Dan Poraz Profile picture
Feb 13, 2020 18 tweets 7 min read Read on X
Who loves #JewishHistory?

2020 marks 300 years to the birth of one of the most important, most influential Jewish scholars of all times. How did he become so important?

Here’s a thread about Rabbi Eliyahu Ben Shlomo Zalman, commonly known as the #VilnaGaon >> Image
Rabbi Eliyahu was born on April 23rd 1720, in a small village called Sialiec, today in #Belarus but back then it was under the sovereignty of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth >> ImageImage
From a very young age, little Eliyahu was remarkable. He was known for being a gifted ‘Talmid Chacham’ - an outstanding brilliant Torah scholar >>
What he was most famous for was his absolute devotion to the studying of the Torah. In the Book of Joshua, chapter 1 verse 8 it says: “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night”.
And he didn’t; and he did >>
It is told that he would sleep only 2 hours every night, the absolute minimum required to carry on, so he could devote as much time as possible to study Torah >>
Those years were difficult times for Jews of Eastern Europe. A few decades earlier the Cossacks, an eastern Slavic ethnic group, uprised against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. This uprising effected many vulnerable Jewish Communities and thousands were killed. More here 👇🏻>>
The national Jewish trauma of the Messiah Claimant Shabbtai Zvi, who managed to attract, convince and delude the masses, was still open. More here 👇🏻
>>
The antisemitic pogroms and the despair in Jewish communities throughout Eastern Europe, contributed to the emergence of a new movement that swiftly spread out - Hasidic Judaism >>
The new Hasidic movement put emphasis on the spiritual dimension of Judaism and on the need to be one with god.
Back to the #VilnaGaon - he was the most profound dissident of this new idea >> Image
In fact, the #VilnaGaon opposed Hasidism so harshly that in some cases he referred to the Hasidim as infidels that deserve ostracism and beating. Unlike Hasidism, he preached that the most important part of being a Jew is to study Torah >>
Overtime, East European Jews were devided into Hasidic Jews, and those who opposed them - the followers of the #VilnaGaon. Today, the ‘Hasidim’ and the ‘Misnagdim’ (the opponents), are the two prominent movements of Ultra-Orthodox Judaism >>
The #VilnaGaon made an attempt to immigrate to ׳Eretz Yisrael׳ - the land of #Israel (aka the promised land aka the holy land aka Palestina) then, the district of Southern Syria and part of the Ottoman Empire >> Image
This attempt, that he made accompanied by some of his students, (dated to the late 1770’s or the early 1780’s) failed, and eventually the #VilanGaon never reached Israel >>
Even though he faild to reach the promised land, many of his students did not lose hope and immigrated some years later. Tweeted about it when I reached 1808 followers. Here 👇🏻
>>
The #VilnaGaon’s (failed) attempt to return to the promised land didn’t come out of the blue. I tweeted about the Hasidic immigration wave to Israel when I reached 1777 followers 👇🏻
>>
One of the #VilnaGaon’s most prominent students was Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin (town in modern day Belarus). In 1803, he established the Volozhin Yeshiva that operated for almost a century and became the prototype for Lithuanian style Yeshivas around the world >> Image
The #VilnaGaon died on October 9 1797 at the age of 77 in the city of Vilniaus- then part of the Russian Empire and today the capital of Lithuania.
His legacy of devotion, and tireless perseverance in studying the Torah, lives on.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Dan Poraz

Dan Poraz Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @PorazDan

Aug 9, 2021
Just before 14:00, exactly 20 years ago today, a suicide bomber stepped into a Pizza place in #Jerusalem.
He ordered pasta.
Then he detonated a bomb hidden inside a guitar case and all hell broke loose.

Thread.
The results were catastrophic.
15 were killed, 7 of them children.
One family in particular, was destroyed in a split second.
43 year old Mordechai Schijveschuurder, his wife Tzira, 14 year old daughter Raya, 4 year old son Avraham and 2 year old daughter Hemda. Killed.
2 other children from the Schijveschuurder family were critically injured.
The Palestinian Authority refrained from arresting the ones responsible. Eventually, all behind the attack were arrested by Israel.
Read 6 tweets
May 21, 2021
Now with the ceasefire, its important to remember that the fighting began 11 days ago, with Hamas taking a decision to fire rockets at Israel's capital.
Also important to refute claims that Hamas fired because of "the occupation".
There is no occupation in #Gaza.
THREAD >>
On September 2005, the Israeli government carried out a FULL withdrawal, both military and civil, from the #Gaza Strip.
The Israeli disengagement from Gaza ended a 38 year long Israeli presence in the strip >>
Jews have been living in #Gaza for centuries. Some of the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 joined the already established Jewish community in Gaza >>
Read 17 tweets
Jan 17, 2021
Exactly 5 years ago today, Dafna Meir, a 38 year old nurse, wife, and mother of 4, was brutally murdered at her home in front of 2 of her children, by a 15 year old Palestinian.

Two days later, the murderer was arrested by Israeli security forces.

Here is his testimony >>
“She struggled”, the 15 year old murderer told the investigators.
“I stabbed her until I couldn’t pull the knife out of her body” >>
“Why did you kill her?”
he was asked by the investigators.

“Israel is killing our youths. That’s why. I decided to do the same as other young Palestinians do...I realized I might get hurt but I had faith in god” >>
Read 12 tweets
Sep 13, 2020
On Tuesday #Israel will sign on normalization agreements with two Arab states.

So why did normalization and peace with the #Palestinians never come about?

The Oslo Accords between Israel & the Palestinians were signed #OnThisDay in 1993.

THREAD about what went wrong >>
Basically, after decades of violent conflict, the Israeli government agreed to exclude the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from its terror list and to recognize it as the legitimate and sole representative of the Palestinian people >>
In return, and after decades of denial, the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist. Yasser Arafat, PLO’s chairman, agreed to amend the organization’s charter that explicitly called for Israel’s destruction.
The problem with Arafat was that he was literally using doublespeak >>
Read 34 tweets
Sep 6, 2020
ISIS could have had nuclear weapons.

Let

that

sink

in.

A five tweet thread.

1/5
On this day ,September 6 2007, the Israeli Air Force striked and destroyed a secret nuclear reactor located at Deir ez-Zor, Syria >> Image
2/5
Turned out that the #Assad regime had been building this Plutonium reactor for years, with the good help of some friends from #NorthKorea and with some generous funding from #Iran.
The strike left the facility irrecoverable >> Image
3/5
Less than 4 years later, on March 2011, a civil war broke in Syria. Deir ez-Zor fell under the control of an unknown rebel militia.
The name of that militia was Daesh, AKA the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant >> Image
Read 5 tweets
Aug 24, 2020
"Allah willing, we will massacre the Jews like we massacred them in Hebron".

Testimony from elderly Palestinian woman who remembers.
#OnThisDay in 1929, massacres resulted in murdering of 133 Jews and destruction of entire Jewish communities in British ruled #Palestine.

THREAD
Violence erupted after vile anti-Jewish incitement was coming from the #Arab leadership, and in particular, from the grand Mufti Amin al-Hussaini.
False claims that the #Jews plan to take over the Al-Aqsa Mosque instigated the masses “to take action”.
2/7
In few of his sermons, al-Hussaini was quoted saying:
“a place in heaven is promised for those who kill the Jew”.
Attempts by the British authorities to reach calm failed. Violence began in #Jerusalem on 23/8/1929.
19 Jews were murdered. Homes and synagogues were burnt down.
3/7
Read 7 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(