and the Birth of Hasidism5463 · 1703 CEPeter the Great and the Russian Empire5465 · 1705 CEThe Livorno school: from Zacuto to Yad Malachi5473 · 1713 CEThe Nehemiah Hayyun affair: the fifteen days that settled who governed5480 · 1720 CEThe Vilna Gaon5490 · 1730 CEThe Ramchal affair: the Padua circle, the maggid and five years of proceedings5496 · 1736 CENader Shah: the last conqueror of Persia5503 · 1743 CEThe plague in Baghdad and the rabbi from Aleppo5510 · 1750 CEPachad Yitzchak: the first halakhic encyclopedia5511 · 1751 CEThe amulet controversy: Emden against Eybeschutz5511 · 1751 CEThe Enlightenment5515 · 1755 CEThe Frankists: Sabbateanism that left Judaism5520 · 1760 CEThe Maggid of Mezeritch and the Hasidic–Mitnagdic Dispute5524 · 1764 CETouro Synagogue in Newport: the oldest Jewish building in America5525 · 1765 CEThe courts of Lithuania, Polesia and Volhynia: Karlin, Lechovitch, Kobrin, Slonim5532 · 1772 CEThe partitions of Poland5536 · 1776 CEAmerican Independence5537 · 1777 CEThe courts of Galicia, Bukovina and Hungary: Ruzhin, Belz, Sanz, Satmar5537 · 1777 CEThe courts of Polish Hasidism: Lizhensk, Lublin, Przysucha, Ger5537 · 1777 CEThe First Chassidic Aliyah5540 · 1780 CEThe Industrial Revolution5549 · 1789 CEThe French Revolution5550 · 1790 CEWashington's letter to the Newport congregation: "to bigotry no sanction"5551 · 1791 CEThe Haskalah, Moses Mendelssohn and the Emancipation of French Jewry5553 · 1793 CEYosef Maman in Bukhara: a change of rite and the birth of a legend5556 · 1796 CEThe Batavian decree of equality—and the schism that answered it5557 · 1797 CEThe fall of the Italian ghettos—and the pogroms that rolled it back5557 · 1797 CERabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the Tanya and Chabad