When Governor of Georgia James Jackson resigned his post to serve as a US senator, the president of the Georgia Senate, David Emanuel, who was said to be Jewish, was sworn in as governor. If he was indeed Jewish, March 3, 1801, was the first time that a Jewish person served as governor of a US state.
Emanuel served the remaining eight months of Jackson's term, but did not seek re-election, opting instead to retire from politics. In 1812, Georgia named a new county in his honor: "Emanuel County."
The inaugural edition of "The Jew," the first Jewish periodical in the United States, was published in March of 1823. It was published in New York City and edited by Solomon H. Jackson.
The subtitle of the paper was “Being a defence of Judaism against all adversaries, and particularly against the insidious attacks of Israel's Advocate.” Its major aim was to combat missionaries, and specifically "Israel's Advocate," a Christian conversionist periodical published at the same time.
The periodical was issued until March 1825.
The Jews of Sana’a, Yemen, were saved from a decree plotted against them by the king’s anti-Semitic ministers, in which they were accused of killing the grand prince. Yemenite Jewry celebrated this day each year with feasting and rejoicing.
Link: Purim Yemen
The Torah reading of Parah (Numbers 19) is added to the weekly reading. Parah details the laws of the "Red Heifer" and the process by which a person rendered ritually impure by contact with a dead body was purified.
(When the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem, every Jew had to be in a state of ritual purity in time for the bringing of the Passover offering in the Temple. Today, though we're unable to fulfill the Temple-related rituals in practice, we fulfill them spiritually by studying their laws in the Torah. Thus, we study and read the section of Parah in preparation for the upcoming festival of Passover.)
Links: The Parah reading with commentary
The Calf's Mother
There is an outer world and there is an inner world. As deep as you penetrate, as high as you reach, there is always something breathing inside.
The outer world is made of things. Breathing inside the things are words.
Words are the outside. Inside the words are stories.
The story is the outside. Inside the story is a thought.
Thoughts are the outside. Inside the thoughts is a great light.
At the origin of all light is the beginning that cannot be known.
The outside we can touch and come to know.
The inside—we must wait and be still, so that it may speak to us.
As it did at Sinai. As it does whenever we learn Torah with all our heart and soul.