21 Av 5780

Today, 395 years ago, in the year 1625, a fire burned down the whole city of Jarosław, only three houses survived.

On the Jaroslaw town hall website, we read: “The first mention of the Jarosław town hall dates from the last quarter of the 15th century. Certainly wooden [buildings] – burned down in 1600 and after the fire, built as a brick building. In 1625 again affected by fire and rebuilt in the style of the late Renaissance.”

R’ Chaim Ulm, was at the time in Jarosław, Poland, and fled the city due to the fire. Out on the field, he met with Rabbi Avarahm Aschkenzi from Lemberg, and a discussion developed if one was killed by a non-Jew for money reasons, if his son should be called upon the Torah, with the title “ben haKadosh”?  When the Lemberger rav noticed R’ Chaim’s hesitation, he told him, “I saw in an old manuscript, that even when a Jew is killed by a non-Jew only for money reasons, he’s still considered a “Kadosh”.

Sources: Yosef Ometz, vol. I, 485; www.jaroslaw.pl