With the Black Death raging throughout Switzerland, poison was reported to have been found in the wells at Zofingen. Some Jews were put to the "Dümeln" (thumbscrews) test, whereupon they "admitted" their guilt of the charges brought against them. This discovery was then communicated to the people of Basel, Zurich, Freiburg-im-Breisgau, and even Cologne.
The Jews of Basel were burned on an island in the Rhine on January 9, 1349, in wooden huts that were especially built for the occasion. Their children, who were spared, were taken and forcibly baptized.
On his way back from participating in a brit milah ceremony in Bohuslav (in what is now Ukraine), R. Aryeh Leib, known as the “Grandfather of Shpoli” was crossing over the frozen Ros River when the ice suddenly broke beneath his feet. Miraculously he was saved, and to this day his descendants mark this date with a joyous feast (Ish Hapelleh, pp. 299–301).
Daniel Pearl, an American-born Jewish reporter for The Wall Street Journal was kidnapped by terrorists in Karachi by a militant group calling itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty, which claimed that Pearl was a spy.
Nine days later, on Shevat 19 (Feb 1), Pearl was beheaded on videotape. The gruesome tape has Pearl stating that, “… My father's Jewish, my mother's Jewish, I'm Jewish. …”
It all began with an unbounded light
that filled all and left no room for a world to be.
Then that light was withheld
so that the world might be created in the resulting void.
Then the world was created,
with the purpose of returning to that original state of light
—yet to remain a world.
That is something greater than unbounded light:
A dark world that shines, through our hard work.