In Germany – MARTIN LUTHER writes his pamphlet "The Jews and their lies" (Von den Juden und Ihren Lügen) and "On the Holy Name and the Lineage of Christ" (Vom Schem Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi) stating that the Jews are –

The synagogue is a –

OF ROSHEIM refutes Luther's assertions in a voluminous petition to the magistrate of Strasbourg, and the latter thereupon wisely inhibits a new edition of Luther's book.

In Germany – JOSEL OF ROSHEIM (1478-1554) obtains confirmation from Emperor CHARLES V that Jews are granted permission to charge higher interest rates from borrowers because they pay higher taxes and are not allowed to cultivate land or exercise trade. He pays the Emperor 4,400 guilders [3,000 florins] toward the expenses of the French war (allied with the Turks) in coin and gifts to obtain a certificate of protection concerning accusation of ritual murder. This begins a consolidation and strengthening of the Jewish community in Germany. (See 1552).

December 13: Pope PAUL III opens the Catholic 'Council of Trent' to formulate Catholicism's response to the Protestant Reformation.

In Geneva – JOHN CALVIN declares, concerning Erasmian polymath MICHAEL SERVETUS, in a letter to a friend that he intends to have him killed (because he does not believe in the Trinity) –

CALVIN supplies information via his friend (GUILLAIME DE TRIE) to the Catholic Inquisition concerning SERVETUS, including letters written to CALVIN by him, to establish his guilt and therefore his burning.
SERVETUS however flees from the Inquisition to Geneva, and so CALVIN has his way in any case, except that he would have preferred a kinder method of execution.

February 18: In Eisleben, Germany – MARTIN LUTHER the Reformer preaches of the Jews –

Much of the earth endures the so-called Little Ice Age.
Global average temperature drops between 1 and 2 degrees Celsius, ice sheets advance over farms and valleys in Greenland and the Baltic sea freezes regularly.
In England – The Thames river freezes regularly, crops fail, and famine and disease affects Europe.
The Elizabethan preacher, JOHN KING, declares in 1595 –

"Our years are turned upside down; our summers are no summers; our harvests are no harvests".

In Palestine – Sultan SULEIMAN's Russian-born wife, ROXELANA, builds the Takiyya Hospice in Jerusalem which becomes the most important charitable institution in Palestine.
July: Jerusalem – The Venetians bribe Ottoman Sultan SULEIMAN to hand over the Convent of Georgian nuns (West of the Holy Sepulcher) to the Franciscan Friars, who rename it St. Saviour's convent.

German Lutheran forces, in an alliance of Turks and French, defeat Holy Roman Emperor CHARLES V.

Rabbi JOSEL of ROSHEIM sends a warning to the emperor Charles V at Innsbruck by a special messenger that Elector Moritz of Saxony intends to invade Tyrol, and the emperor is thus enabled at the last moment to effect his escape.

In Palestine – Jerusalem now has a total population of 13,384 according to the Ottoman census, of which Jews and Christians comprise only about 12% each.
September 9: In Rome, Italy – The Roman Inquisition burns copies of the Jewish Talmud and other Jewish texts in the city's Campo de Fiori.

In Spain – All copies of the Jewish Scriptures in Spanish are seized and burnt, and all booksellers keeping or selling prohibited books (e.g. Jewish Scriptures) are punished with confiscation of goods or death.
May: Cardinal CARAFFA, Grand Inquisitor, becomes Pope PAUL 4th and reverses the policy of Jewish protection.
July 14: All Jews in Rome are forced onto the left bank of the Tiber and surrounded by a wall, with three gates locked at night, in accordance with the papal bull Cum nimis absurdam of Pope PAUL IV, which also requires Jewish men and women to wear distinguishing clothing. (This ghetto begins a trend which spreads across Europe).
In Derneburg, Germany – Many women are burned alive as alleged witches.
In Augsburg, Germany – The 'Peace of Augsberg' ends the wars of the three state-churches of the West (Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed) with the tribalizing of the Christian religion – cuis regio, eius religio – in which a people's religion is decided by their ruler, provided that the ruler is of one of the three named religions. Liberty of conscience is denied to the subject but conceded to the ruler on that condition, thus a change of ruler could mean a change of religion for the people.

In Scotland – CALVIN's teachings under JOHN KNOX lead Calvinists to take up arms against their Catholic administration.

Pope PIUS 5th counteracts his predecessor's anti-Semitism, but expels the Jews from all papal states except Rome and Ancona..

In Italy – Expulsion of the Jews from Tuscany, Italy, except the ghettos in Florence and Sienna.
In Germany – The Jewish residents of Berlin are expelled.

August 24: In France – 3,000 Huguenot Protestant Christians are massacred by Catholic troops in Paris.
The massacres spread through the country until October leaving about 70,000 dead. The Catholic Pope and the king of Spain welcome the news.

See Leviticus 25.

In Ottoman Jerusalem – The Ramban Synagogue is officially closed, resulting from years of complaints by the adjoining al-'Umari mosque about the loud noise of Jewish prayers.

January 22: Pope SIXTUS 5th asserts his responsibility for the institution of the Spanish inquisition.

In Palestine – Sultan MEHMET III restores the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
King PHILIP of Spain orders the expulsion of the Jews from the Duchy of Milan.

In Ukraine and Poland – Jewish oppression of the peasant population builds great resentment against them. (See 1648).

In Palestine – Sultan AHMAD I restores the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
In England – Bubonic plague wracks London, killing 35,000.

In London – On suspicion of being Jewish, Portuguese merchants are expelled.

In Palestine – Sultan MUSTAFA I also restores the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

Outbreak of the Thirty Years War in Europe.

July 3: The Treaty of Ulm is signed between the Holy Catholic League and the Protestant Union, giving a brief truce during the Thirty Years War.

In Germany – The Catholic bishop of Wurtzburg, PHILIP ADOLF VON EHRENBERG, burns 900 people to death for heresy (guilty of Protestantism or witchcraft), including his own nephew, 19 priests, and a child of seven.

In Frankfurt, Germany – VINCENT FETTMILCH leads a mob of artisans and merchants who raid and plunder Jews in the Ghetto. The Emperor executes the mob's leaders and the Jews are welcomed back to the Ghetto.

In London – Plague kills 30,000.

See Leviticus 25.

Greek Orthodox patriarch, THEOPHANES, presents a letter to Sultan MURAD IV from Caliph 'UMAR to Patriarch SOPHRONIUS in 638 granting the Greeks control of the holy places. Control of the Nativity Church in Bethlehem and key sites in the Holy Sepulcher Church in Jerusalem is given to the Greeks. After a bribe of 26,000 piastres the Sultan annuls the grant and control is returned to the Franciscans.

In America – Among the theses offered by the first class of Harvard graduates is Hebrea est Linguarum Mater (Hebrew is the mother of the languages). (Hebrew is actually derived from the Canaanite language which Abraham learned after arriving in Canaan).
In Britain – London supports Parliament in the British Civil War.

The Thirty Years War in Europe ends.
In Ukraine and Poland – 100,000 Jews are reported massacred, 300 Jewish communities destroyed, and many thousands more impoverished. Attacks are carried out, among other, by Cossacks under leadership of (Hetman) Khmelnitsky (Chmielnickij). (See 1602).

Jerusalem – On and around Temple Mount (Haram) there are 800 salaried imams, 50 muezzins, and many Qur'ãn reciters, assisting the thousands of Muslim pilgrims from India, Persia, Kurdistan and Asia Minor.
At Easter between five and ten thousand Christian pilgrims also crowd the city, paying entrance fees to the Holy Sepulcher. For security the city gates are locked at night.

In Indonesia – The Dutch, after displacing the Portuguese and Spanish, introduce a policy known as 'extirpatie': extirpation. All clove trees not controlled by the Netherlands United East India Company, or VOC, are uprooted and burned. Anyone caught growing, stealing or possessing clove plants without authorisation faces the death penalty. On the Banda Islands, to the south, the world's only source of nutmeg, the Dutch use Japanese mercenaries to slaughter almost the entire male population.

OLIVER CROMWELL, against fierce opposition, authorizes the return of Jews to Britain for the first time since EDWARD I (see 1290).

In Britain – CHARLES II is installed as king, and the persecution of Christian non-conformists begins.
In Germany – Elector Palatine KARL LUDWIG grants concessions to Jews living in Mannheim, in return for which they are obligated to build two-story dwelling houses using Jewish and Christian workers.

January 30: In Britain – The decomposed bodies of Bradshawe, Cromwell and Ireton are dug up from their graves (on the anniversary of King CHARLES I rightful execution for treason) and their corpses are hanged at Tyburn before a huge crowd which includes the ladies of CHARLES II's court.

In Britain – The Great Plague kills about 100,000.

August 22: In England – Jews petition King Charles II , who grants them a formal written statement of toleration.

Rabbi TZEVI is arrested by the Ottoman government and then converts to Islam. His closest supporters teach that he has become a Muslim to challenge God to accelerate the redemption of the Jewish people and the movement persists in various Jewish sects into the 19th century.
In Britain – The great fire of London burns for four days (possibly instigated by CHARLES II in revenge on the city for the execution of his father), destroying 13,000 homes.

In London – The city becomes a gold trading centre when Jewish MOSES MOCATTA sets up his merchant business.
In Berlin, Germany – The Great Elector grants 50 well-to-do Jewish families, driven from Vienna, a temporary right of settlement in Brandenburg (See 1812).

In Britain – The Test Act deprives Catholics and Christian non-conformists of public office.

See Leviticus 25.

In Hungary – During the siege of Buda, the Jews are accused of aiding its Turkish defenders.
In Italy – Pogroms against the Jews.

In Jerusalem, Palestine – Following the military victory of Austria, Poland and Venice over the Ottomans, the Franciscans are given charge of the Holy Sepulcher Church.

In Prague – a large crucifix with the words 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts' in gold Hebrew letters is erected on Charles Bridge by the Jewish community in expiation for an act of blasphemy by a Jew.

In Jerusalem, Palestine – Chaplain of the English Levant Company, HENRY MAUNDRELL, describes Christian pilgrims emotional reactions to ceremonies as "madness" and "Bedlam itself" and is particularly disgusted by the murderous rage and fanaticism between competing Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic clergy at the Tomb of Christ.
In London – Limitation of the number of 'Jew Brokers' in the City to twelve.

In Jerusalem, Palestine – The people revolt against the cruel taxation of their Turkish governor, JURJI MUHAMMAD PASHA. Led by AL-HUSANI, all prisoners are freed and the governor flees.

November: Jerusalem is attacked by the displaced JURJI MUHAMMAD with 2000 Janissaries and reoccupied.

In Jerusalem, Palestine – Local Arab 'UMAR AL-NIMR, from Nablus, governs Jerusalem effectively.

In England – Lady MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU begins to propagate the Turkish practice of inoculating against smallpox with a weakened strain of the virus which she had learned in Istanbul, in spite of opposition from Christian clergy who see smallpox as God's judgment.

In Jerusalem, Palestine – The Jewish Ashkenazic community falls into such debt for the rental of their land and houses that their property is confiscated and they leave the city. About 200 of their families move to Hebron, Safed and Damascus.
Jews of Jerusalem are thus predominantly Sephardic.
Franciscans refurbish the mosaics in the Holy Sepulcher Church, but other Christian clergy at the Church (Greek, Coptic, Armenian) are virtual prisoners as the Turkish authorities keep the keys and leaving the building could result in loss of possession.

See Leviticus 25.

In Palestine – 'UMAR AL-NIMR is again appointed as governor of Jerusalem.

In England – Evangelistic preacher JOHN WESLEY writes his "PRIMITIVE PHYSICK, or An Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases", as practical medical advice for those who could not afford doctors, selling at one shilling, containing rules for healthy living and 900 recipes for the treatment of 288 different ailments. It is reprinted 23 times in his life time.

BAAL SHEM (founder of Jewish Hasidism) circulates the 'Holy Epistle' describing his ascent to Heaven. (Baal Shem believes in panentheism/'God-is-in-everything').

The "Jew Bill" is passed in England.

Jewish communities ban FRANK's movement as heretical. FRANK and his followers are baptized into the Roman Catholic church but keep their own separate organization.

Under French political influence the Franciscan's custodianship of the Holy Sepulcher is confirmed and the 'Tomb of the Virgin' in Kidron Valley is added to their control.

In Poland – Right of last appeal to a Jewish tribunal (bet-din) by Jews in criminal cases is now ended.

June 21: In Uman, Ukraine – After destroying a number of Jewish cities, MAKSYM ZALIZNIAK, a Zaporizhian Cossack and leader of the Koliyivschyna Ukrainian peasant rebellion, together with IVAN GONTA, leads terrible massacres of Poles and Jews in vengeance for cruelties suffered by the peasants.

ELIJAH BEN SOLOMON ZALMAN ('HA-GRA') in Vilna, Lithuania, the cultural capital of eastern European Jewry, vigorously opposes Hasidism until his death in 1797, insisting on the intellectual love of God according to Talmudic and Midrashic traditions.

See Leviticus 25.
In Poland – Jewish JACOB FRANK (יעקב פרנק Ya'akov Frank) claims to be the reincarnation of the self-proclaimed Jewish messiah Sabbatai Zevi and also of Israel's King David.

During the Middle Ages, Austrian Jews had lived apart from the Orthodox communities and had not been allowed by the government to own immovable property. Although this was not the case for the more affluent Jews, those who were wealthy and were able to establish factories were recipients of preferential treatment by the emperor's mother Maria Theresa, but otherwise there were restrictions on the rest of the Jewish population. Emperor Joseph II is the first Austrian emperor to make an attempt to eliminate these attitudes and sanctions toward the majority of the Jewish population.

January 2: In Austria – The Edict of Toleration is issued by Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II and extended to Jews the freedom to pursue all branches of commerce, but also imposes new requirements.
Jews are required either to create German-language primary schools, or send their children to Christian schools (Jewish schools had previously taught children to read and write Hebrew, in addition to math.)
It also permits Jews to attend state secondary schools. However, a series of laws issued soon after the Edict of Toleration abolishes the autonomy of the Jewish communities, which had previously run their own court, charity, internal taxation and school systems; requires Jews to acquire family names; makes Jews subject to military conscription; and required candidates for the rabbinate to have secular educations.
The Edict allows Jews to practice agriculture, trades, and professions, to set up large businesses, and to attend schools and universities.

Switzerland – The last legal execution of a witch takes place.

January: In France – A royal decree abolishes the corporal tax (péage corporel) on Jews, which had seemed to ranked them 'alongside animals'.
In Palestine – CONSTANTIN VOLNEY of France makes the first scientific survey of the geography, climate, economy, and social life of Jerusalem. He reports –

In France – Civil equality is granted to Protestant Christians.

August: In France – DAVID SINTZHEIM, as delegate to the National Constituent Assembly, calls for emancipation of Jews in eastern France and protests against acts of violence against Jews in Alsace and Lorraine.
August 26: In France – The Declaration of Human Rights is adopted, but it is still another two years before Jews enjoy full civil rights, and another hundred years before Algerian Jews are granted citizenship (see October 1870).
December 23: In the French Constituent Assembly, Count STANISLAS DE CLERMONT-TONNERRE declares –

January 28: In France – 4,000 Jews in the south-west obtain citizenship.

September 27: In France – All Jews are emancipated by the National Assembly, and those in Alsace become citizens.

Alsace, France – Anti-Jewish violence erupts. Jewish cemeteries are destroyed and synagogues closed down.

In Italy – NAPOLEON BONAPARTE's army puts an end to the Age of the Ghetto and proclaims the emancipation of Italian Jewry.

Emperor NAPOLEON ends the Malta slave trade in Jews.

January: In Palestine – NAPOLEON BONAPARTE dispatches 13,000 French troops to conquer Ottoman Palestine.
In retaliation Muslim's attack St Saviours church in Jerusalem.

Palestine – The French army is hit by bubonic plague, but advance to Acre where they are repelled by the British navy and the army of AHMAD JEZZAR PASHA.

March 3: In America – DAVID EMANUEL takes office as the Governor of Georgia, the first Jewish person to serve as a governor in the United States. Emanuel is appointed to serve the last eight months of the term of his predecessor who has assumed a seat in the U.S. Senate.

In Jerusalem – the Holy Sepulcher Church is gutted by fire.
May 17: In France – Emperor NAPOLEON decrees that Jewish shopkeepers must apply to the local prefect annually for a trading licence and for permission to trade in some economic fields. Jews are not allowed to settle in Alsace or to move without special permission. They may not use Hebrew in commercial transactions, and limits may be set on Jewish immigration.
December 11: NAPOLEON decrees that Jews throughout France are to be under a state-supervised system of control. Where they number more than 2,000 in an administrative region (département), 13 regions at this time, they are to establish a synagogue, each of which is led by a rabbi and a layman appointed by Jewish notables and approved by the civil authorities. Each Jewish 'consistory' is to act as liaison between local Jews and the government, collect dues, supervise Jewish religion, educational services, and loyalty to France.
The Central Consistory in Paris is to be headed by a Chief Rabbi, obliged to wear a priestly mitre, who coordinates general Jewish affairs. Their first Chief Rabbi is German born DAVID SINTZHEIM (see 1789).

In Western Germany – Jews in Frankfurt (incorporated by NAPOLEON into the Confederation of the Rhine in 1806) are no longer obliged to live in the Ghetto as a consequence of the influence of French Revolutionary ideals.

In Berlin, Germany – The size of the Jewish congregation in Brandenburg has grown to 3,300 members.
March 11: In Prussia – Jews obtain civil rights, but not full equality and are still excluded from state employment, after the edict of King FREDERICK WILLIAM. Full equality is only available to them after 'Christian' baptism.

March 29: In Denmark – Jews are given equal rights
April 1: In France – Freedom of religion for Jews is restored.

June 18, Sunday: In Europe – In the Battle of Waterloo 55 Jewish artillerymen (under the Prussian flag in the Seventh Coalition fighting the French forces) are killed, but their widows receive no pension because from 1815 onward Jewish volunteers had no claim to any provision by the state.

United States – American Secretary of State (later President) JAMES MONROE removes Jewish MORDECAI NOAH from being US Consul in Tunis (Muslim country) because –

In Germany – The brothers JACOB and WILHELM GRIMM compose 'The Jew in the Thorn-Bush' which expresses the 'demonic' character of the Jew in Germanic thought.

Britain – The Duke of Wellington's military campaign in France (against Napoleon) is financed by Jewish NATHAN MAYER ROTHSCHILD.

In Jerusalem – The Greek Orthodox buy the right to rebuild the Holy Sepulcher Church.
Muslims object which leads to a full scale rebellion that is put down by Muslim troops from Damascus. The heads of 46 of the ringleaders are sent to Damascus.
The Greek Orthodox Church erases all history of a Latin presence at the site, and the graves of King BALDWIN I and GODREY of Bouillon are thrown out.
No Christian sect can be trusted with the door key of the Holy Sepulcher Church so it is given to a Muslim family to control.

In Germany – citizens of Würzburg, Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Hamburg, riot against Jews, plundering Jewish shops, as they chant the old Crusader war-cry 'Hep hep' (Hierosolyma est perdita – Jerusalem is lost).

– Governor RUZDI PASHA uses a trumped-up charge to levy the Jews of Sarajevo for 50,000 Groschen. He later increases this to 500,000 to be paid within three days, imprisons ten of Sarajevo's leading Jews (among whom is Rabbi MOSHE DANON) and threatens to execute them if the fine is not paid.
The night before the execution, contrary to custom on Sabbath-eve, observant Jew RAFAEL LEVI goes out to seek the aid of the Muslim community. In the morning three-thousand Muslims under leadership of AHMED BARJAKTAR BJELAVSKI, a local commander of the Bjelave neighbourhood of Jews and Muslims, storm the gates of the Governor's palace and rescue Rabbi DANON and the rest of the prisoners, then march to the local synagogue where the story of Purim is recounted to them.
(Accordingly, the rescue is later dubbed the Sarajevo Purim).
Subsequently, 249 Muslim dignitaries attach their signatures to a document addressed to the Turkish Sultan denouncing the cruelty of RUZDI PASHA.

In Britain – Anti-Semite and radical social reformer, WILLIAM COBBETT, publicly attacks 'Jew-dogs' who turn London into a 'Jew Wen'.

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