Iyyar // אִייָר
About Iyyar
Iyyar is the eighth month of the civil year and the second month of the Jewish religious year on the Hebrew calendar.
Iyyar comes at the same time as the secular months April/May.
Iyyar also links the months of Nisan and Sivan through the counting of the Omer. As we count the Omer, we experience our own growth, and the growth of the Jewish people. In Nisan we become a nation, born out of the Exodus from Egypt. In Iyyar the Jewish people enters adolescence as we struggle to become a mature nation ready to receive the Torah in Sivan.
Tradition teaches that Miriam’s Well first appeared during Iyyar, as did manna, the food that sustained the ancient Israelites during their desert journey.
Holidays in Iyyar
Iyyar History
circa 2870/2871 BCe
Death of Eli the High Priest and his two sons
circa 1312 BCE
The Israelites depart their encampment near Mount Sinai.
circa 1012 BCE
Death of Samuel the Prophet, marked by pilgrimages to his tomb on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
498 BCE
Jerusalem's rebuilt walls are dedicated nearly 88 years after their destruction by Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.
2nd century bce
Death of Rabbi Meir
1096 CE
Rhineland massacres of the First Crusade begin.
Massacre of 800 Jews in Worms, Germany - this day was observed as a day of communal fasting in Worms for centuries to come.
Cologne Jews saved during the First Crusade.
1288
Thirteen Troyes Jews burned at the stake by the Inquisition for supposedly murdering a Christian child. The thirteen Jews chosen were from among the richer members of the community. Jews were also killed in a "blood libel" in Neuchâtel, Switzerland the same day.
1293
Death of Meir of Rothenburg in his cell in Ensisheim Fortress where he had been imprisoned for ten years for ransom.
1165
Maimonides survives a fierce storm at sea while fleeing from the Islamic persecution in Fez. From then on he observed the day as a personal day of fasting and prayer.
1355
Toledo Massacre – 1200 Jews massacred by an attack led by Henry II of Castile during a civil war on the Alcaná, the judería of Toledo
1512
1500 Jewish books were confiscated in the Free City of Frankfurt at the instigation of an apostate.
1605
Jews of Bisenz, part of Austrian Bohemia, were massacred by Stephen Bocskai, Prince of Transylvania
1690
Ettingen Jews acquitted of a blood libel.
1727
Jews expelled from Ukraine by Empress Catherine I a few months prior to her death.
1731
Jewish books begin to be searched for and confiscated by Giovanni Antonio Costanzi, the Vatican librarian.
1860
Birthday of Theodor Herzl
1881
Pogroms in Wasilków and Konotop as Jews are blamed for the assassination of Tsar Alexander II of the Russian Empire, who was assassinated in a suicide attack by the Catholic Russified Pole Ignacy Hryniewiecki.
1939
Mount Scopus Hospital opened on Mount Scopus, Jerusalem as a modern, 300-bed academic medical facility.
The Nuremberg laws went into effect in Nazi-allied Hungary.
1942
All pregnant women in Kovno Ghetto sentenced to death by the Nazis.
1944
2 months after the Nazi occupation of Hungary, Nazis began deportating Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz.
1945
Death of Adolf Hitler.
Nazi Germany surrenders to Allied Forces.
Theresienstadt concentration camp liberated by the Soviets.
1948
Israeli Declaration of Independence on Friday, 14 May 1948, before sunset.
Battle at Degania – The Israeli Army defeated the advancing Syrian Armed Forces, following the shelling at the entrance of Deganya, which began at sunrise and lasted nine hours. It is considered the first Israeli victory of 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
1967
Battle at Degania – The Israeli Army defeated the advancing Syrian Armed Forces, following the shelling at the entrance of Deganya, which began at sunrise and lasted nine hours. It is considered the first Israeli victory of 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
Iyyar Zodiac
The mazal (Zodiac) for Iyyar is Taurus, שׁוֹר/shor (the ox).