Di, at Pensitivity101, is our host for Share Your World each week. Here are her Easter-themed SYW questions for this week.
1. Do you celebrate the Easter holiday and if not, do you have an alternative
I almost didn’t respond to this week’s Share Your World prompt because we don’t celebrate Easter or any alternative holiday. We do celebrate the arrival of spring, though, by firing up the grill and spending more time outside.
2. Do you exchange gifts or have a traditional meal?
No.
3. How many Easter Eggs (or alternative) did your receive/give?
None.
4. Was Easter a Bank Holiday in your country or did you have to work this weekend?
I think Wall Street (the stock market) was closed on Good Friday, but I believe that, for most banks in the U.S., it was business as usual.
This, That, and the Other 
Thanks for joining in anyway Fandango. I remember when I was working in the bank our Month and Quarter end fell over Easter and we all had to work Good Friday as it wasn’t a holiday in the US. This meant we still had to hit our deadlines with no concessions. We weren’t paid overtime, but instead given 2 days off in lieu, which was actually a better deal!
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Garry’s birthday fall somewhere around Easter most years, so we celebrate Garry rather than Easter.
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https://elijahnet.net
A History of Persecution
70 CE: Destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by Titus. 1,100,000 Jews were killed and 97,000 taken into slavery and captivity.
115: Rebellion of the Jews in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Cyrene and Cyprus. Jews and Romans inflicted many barbaric atrocities on each other, causing the death of several hundreds of thousands of Romans and Jews.
132-35: The Bar Kochba rebellion (Bar Kochba was a false Messiah). After the revolt was defeated, religious persecutions began, and many died for their faith. Thousands were killed, sold into slavery or taken into captivity.
135: Roman Emperor Hadrian commences persecution of the Jews: Jerusalem established as a pagan city; erection of Jupiter temple on temple mountain (Moriah) and temple to Venus on Golgotha. Jews were forbidden to practice circumcision, the reading of the Law, eating of unleavened bread at Passover or any Jewish festival, infringement of this edict brought the death penalty.
315: Constantine the Great established “Christianity” as the State religion throughout the Roman Empire; Issued many anti-Jewish laws.
379-95: Theodosius the Great expelled Jews from any official gate position or place of honor. Permitted the destruction of their synagogues if by so doing, it served a religious purpose.
613: Persecution of the Jews in Spain; all Jews who refused to be baptised had to leave the country. A few years later the remaining Jews were dispossessed, declared as slaves and given to pious “Christians” of position. All children 7 years or over were taken from parents & given to receive a “Christian” education.
628-638: King Dagobert expelled all Jews from France. 694-711: Jewish property confiscated, Judaism outlawed, and Jewsenslaved by Visigothic rule in Spain.
795-816: Pope Leo III introduced public disputations between Jews and Christians, resulting in forced conversions to Christianity.
632-633: The Roman Emperor Heraclius I forced Jews to be baptized or face death in Byzantine Empire.
1012: Henry II of Germany expelled the Jews from Mainz.
1096: Bloody persecutions of the Jews at the beginning of the First Crusade in Germany. Along the cities on the Rhine River alone,
12,000 Jews were killed. The Jews were branded second only to Moslems as the enemies of Christendom.
1099: Crusaders entered Jerusalem, and massacred Jews an Muslims living there.
1121: Jews driven out of Flanders (now part of Belgium). They were not to return nor to be tolerated until they repented of the guilt of killing Jesus Christ.
1130: The Jews of London had to pay compensation of 1 million marks for allegedly killing a sick man.
1145-1153: Second Crusade. Jews purchased protection in fortified castles of noblemen, but were betrayed to mobs.
1170: Third Crusade. Jews were accused of blood libel and massacred. 1198-
1216: Fourth Crusade, against Jews. Pope Innocent III demanded that Christian rulers make the Jews atone for the sin of deicide.
1290: Jews were expelled from England.
1306 and 1322: Jews were expelled from France.
1370: Jews were blamed for having defiled the “Host” (wafer used in the Mass) in Brussels. The accused were burned alive. Again, all Jews were banned from Flanders and until the year
1820, every 15 years a feast was kept to celebrate the event.
1391: Persecutions in Spain. In Seville and 70 other Jewish communities, the Jews were cruelly massacred and their bodies dismembered.
1394: Second banishment of Jews from France.
1453: The Franciscan monk, Capistrano, persuaded the King of Poland to withdraw all citizens’ rights of the Jewish people. 1478: The Spanish Inquisition directed against the Jews.
1492: The banishment of Jews from Spain. 300,000 Jews who refused to be “baptized” into the Church of Rome left Spain penniless. Many migrated to the Muslim country, Turkey, where they found tolerance and a welcome.
1497: Banishment of the Jews from Portugal. King Manuel, generally friendly to the Jews, under pressure from Spain instigated forced baptism to keep the Jews. 20,000 Jews desired to leave the country. Many were ultimately declared slaves. 1516: First Ghetto established in Venice.
1540: Banishment of Jews from Naples and 10 years later, from Genoa and Venice.
1542: Martin Luther wrote “Against the Jews and Their Lies”, which called Jews children of the Devil.
1670: Jews expelled from France.
1794: Restriction of Jews in Russia, Jewish men were forced to serve 25 years in the Russian military. Many hundreds of thousands of Jews left Russia.
1846-78: All former restrictions against Jews in Vatican State reinforced by Pope Pius IX.
1903: Renewed restrictions of Jews in Russia. Frequent pogroms (massacres): general impoverishment of Russian Jewry.
1933: Commencement of persecution of Jews in Hitler Germany. Inception of the systematic destruction of 6,000,000 Jews throughout Nazi-occupied Europe.
1946-1952: Jews still killed in Poland (1946), Libya (1948), and Prague (1952). USSR accused 9 doctors (mostly Jewish) of plot to assassinate Soviet leaders.
1956: Jews were deported from Egypt.
1979-1989: Anti-Semitism in America, with more than 6,400 acts of anti-Semitic vandalism, bombings, attempted bombings, arsons, attempted arsons, cemetery desecrations, and harassment. These were committed by the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi groups, and Skinheads.
1990: Pamyat, a nationalist movement in Eastern Europe began, its sole purpose to eliminate Jews and Jewish influence from the Russian empire.
This list was derived from a chart compiled by David Levy, and other sources.
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Hard to fathom, isn’t it?
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Guard the month of spring, and make [then] the Passover offering.
Between the days of April 1st and April 2nd this year — Saturday and Sunday — I carried out recognition of havdalah prior to Passover week, as for holidays… I prefer the Hebrew calendar. (The fact that Saturday and Sunday happened on the first and second of our western fourth month was incidental.) This havdalah will be sometimes, for example, somewhere in March.
The months are lunar (in contrast with Gregorian). Hillel fixed exactly fourteen patterns. In the Hebrew calendar before the fix, the Sanhedrin considered several factors… primarily the spring equinox (that is if it would not be later than or on the sixteenth of Nissan or, rather, in the first half of the month). Official spring had to have spring-like conditions evidenced, too. Trees had to blossom and the barley had to ripen. Barley was needed for the Omer sacrifice [offering of new barley on a day during Passover week but not on the day of Passover per se]. The first of the month may be before the equinox as long as Passover (the fifteenth and a full moon and anniversary of the Exodus from slavery) lands on or after the equinox. {I’m pretty sure I got most of this wording from Chabad.}
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Spring has sprung, and that is a wonderful thing to celebrate.
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