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
When G‑d told Moses that every Jew must give enough to clean up the spiritual damage caused by the golden calf affair, Moses was concerned.
“A person will have to give all he has to clean himself up!” he said.
But G‑d said, “They don’t need to give a hundred silver pieces, not fifty, and not even thirty. They only need to give one half a shekel.”
-Midrash
When you’ve failed and you want to clean up your mess, very often the job seems overwhelming.
In the case of the golden calf, Moses imagined that the smallest amount it would take to pay back the damage done was thirty silver pieces per soul. That was the value of a Hebrew servant. And with the golden calf, the Jewish people had abused their role as servants of G‑d.
But G‑d told Moses, no, it takes just half a shekel. Which is one sixtieth of thirty.
Why one sixtieth? Because that is the tipping point of significance.
When something falls into a quantity sixty times its size, halachah generally considers it insignificant, as though it's not there.
But at one in sixty, there are only 59 parts against it. One sixtieth just barely crosses the threshold of significance.
So that is all you need to do. Not to fix up your whole mess all at once. Just something that’s enough to have some measurable impact, to be of some small consequence, no matter how miniscule.
And then G‑d will provide the means to complete the job.
As the Midrash says, “Open a pathway into your heart as small as the prick of a needle, and I will open it as large as the great doorway of the Temple.”