1.
Hebrew language
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Hebrew is a language native to Israel, spoken by over 9 million people worldwide, of whom over 5 million are in Israel. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors, the earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE. Hebrew belongs to the West Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, Hebrew is the only living Canaanite language left, and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language. Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Aramaic and to a lesser extent Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and it survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and poetry. Then, in the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language, and, according to Ethnologue, had become, as of 1998, the language of 5 million people worldwide. After Israel, the United States has the second largest Hebrew-speaking population, with 220,000 fluent speakers, Modern Hebrew is one of the two official languages of the State of Israel, while premodern Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world today. Ancient Hebrew is also the tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Arabic is their vernacular. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Hakodesh, the modern word Hebrew is derived from the word Ivri, one of several names for the Israelite people. It is traditionally understood to be a based on the name of Abrahams ancestor, Eber. This name is based upon the root ʕ-b-r meaning to cross over. Interpretations of the term ʕibrim link it to this verb, cross over, in the Bible, the Hebrew language is called Yәhudit because Judah was the surviving kingdom at the time of the quotation. In Isaiah 19,18 it is called the Language of Canaan, Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. In turn, the Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages, according to Avraham ben-Yosef, Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during about 1200 to 586 BCE. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile. In July 2008 Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa which he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating around 3000 years ago. The Gezer calendar also dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks, the Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it
2.
Jerusalem
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Jerusalem is a city located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is considered a city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, the part of Jerusalem called the City of David was settled in the 4th millennium BCE. In 1538, walls were built around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent, today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger, Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old Citys boundaries. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, the sobriquet of holy city was probably attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Septuagint which Christians adopted as their own authority, was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesuss crucifixion there, in Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. As a result, despite having an area of only 0, outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb. Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, one of Israels Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the countrys undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset, the residences of the Prime Minister and President, the international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, and the city hosts no foreign embassies. Jerusalem is also home to some non-governmental Israeli institutions of importance, such as the Hebrew University. In 2011, Jerusalem had a population of 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000, Muslims 281,000, a city called Rušalim in the Execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt is widely, but not universally, identified as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called Urušalim in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba, the name Jerusalem is variously etymologized to mean foundation of the god Shalem, the god Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city. The form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Bible, in the Book of Joshua, according to a Midrash, the name is a combination of Yhwh Yireh and the town Shalem. The earliest extra-biblical Hebrew writing of the word Jerusalem is dated to the sixth or seventh century BCE and was discovered in Khirbet Beit Lei near Beit Guvrin in 1961. The inscription states, I am Yahweh thy God, I will accept the cities of Judah and I will redeem Jerusalem, or as other scholars suggest, the mountains of Judah belong to him, to the God of Jerusalem
3.
Israel
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Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Middle East, on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. The country contains geographically diverse features within its small area. Israels economy and technology center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, in 1947, the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan for Mandatory Palestine recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states and an internationalized Jerusalem. The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, next year, the Jewish Agency declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied territories including the West Bank, Golan Heights and it extended its laws to the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank. Israels occupation of the Palestinian territories is the worlds longest military occupation in modern times, efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in peace. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have successfully been signed, the population of Israel, as defined by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, was estimated in 2017 to be 8,671,100 people. It is the worlds only Jewish-majority state, with 74. 8% being designated as Jewish, the countrys second largest group of citizens are Arabs, at 20. 8%. The great majority of Israeli Arabs are Sunni Muslims, including significant numbers of semi-settled Negev Bedouins, other minorities include Arameans, Armenians, Assyrians, Black Hebrew Israelites, Circassians, Maronites and Samaritans. Israel also hosts a significant population of foreign workers and asylum seekers from Africa and Asia, including illegal migrants from Sudan, Eritrea. In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a Jewish, Israel is a representative democracy with a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage. The prime minister is head of government and the Knesset is the legislature, Israel is a developed country and an OECD member, with the 35th-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product as of 2016. The country benefits from a skilled workforce and is among the most educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentage of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree. The country has the highest standard of living in the Middle East and the third highest in Asia, in the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term Israeli to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett. The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have historically used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel. The name Israel in these phrases refers to the patriarch Jacob who, jacobs twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites, also known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. The earliest known artifact to mention the word Israel as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt. The area is known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam
4.
Haredi Judaism
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Haredi Judaism is a broad spectrum of groups within Orthodox Judaism, all characterized by a rejection of modern secular culture. Its members are referred to as strictly Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox in English. The term ultra-Orthodox, however, is considered pejorative by some of its adherents, Haredim regard themselves as the most religiously authentic group of Jews, although this claim is contested by other streams. However, there are many Haredi communities in which getting a degree or establishing a business is encouraged. Haredi communities are found in Israel, North America. Their estimated global population currently numbers 1. 3–1.5 million, and, due to an absence of interfaith marriage. Their numbers have also boosted by a substantial number of secular Jews adopting a Haredi lifestyle as part of the Baal teshuva movement. The term most commonly used by outsiders, including most American news organizations, is ultra-Orthodox Judaism, Hillel Halkin suggests the origins of the term may date to the 1950s, a period in which Haredi survivors of the Holocaust first began arriving in America. Haredi is a Modern Hebrew adjective derived from the Biblical verb hared which appears in the Book of Isaiah and is translated as trembles at the word of God. The word connotes an awe-inspired fear and anxiety to perform the will of God and is used to describe staunchly Orthodox Jews, others, however, dispute the characterization of the term as pejorative. Ari L. Goldman, a professor at Columbia University, notes that the term simply serves a purpose to distinguish a specific part of the Orthodox community. Sometimes the community has been characterized as Traditional Orthodox, in contradistinction to the Modern Orthodox, Haredi Jews also use other terms to refer to themselves. Common Yiddish words include Yidn or erlekhe Yidn, Ben Torah, frum, according to its adherents, the forebears of the contemporary Haredim were the traditionalists of Eastern Europe who fought against modernization. Indeed, adherents see its beliefs as part of a tradition dating from the revelation at Sinai. However, most historians of Orthodoxy consider Haredi Judaism, in its modern incarnation, for centuries, before Jewish emancipation, European Jews were forced to live in ghettos where Jewish culture and religious observance were preserved. Change began in the wake of the Age of Enlightenment when some European liberals sought to include the Jewish population in the emerging empires, the influence of the Haskalah movement was also evidence. Supporters of the Haskalah held that Judaism must change in keeping with the changes around them. Other Jews insisted on strict adherence to halakha and his approach was to accept the tools of modern scholarship and apply them in defence of Orthodoxy
5.
Jews
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The Jews, also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Israelites, or Hebrews, of the Ancient Near East. Jews originated as a national and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE, the Merneptah Stele appears to confirm the existence of a people of Israel, associated with the god El, somewhere in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE. The Israelites, as an outgrowth of the Canaanite population, consolidated their hold with the emergence of the Kingdom of Israel, some consider that these Canaanite sedentary Israelites melded with incoming nomadic groups known as Hebrews. The worldwide Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million prior to World War II, but approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. Since then the population has risen again, and as of 2015 was estimated at 14.3 million by the Berman Jewish DataBank. According to the report, about 43% of all Jews reside in Israel and these numbers include all those who self-identified as Jews in a socio-demographic study or were identified as such by a respondent in the same household. The exact world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure, Israel is the only country where Jews form a majority of the population. The modern State of Israel was established as a Jewish state and defines itself as such in its Declaration of Independence and its Law of Return grants the right of citizenship to any Jew who requests it. The English word Jew continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe, according to the Hebrew Bible, the name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. The Hebrew word for Jew, יְהוּדִי ISO 259-3 Yhudi, is pronounced, with the stress on the syllable, in Israeli Hebrew. The Ladino name is ג׳ודיו, Djudio, ג׳ודיוס, Djudios, Yiddish, ייִד Yid, ייִדן, Yidn. The etymological equivalent is in use in languages, e. g. but derivations of the word Hebrew are also in use to describe a Jew, e. g. in Italian. The German word Jude is pronounced, the corresponding adjective jüdisch is the origin of the word Yiddish, in such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a factual reconstruction for the origin of the Jews is a difficult and complex endeavor. It requires examining at least 3,000 years of ancient human history using documents in vast quantities, as archaeological discovery relies upon researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines, the goal is to interpret all of the factual data, focusing on the most consistent theory. In this case, it is complicated by long standing politics and religious, Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacobs son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses, traditionally dated to the 13th century BCE, Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the Patriarchs and of the Exodus story, with it being reframed as constituting the Israelites inspiring national myth narrative. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group
6.
Old Yishuv
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The Old Yishuv were the Jewish communities of the southern Syrian provinces in the Ottoman period, up to the onset of Zionist aliyah and the consolidation of the New Yishuv by the end of World War I. The Old Yishuv developed after a period of decline in Jewish communities of the Southern Levant during the early Middle Ages. The oldest group consisted of the Ladino-speaking Sephardic Jewish communities in Galilee, a second group was composed of Ashkenazi and Hassidic Jews who had emigrated from Europe in the 18th and early 19th centuries. A third wave was constituted by Yishuv members who arrived in the late 19th century. Apart from the Old Yishuv centres in the four cities of Judaism, namely Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias and Safed, smaller communities also existed in Jaffa, Haifa, Pekiin, Acre, Nablus. Petah Tikva, although established in 1878 by the Old Yishuv, rishon LeZion, the first settlement founded by the Hovevei Zion in 1882, could be considered the true beginning of the New Yishuv. Jewish communities of the southern Levant under Byzantine rule fell into a decline in the early 7th century. And with the Jewish revolt against Heraclius and Muslim conquest of Syria, despite temporary revival, the Arab Muslim civil wars of the 8th and 9th centuries drove many non-Muslims out of the country, with no evidence of mass conversions, except for Samaritans. The Crusader period marked the most serious decline, lasting through the 12th century, maimonides traveled from Spain to Morocco and Egypt, and stayed in the Holy Land, probably sometime between 1165 and 1167, before settling in Egypt. He had then become a physician of Saladin, escorting him throughout his war campaigns against the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Small Jewish communities were also existent at the time in Gaza, the vast majority of the settlers were wiped out by the Crusaders, who arrived in 1219, and the few survivors were allowed to live only in Acre. Their descendants blended with the original Jewish residents, called Mustarabim or Maghrebim, the Mamluk period saw an increase in the Jewish population, especially in the Galilee, but the black death epidemics had cut the countrys demographics by at least one-third. In 1260, Rabbi Yechiel of Paris arrived in Eretz Israel, at the part of Mamluk Empire, along with his son. There he established the Talmudic academy Midrash haGadol dParis and he is believed to have died there between 1265 and 1268, and is buried near Haifa, at Mount Carmel. Nahmanides arrived in 1267 and settled in Acre as well, don Joseph Nasi succeeded in resettling Tiberias and Safed in 1561 with Sephardic Jews, many of them former Anusim. By the late 16th century, Safed had become a center of Kabbalah, inhabited by important rabbis, among them were Rabbi Yakov bi Rav, Rabbi Moshe Cordevero, Rabbi Yosef Karo, and Isaac Luria. At this time there was a community in Jerusalem headed by Rabbi Levi ibn Haviv also known as the Mahralbach. Rabbi Yeshaye Horowitz, the Shelah Hakadosh, arrived in 1620, Galilee, becoming the most important Jewish center, however, didnt last
7.
Toldos Aharon (Hasidic dynasty)
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Toldos Aharon is a strongly anti-Zionist Hasidic movement, headquartered in Jerusalems Meah Shearim neighborhood. Significant concentrations of Hasidim are also located in Ramat Beit Shemesh, London, Toldos Aharon is a split-off from Shomer Emunim. It is led by its Rebbe, Rabbi Dovid, Rabbi Avrohom Yitzchok Kohn, the previous Toldos Aharon Rebbe, died during Hanukkah of 1996. Rabbi Kohn had many sons, four of whom are rebbes today, after Rabbi Kohn died, two of his sons came to an agreement whereby the younger son Rabbi Duvid Kohn from Monsey, New York, inherited the title Toldos Aharon Rebbe. The main beis medrash of Toldos Avrohom Yitzchok is also in Meah Shearim, another son is a rosh yeshiva in Kiryas Joel, New York. The other two sons formed chassidic courts on their own, both located in Meah Shearim as well, and are known as the Mevakshei Emunah Rebbe and the Nachlas Aharon Rebbe respectively. Rebbe Aharon Reb Areleh Roth - author of Shomrei Emunim, Shulchan HaTahor, and Taharas HaKodesh - founding Rebbe of Shomrei Emunim dynasty in the town of Satmar, Rebbe Avrohom Chaim Roth - Shomrei Emumim Rebbe in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak - son of Reb Areleh Roth. Rebbe Avrohom Yitzchok Kohn - author of Divrei Emunah - previous Toldos Aharon Rebbe of Jerusalem - son-in-law of R Areleh Roth, Rebbe Shmuel Yaakov Kohn - present Toldos Avrohom Yitzchok Rebbe in Jerusalem - eldest son of the previous Toldos Aharon Rebbe. Rebbe Dovid Kohn - present Toldos Aharon Rebbe in Jerusalem - son of the previous Toldos Aharon Rebbe, in Jerusalem, married men wear white and grey Zebra coats during the week and golden bekishes/Caftan on Shabbos. In other Hasidic groups, only married men wear a shtreimel, all boys and men wear a traditional Jerusalemite white yarmulke. Unmarried boys wear a black coat with attached belt on weekdays, unlike the married men. Married women cover their hair without wearing wigs, and the standards of tznius expected from them are the strictest among all Hasidic/Orthodox Jewish groups. As is customary in the traditional Jerusalemite community, unmarried girls have their hair in two braids, unlike most other Haredi communities, where the girls wear their hair in a simple ponytail. The Shomrei Emunim are characterized by fervent and visibly emotional prayer, one such decree, for example, forbade wearing wool. A strong emphasis is placed on the importance of full-time Torah study, a group that later split off from Toldos Aharon, upon the death of the previous Toldos Aharon Rebbe, is called Toldos Avrohom Yitzchok. The version of the book used by Toldos Aharon Hasidim is called Brochoh uTehilloh. The Toldos Avrohom Yitzchok Hasidim have published a prayer book called, Tehillas Avrohom Yitzchok. The Staroselyer Rebbe was a follower of the first Rebbe of Chabad, after the passing of R Shneur Zalman, R Aharon HaLevi started his own Chassidic following, an offshoot of Chabad, in Staroselye
8.
Book of Genesis
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The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. The basic narrative expresses the theme, God creates the world and appoints man as his regent. The new post-Flood world is also corrupt, God does not destroy it, instead calling one man, Abraham, to be the seed of its salvation. At Gods command Abraham descends from his home into the land of Canaan, given to him by God, Genesis ends with Israel in Egypt, ready for the coming of Moses and the Exodus. The narrative is punctuated by a series of covenants with God, the books author or authors appear to have structured it around ten toledot sections, but modern commentators see it in terms of a primeval history followed by the cycle of Patriarchal stories. In Judaism, the importance of Genesis centers on the covenants linking God to his chosen people. It is not clear, however, what this meant to the original authors, while the first is far shorter than the second, it sets out the basic themes and provides an interpretive key for understanding the entire book. The primeval history has a symmetrical structure hinging on chapters 6–9, God creates the world in six days and consecrates the seventh as a day of rest. God creates the first humans Adam and Eve and all the animals in the Garden of Eden but instructs them not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A talking serpent portrayed as a creature or trickster, entices Eve into eating it anyway. Eve bears two sons, Cain and Abel, Cain kills Abel after God accepts Abels offering but not Cains. Eve bears another son, Seth, to take Abels place, after many generations of Adam have passed from the lines of Cain and Seth, the world becomes corrupted by the sin of man and Nephilim, and God determines to wipe out mankind. First, he instructs the righteous Noah and his family to build a huge boat, then God sends a great flood to wipe out the rest of the world. When the waters recede, God promises that he not destroy the world a second time with water with the rainbow as the symbol of his promise. But upon seeing mankind cooperating to build a great tower city, God instructs Abram to travel from his home in Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan. Abrams name is changed to Abraham and that of his wife Sarai to Sarah, because Sarah is old, she tells Abraham to take her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar, as a second wife. God resolves to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for the sins of their people, Abraham protests and gets God to agree not to destroy the cities if 10 righteous men can be found. Angels save Abrahams nephew Lot and his family, but his wife back on the destruction against their command and is turned into a pillar of salt
9.
Weekly Torah portion
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The weekly Torah portion, popularly just parashah and also known as a Sidra is a section of the Torah used in Jewish liturgy during a single week. The weekly reading is pre-empted by a reading on major religious holidays. The Saturday morning and holiday readings are followed by a reading from the Book of Prophets, there are 54 weekly parashiyot or parshahs in Judaism, and the full cycle is read over the course of one Jewish year. Each weekly Torah portion takes its name from the first distinctive word in the Hebrew text of the portion in question, in ancient times some Jewish communities practiced a triennial cycle of readings. The parashot read are still consistent with the cycle but the entire Torah is completed over three years. Orthodox Judaism does not follow this practice, due to different lengths of holidays in Israel and the Diaspora, the portion that is read on a particular week will sometimes not be the same inside and outside Israel. Maimonides based his division of the parashot for the Torah on the Masoretic text of the Aleppo Codex
10.
Isaac
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Isaac (/ˈaɪzək/ was the son of Abraham and Sarah and father of Jacob, his name means he laughs, reflecting Sarahs response when told that she will have a child. He was one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites, the one whose name was not changed, and the only one who did not move out of Canaan. He died when he was 180 years old, the longest-lived of the three, the anglicized name Isaac is a transliteration of the Hebrew term Yiṣḥāq which literally means He laughs/will laugh. Ugaritic texts dating from the 13th century BCE refer to the benevolent smile of the Canaanite deity El, Genesis, however, ascribes the laughter to Isaacs parents, Abraham and Sarah, rather than El. According to the narrative, Abraham fell on his face. He laughed because Sarah was past the age of childbearing, both she and Abraham were advanced in age, later, when Sarah overheard three messengers of the Lord renew the promise, she laughed inwardly for the same reason. Sarah denied laughing when God questioned Abraham about it and it was prophesied to the patriarch Abraham that he would have a son and that his name should be Isaac. When Abraham became one hundred years old, this son was born to him by his first wife Sarah, though this was Abrahams second son it was Sarahs first and only child. On the eighth day from his birth, Isaac was circumcised, as was necessary for all males of Abrahams household, in order to be in compliance with Yahwehs covenant. After Isaac had been weaned, Sarah saw Ishmael mocking, and urged her husband to cast out Hagar the bondservant and her son, Abraham was hesitant, but at Gods order he listened to his wifes request. At some point in Isaacs youth, his father Abraham brought him to Mount Moriah, at Gods command, Abraham was to build a sacrificial altar and sacrifice his son Isaac upon it. After he had bound his son to the altar and drawn his knife to kill him, rather, he was directed to sacrifice instead a nearby ram that was stuck in thickets. This event served as a test of Abrahams faith in God, when Isaac was 40, Abraham sent Eliezer, his steward, into Mesopotamia to find a wife for Isaac, from his nephew Bethuels family. Eliezer chose the Aramean Rebekah for Isaac, after many years of marriage to Isaac, Rebekah had still not given birth to a child and was believed to be barren. Isaac prayed for her and she conceived, Rebekah gave birth to twin boys, Esau and Jacob. Isaac was 60 years old when his two sons were born, Isaac favored Esau, and Rebekah favored Jacob. Isaac is unique among the patriarchs for remaining faithful to his wife, at the age of 75, Isaac moved to Beer-lahai-roi after his father died. When the land experienced famine, he removed to the Philistine land of Gerar where his father once lived and this land was still under the control of King Abimelech as it was in the days of Abraham
11.
Land of Israel
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The Land of Israel is the traditional Jewish name for an area of indefinite geographical extension in the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definitions of the limits of this territory vary between passages in the Hebrew Bible, with mentions in Genesis 15, Exodus 23, Numbers 34. Nine times elsewhere in the Bible, the land is referred as from Dan to Beersheba. According to the Book of Genesis, the land was first promised by God to the descendants of Abram, abrams name was later changed to Abraham, with the promise refined to pass through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abrahams grandson. During the mandatory period the term Eretz Yisrael or the Land of Israel was part of the official Hebrew name of Mandatory Palestine, official Hebrew documents used the Hebrew transliteration of the word “Palestine” פלשתינה followed always by the two initial letters of Eretz Yisrael, א״י Aleph-Yod. The Land of Israel concept has been evoked by the founders of the State of Israel. It often surfaces in political debates on the status of the West Bank, Ezekiel, though generally preferring the phrase soil of Israel, employs eretz israel twice, respectively at Ezekiel 40,2 and Ezekiel 47,18. According to Anita Shapira, the term Eretz Yisrael was a term, vague as far as the exact boundaries of the territories are concerned. The Hebrew Bible provides three specific sets of borders for the Promised Land, each with a different purpose. And to their descendants after them, whilst Numbers 34, 1–15 describes the Land of Canaan which is allocated to nine, the expression Land of Israel is first used in a later book,1 Samuel 13,19. It is defined in detail in the exilic Book of Ezekiel as a land where both the tribes and the strangers in midst, can claim inheritance. The name Israel first appears in the Hebrew Bible as the name given by God to the patriarch Jacob, deriving from the name Israel, other designations that came to be associated with the Jewish people have included the Children of Israel or Israelite. The term Land of Israel occurs in one episode in the New Testament, the section in which it appears was written as a parallel to the earlier Book of Exodus. The passage describes the area as the land of the ten named ancient peoples living there. Genesis gives the border with Egypt as Nahar Mitzrayim – nahar in Hebrew denotes a river, never a wadi. Only the Red Sea and the Euphrates are mentioned to define the southern and eastern borders of the land promised to the Israelites. The Red Sea corresponding to Hebrew Yam Suf was understood in ancient times to be the Erythraean Sea, thus the entire Arabian peninsula lies within the borders described
12.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
13.
Nachmanides
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Rabbi Moses ben Nahman, commonly known as Nachmanides /nækˈmænᵻ. He was raised, studied, and lived for most of his life in Girona and he is also considered to be an important figure in the re-establishment of the Jewish community in Jerusalem following its decimation at the hands of the Crusaders in 1099. Nachmanides is a Greek-influenced formation meaning son of Nahman and he is also commonly known by the Hebrew acronym רמב״ן. His Catalan name was Bonastruc ça Porta, literally Mazel Tov near the Gate, Ramban was born in Girona in 1194, where he grew up and studied, and died in the Land of Israel about 1270. He was a descendant of Isaac ben Reuben of Barcelona and cousin of Jonah Gerondi, according to the responsa of Solomon b. During his teens he began to get a reputation as a learned Jewish scholar, at age 16 he began his writings on Jewish law. In his Milhamot Hashem he defended Alfasis decisions against the criticisms of Zerachiah ha-Levi of Girona and these writings reveal a conservative tendency that distinguished his later works — an unbounded respect for the earlier authorities. In the view of Nachmanides, the wisdom of the rabbis of the Mishnah and Talmud and their words were to be neither doubted nor criticized. We bow, he says, before them, and even when the reason for their words is not quite evident to us, Nachmanides adherence to the words of the earlier authorities may be due to piety, or the influence of the northern French Jewish school of thought. This work gave rise to a tendency to allegorize Biblical narratives, against this tendency Nachmanides strove, and went to the other extreme, not even allowing the utterances of the immediate disciples of the Geonim to be questioned. If, he says, you were of the opinion that it was duty to denounce the Guide as heretical. Is it right in important matters to act capriciously, to applaud the one to-day. This compromise, which might have ended the struggle, was rejected by both parties in spite of Nachmanides authority, Nachmanides allegedly wrote a book on marriage, holiness, and sexual relations for his son as a wedding gift, the Iggeret ha-Kodesh. In it Nachmanides criticizes Maimonides for stigmatizing mans sexual nature as a disgrace to man. In the view of the author, the body with all its functions being the work of God, is holy, in Nachmanidess Torat ha-Adam, which deals with mourning rites, burial customs, etc. Nachmanides sharply criticizes writers who strove to render man indifferent to both pleasure and pain and this, he declares, is against the Law, which commands man to rejoice on the day of joy and weep on the day of mourning. The last chapter, entitled Shaar ha-Gemul, discusses reward and punishment, resurrection and it derides the presumption of the philosophers who pretend to a knowledge of the essence of God and the angels, while even the composition of their own bodies is a mystery to them. For Nachmanides, divine revelation is the best guide in all these questions and he holds that as God is eminently just, there must be reward and punishment
14.
Alhambra Decree
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The primary purpose was to eliminate their influence on Spains large converso population and ensure they did not revert to Judaism. Over half of Spains Jews had converted as a result of the persecution and pogroms which occurred in 1391. A further number of those chose to avoid expulsion as a result of the edict. In 2014, the government of Spain passed a law allowing dual citizenship to Jewish descendants who apply, beginning in the 8th century, Muslims had conquered and settled most of the Iberian Peninsula. Jews, who had lived in these regions since Roman times, were considered People of the Book and given special status, the tolerance of the Muslim Moorish rulers of al-Andalus attracted Jewish immigration, and Jewish enclaves in Muslim Iberian cities flourished as places of learning and commerce. By the 14th century, most of the Iberian Peninsula had been conquered by the Christian kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, León, Galicia, Navarre, overt hostility against Jews became more pronounced, finding expression in brutal episodes of violence and oppression. Thousands of Jews sought to escape attacks by converting to Christianity, they were commonly called conversos, New Christians. At first these conversions seemed a solution to the cultural conflict. But eventually their success made these new Catholics unpopular with some of the clergy of the Church and these suspicions on the part of Christians were only heightened by the fact that some of the coerced conversions were undoubtedly insincere. These secret practitioners are referred to as crypto-Jews or marranos. The existence of crypto-Jews was a provocation for secular and ecclesiastical leaders who were hostile toward Spains Jewry. The uncertainty over the sincerity of Jewish converts added fuel to the fire of antisemitism in 15th century Spain, from the 13th to the 16th centuries European countries expelled the Jews from their territory on at least 15 occasions. Spain was preceded by England, France and some German states, among many others, in 1478, Ferdinand and Isabella made formal application to Rome for a tribunal of the Inquisition in Castile to investigate these and other suspicions. In 1487, King Ferdinand promoted the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition Tribunals in Castille, in Aragon, the independent Islamic Emirate of Granada had been a tributary state to Castile since 1238. In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella completed the Catholic Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula from Islamic al-Andalus by victory in the Battle of Granada, the king and queen issued the Alhambra Decree less than three months after the surrender of Granada. This was primarily a decision of Isabella, not her husband Fernando and that her confessor had just changed from the tolerant Hernando de Talavera to the very intolerant Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros suggests that Cisneros may well have had a role in Isabels decision. In it, Jews were accused of trying to subvert their holy Catholic faith and these measures were not new in Europe. Some Jews were only four months and ordered to convert to Christianity or leave the country
15.
1517 Hebron attacks
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1517 Hebron attacks occurred in the final phases of the 1513-17 Ottoman–Mamluk War, when Turkish Ottomans had ousted the Mamluks and taken Palestine. The massacre targeted the Jewish population of the city and is referred to as a pogrom. An account of the event, recorded by Japheth ben Manasseh in 1518, mentions how the onslaught was initiated by Turkish troops led by Murad Bey, Jews were attacked, beaten and raped, and many were killed as their homes and businesses were looted and pillaged. It has been suggested that the financial position of the Hebronite Jews at the time was what attracted the Turkish soldiers to engage in the mass plunder. Others suggest the pogrom could have in fact taken place in the midst of a localised conflict and those who survived the calamity fled to Beirut and Jews only returned to Hebron 16 years later in 1533. 1834 Hebron massacre List of massacres in Ottoman Syria
16.
1517 Safed attacks
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The Safed attacks were an incident that took place in Safed soon after the Turkish Ottomans had ousted the Mamluks and taken Levant during the Ottoman–Mamluk War in 1517. At the time the town had roughly 300 Jewish households, the severe blow suffered took place as Mamluks clashed bloodily with the new Ottoman authorities. The view that the impact on the Jews of Safed was severe is contested. Historians link the event to the conflict taking place in the country between the incoming Ottoman regime and its opponents and note that the Jews suffered maltreatment during the war. Accounts of the attack against the Jews in Safed were recorded by historian Rabbi Elijah Capsali of Candia, and Rabbi Joseph Garson, according to these reports, many Jews were killed and left injured. They were compelled to flee the city and their property was plundered, scholars debate whether or not the event led to a decline in the Jewish population of Safed, but all agree that a few years later, Jews had re-established a significant presence in the city. The attack may have been initiated by retreating Mamluk soldiers who accused the Jews of treacherously aiding the Turkish invaders, alternatively, the attack occurred during an attempt by local Mamluk sheikhs to reassert their control after being removed from power by the incoming Turks. Many Jews were reportedly killed while others were wounded or had their property pillaged, according to Garson, the Jews were evicted from their homes, robbed and plundered, and they fled naked to the villages without any provisions. Many subsequently fled the city, but the community was rehabilitated with the financial help of Egyptian Jewry. The many Jews who had fled and sought refuge in neighbouring villages returned, the Ottoman overthrow of the Mamluks brought about important changes. Under the earlier dynasty, Egyptian Jews were guided by their nagid,1517 Hebron attacks 1834 looting of Safed 1838 Druze attack on Safed Ben-Ami, Shlomo, Mishal, Nissim. Demographic Changes in the Safed Jewish Community of the 16th Century, occident and Orient, A Tribute to the Memory of Alexander Scheiber. In Zion and Jerusalem, the itinerary of Rabbi Moses Basola, to Come to the Land, Immigration and Settlement in 16th-Century Eretz-Israel. Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos, Isaac Luria, eretz Yisrael Under Ottoman Rule, 1517-1917. Tel Aviv, Am Oved and Dvir, Ottoman history and society, Jewish sources. Heavenly Powers, Unraveling the Secret of the Kabbalah, further data on the pogrom of 1517 against the Jews of Safed, Cathedra 8, p. 190-94. On the Jews of Safed in the Days of the Ottoman Conquest, Cathedra 11, p. 181-82
17.
Tiberias
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Tiberias is an Israeli city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Established around 20 CE, it was named in honour of the 2nd Emperor of the Roman Empire Tiberius, in 2015 it had a population of 42,610. In the 2nd–10th centuries, Tiberias was the largest Jewish city in the Galilee and the political and religious hub of the Jews of Israel. Its immediate neighbour to the south, Hammat Tiberias, which is now part of modern Tiberias, has known for its hot springs, believed to cure skin and other ailments. Herod Antipas made it the capital of his realm in the Galilee, the city was built in immediate proximity to a spa which had developed around 17 natural mineral hot springs, Hammat Tiberias. Tiberias was at first a pagan city, but later became populated mainly by Jews, with its growing spiritual. The Jewish oral tradition holds that Tiberias was built on the site of the ancient Israelite village of Rakkath or Rakkat, in Talmudic times, the Jews still referred to it by this name. Conversely, in The Antiquities of the Jews, the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus calls the village with hot springs Emmaus, todays Hammat Tiberias and this name also appears in The Wars of the Jews. Antipas settled many non-Jews there from rural Galilee and other parts of his domains in order to populate his new capital, and built a palace on the acropolis. The prestige of Tiberias was so great that the Sea of Galilee soon came to be named the Sea of Tiberias, however, the Jewish population continued to call it Yam Ha-Kineret, its traditional name. The city was governed by a city council of 600 with a committee of 10 until 44 CE when a Roman procurator was set over the city after the death of Herod Agrippa I. Tiberias is mentioned in John 6,23 as the location from which boats had sailed to the side of the Sea of Galilee. The crowd seeking Jesus after the feeding of the 5000 used these boats to travel back to Capernaum on the north-western part of the sea. Under the Roman Empire, the city was known by its Greek name Τιβεριάς, in 61 CE Herod Agrippa II annexed the city to his kingdom whose capital was Caesarea Philippi. It became a city after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, with Judea subdued. It was to be its final meeting place before its disbanding in the early Byzantine period, when Johanan bar Nappaha settled in Tiberias, the city became the focus of Jewish religious scholarship in the land. The Jerusalem Talmud would follow being compiled by Rabbi Jochanan between 230–270 CE, Tiberias 13 synagogues served the spiritual needs of a growing Jewish population. In the 6th century Tiberias was still the seat of Jewish religious learning, in 628, the Byzantine army returned to Tiberias upon the surrender of Jewish rebels and the end of the Persian occupation after they were defeated in the battle of Nineveh
18.
1838 Druze attack on Safed
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The 1838 Druze attack on Safed began on July 5,1838, during the Druze revolt against the rule of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt. Tensions had mounted as the Druze captured an Egyptian garrison outside of Safed, some Jews ended up leaving the town, moving south to Jerusalem and Acre. Among them was Israel Beck, whose printing press had been destroyed a second time by the ruffians, by the 19th-century, the Galilean city of Safed comprised a major Jewish center. It had become a centre during the 16th-century, reaching a size of about 15,000 at its peak. Despite the decline through the 17th and 18th centuries, by the 1830s there were still around 3, 500-4,000 Jews living there, comprising at least half the population. After several months, the Egyptians managed to crush the rebellion and regain control of the county, not long after, Safed was again the scene of devastation when in 1837 a strong earthquake resulted in thousands of deaths and the destruction of many buildings. The northern, Jewish section of the town was almost entirely destroyed, by 1838, the tense relationship between the fellahin and the Egyptian overlords was again mounting and a full-scale Druze revolt erupted in January. In summer of 1838, the Druze captured a heavily outnumbered Egyptian garrison outside Safed, the Jewish population relied on the protection of an Arab governor against the Druze. Dr. Elizer Loewe wrote in his diary, We huddled together in Rebbe Avraham Dovs house, the women were hysterical and the children crying. The Rebbe asked me to write a note in Arabic to the mayor, I did so, but his answer was mere lip service. According to Loewe, the mayor and his militia fled the city, the Druze rebels were joined by Muslim mob and they looted the Jewish quarters, as the Druze rebels thought the Jews possessed hidden treasures and local Muslims encouraged them to attack. The plunder lasted for 3 days, during the course of the attack, some Jews were assisted by friendly Arabs. One Arab by the name of Muhammed Mustafa, had helped them, lending them money and providing them with food. This time, Ibrahim Pashas response was swift, and after a few days things returned to normal. 1660 destruction of Safed 1929 Safed riots
19.
Expansion of Jerusalem in the 19th century
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The Departure from the walls in Jerusalem was the process of building new residences outside of the Old City walls, and shifting the city center to the new neighborhoods. The process started in the century and by the early 20th century had entirely transformed the city. In the mid 19th century, with an area of one square kilometer, the Old City had become overcrowded and unsanitary. In the 1850s, institutions including the Russian Compound, the Bishop Gobat School, and the Schneller Orphanage marked the beginning of permanent settlement outside the Jerusalem Old City walls. In 1855, Johann Ludwig Schneller, a Lutheran missionary who came to Jerusalem at the age of 34 and he built a house there but was forced to move his family back inside the walls after several attacks by marauders. When the Turks erected outposts along Jaffa Road, between Jerusalem and the city of Jaffa, and armed guards on horseback patrolled the road. The public institutions were followed by the development of two philanthropically supported Jewish neighborhoods, Mishkenot Sha’ananim and Mahane Israel, Mishkenot Sha’ananim was the first Jewish neighborhood built outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, on a hill directly across from Mount Zion. It was built by Sir Moses Montefiore in 1860 as an almshouse, paid for by the estate of a wealthy Jew from New Orleans, Judah Touro. As an incentive, people were paid to live there, the name of the neighborhood was taken from the Book of Isaiah 32,18, My people will abide in peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings and in quiet resting places. Mahane Israel, built in 1869, was the second Jewish neighborhood built outside the walls of the Old City, Mahane Israel was a communal neighborhood and was built by and for Maghreb Jews. Nahalat Shiva was the residential neighborhood built outside the city walls. It was founded in 1869 as an effort by seven Jerusalem families who pooled their funds to purchase the land. Lots were cast and Yosef Rivlin won the right to build the first house in the neighborhood, the neighborhoods that make up the Nachlaot district were established outside the walls in the late 1870s. The first was Mishkenot Yisrael, built in 1875, the name comes from a biblical verse, How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob/Thy dwellings, O Israel. Mazkeret Moshe was founded by Sir Moses Montefiore in 1882 as an Ashkenazi neighborhood, ohel Moshe is a Sephardi neighborhood established alongside it. The neighborhood was intended for Hasidic Jews, but due to lack of financing. The remainder of the land was apportioned to several groups, Syrian, Iraqi. In the 1890s another neighborhood, Eshel Avraham, was erected next to Kirya Neemana for Georgian and Caucasian Jews, nahalat Shimon was founded in 1891 by Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jewish Kollels, to house poor Yemenite and Sephardi Jews
20.
Ishtori Haparchi
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Ishtori Haparchi is the pen name of the 14th century Jewish physician, topographer, and traveler, Isaac HaKohen Ben Moses. Ishtori Haparchi was born in France in 1280, HaParhi was descended from a line of sages and rabbis of fame. His Father was Rabbi Moshe HaParhi, a distinguished Talmudical scholar and his grandfather was, Rabbi Nathan of Trinquetaille, author of Shaar HiTefisa His great grandfather was Meir ben Isaac of Carcassonne, author of the Sefer ha-Ezer. His family originally came from Florenzia, Spain, the surname Haparchi means the Florentine in Hebrew. He is commonly known by the title Kaftor Vaferach taken from the name of his work, when the Jews were expelled from France in 1306, he travelled to Spain and Egypt, and then settled in Eretz Yisrael. He worked as a physician in Bet Shean, where he died in 1355, ishtori Haparchi was the author of the first Hebrew book on the geography of Eretz Yisrael Sefer Kaftor Vaferach (Hebrew, ספר כפתור ופרח, written in 1322 and published in Venice in 1549. Kaftor Vaferach is a Hebrew idiom derived from the description of the menorah in the Temple, in the context of the book it refers to the lay of the land. Haparchi lists the names of towns and villages in Eretz Yisrael, modern scholarship has determined that most of the 180 ancient sites he identified were correct, among them Usha, Modiin and Betar
21.
Joseph Saragossi
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Joseph Saragossi, was a Spanish-born rabbi and kabbalist of the 15th and 16th centuries. He is credited with developing Safed into an important Jewish and kabbalistic centre and he was banished with the rest of the Jewish community in 1492 and travelled through Sicily to Beirut and Sidon. He settled in Safed, where he became a rabbi, there were about 300 Jews there who had originally come from the Berbers, Sephardim and Moriscos, but they had no natural leader. Saragossi became a rabbi and a leader of the Jewish people despite his quiet manner and his charismatic personality was used to foster the growth of peace and harmony within the community. He endeavored to show reconciliation and mutual respect towards Safeds Muslim, saragossis influence in Safed has been compared to the Italian Obadyah di Bertinoro who made a similar contribution to the community in Jerusalem. When Saragossi indicated his intention to leave Safed, the people of Safed persuaded him to remain, the respect of the Arab community was demonstrated when their Muslim governor promised to provide 33 of the 50 ducats that was offered to Saragossi as an annual payment. Combining Talmudic with kabbalistic knowledge, Saragossi created a movement interested in Kabbalistic Jewish study in Safed and his kabbalistic teachings attracted the attention of David ibn Abu Zimra. In accordance with his wish, Saragossi was buried adjacent to the tomb of Judah bar Ilai and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Singer, Isidore, et al. eds. article name needed. New York, Funk & Wagnalls Company
22.
Jacob Berab
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Jacob Berab, also spelled Berav or Bei-Rav, was an influential rabbi and talmudist best known for his attempt to reintroduce rabbinic ordination. Berab was born at Moqueda near Toledo, Castilian Spain in 1474 and he later became a pupil of Isaac Aboab. After the expulsion of Jews from Spain, he fled to Fez, there, the Jewish community consisting of 5,000 families, chose him for their rabbi, though he was but a youth of eighteen. Evidence of the great respect there paid him is afforded by the lines of Abraham Gavison. Jacob Berab hath come back—once more among us he sojourneth and it is not known how long Berab remained in Algeria, but before 1522 he was in Jerusalem. There, however, the social and economic conditions were so oppressive that he did not stay long and it was there that Berab conceived the bold idea which made him famous, that of establishing a central spiritual Jewish power. Berab had a plan for the reintroduction of the old Semichah and it likely that his further plans included the reestablishment of Sanhedrin, or Synedrium. Berabs undertaking is considered by some to be a part of a bigger Messianic vision, as Ginzburg writes in his article in the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia. the imaginative and sentimental persons thought that the promised Messianic time was approaching. And calls messianic expectations of the time to be a delusion and he also writes that. the hopes of a Messiah, cherished especially in Palestine, were fundamentally wild and extravagant. According to others, the purpose of Berabs plan was a resolution of certain halachic difficulties, Jacob Berab writes about this problem in his Responsa. Maimonides taught that if the sages in Eretz Israel would agree to one of themselves, they could do so. In 1538 twenty-five rabbis met in assembly at Safed and ordained Berab, giving him the right to any number of others. In a discourse in the synagogue at Safed, Berab defended the legality of his ordination from a Talmudic standpoint, and showed the nature of the rights conferred upon him. On hearing of this event most of the other Jewish scholars expressed their agreement, Berab then ordained a few other rabbis, including the chief Rabbi of Jerusalem ibn Habib, rabbi Joseph Caro, rabbi Moses of Trani, and rabbi Yosef Sagis. Joseph Caro later ordained rabbi Moshe Alshich, and Alshich ordained rabbi Hayim Vital around 1590, to obtain the good-will of the Jews of the Holy City, the first use that Berab made of his new dignity was to ordain the chief rabbi at Jerusalem, Levi ibn Habib. Moreover, the terms in which Berab officially announced Ibn Habibs ordination were kindly ones, Berab, therefore, expected no opposition from that quarter, but he was mistaken. Ibn Habibs personal animus was not appeased, but rather stimulated and he considered it an insult to his dignity and to the dignity of Jerusalem that so important a change should be effected without consultation of the Jerusalem scholars. Although Levi ibn Habibs tone was moderate, every one could read between the lines that he opposed the man Berab as well as his work
23.
Joseph Nasi
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He was a great benefactor of the Jewish people. Nasi also brought war with the Republic of Venice, at the end of which Venice lost the island of Cyprus to the Ottomans. After the death of Selim, he lost influence in the Ottoman Court, joao Micas, Yosef Nasi was born in Portugal as a Marrano, a son of the doctor Agostinho Micas, a well known physician and professor at the University of Lisbon. A friend of Maximilian, nephew of the Habsburg King Charles I of Spain and he studied at the University of Louvain, but had to flee the Inquisition in 1547. He then moved to France and later to Venice, before leaving for the Ottoman realm in 1554, where he married Ana Mendes. Due to his connections in Europe, he was able to exercise great influence on Ottoman foreign policy. Among his achievements were negotiating peace with Poland and influencing the new election of the Polish king. He was awarded the monopoly of the trade with Poland, and of the wine trade with Moldavia. Nasis relative Abraham Benveniste was arrested in 1570, on charges of having set fire to the Venetian Arsenal on Nasis instigation, maintaining contacts with William the Silent, Nasi encouraged the Netherlands to revolt against Spain, a major adversary of the Ottoman Empire. For this and other achievements, he was appointed by Selim to become the Duke of Naxos, Joseph Nasi is best known to history for his attempt to resettle the towns of Tiberias and Safed in 1561. He was the first person to attempt to settle Jews in the cities of what was then Southern Syria by practical means, Nasi secured a grant giving ruling authority from the Sultan, and, with the assistance of Joseph ben Adruth, rebuilt the walls and the town. He also attempted to turn it into a center by planting mulberry trees. Arrangements were made for Jews to move from the Papal States, but, when the Ottomans and the Republic of Venice went to war, Nasi is a character in Altai by Wu Ming. Mehmet Bulut, Ottoman-Dutch Economic Relations in the Early Modern Period 1571-1699, Hilversum, Uitgeverij Verloren,2001 John Freely, The Cyclades, London, I. B
24.
Judah HeHasid (Jerusalem)
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See Judah he-Hasid for other people who used this name. Judah he-Hasid Segal ha-Levi was a Jewish preacher who led the largest organized group of Jewish immigrants to the Land of Israel in the 17th and 18th centuries. Judah traveled from one Jewish community to another throughout Poland, urging repentance, ascetism, physical mortifications, in 1697, he and 31 families of his followers left for Moravia and made a stop at Nikolsburg. Judah spent a year traveling throughout Germany and Moravia gaining followers, many joined the group, influenced by his fervor. By the time the group gathered in Italy, they numbered about 1,500. Almost a third of the pilgrims died of hardships and illnesses during the trip, the group arrived in Jerusalem on October 14,1700. At that time, about 200 Ashkenazi and about 1,000 Sephardi Jews lived in the city, the sudden influx of between 500 and 1,000 Ashkenazim produced a crisis, the local community was unable to help such a large group. In addition, some of the newcomers were suspected to be Sabbateans, the situation grew worse when Judah He-Hasid died within days of his arrival to Jerusalem. He is buried on the Mount of Olives, emissaries were sent to the Council of the Four Lands for aid, but it didnt arrive. The newcomers went deeper into debt to build a small synagogue, in 1720, Arab creditors broke into the synagogue, set it on fire, and took over the area. Some of the Ashkenazi Jews moved to other cities, others started to dress like Sephardi Jews. The synagogue, called Hurvat Yehudah He-Hasid, was rebuilt in 1864 by the Perushim, the building was destroyed by the Arab Legion in 1948. It was then rebuilt and rededicated in 2010, the Land of Promise, The Return to Zion March 27,2003 Pre-Zionism
25.
Hayyim ben Jacob Abulafia
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Hayyim ben Jacob Abulafia was a rabbinical authority. He was the grandfather of Hayyim ben David Abulafia and grandson of Isaac Nissim aben Gamil, Abulafia was a rabbi in Smyrna, where he instituted many wholesome regulations. In his old age he restored the Jewish community in Tiberias and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Kayserling, Meyer. New York, Funk & Wagnalls Company
26.
Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk
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Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, also known as Menachem Mendel of Horodok, was an early leader of Hasidic Judaism. Part of the generation of Hassidic leaders, he was the primary disciple of the Maggid of Mezeritch. From his base in Minsk Menachem Mendel was instrumental in spreading Hasidism throughout Belarus. In the winter of 1772, he - along with Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi - went to the Vilna Gaon with the aim of convincing him to rescind his ban on Hasidism, but the Vilna Gaon would not receive them. After the Maggids death, Rabbi Menachem Mendel, along with fellow disciple Rabbi Abraham Kalisker settled in Horodok, in 1777 the two, along with 300 followers, emigrated to Eretz Israel, settling in Safed, Ottoman Syria. In 1783 they were forced out of Safed, and moved to Tiberias, the synagogue they built there in 1786 still stands among the Ancient synagogues of Tiberias. The Tanya is partially based on the works of Rabbi Menachem Mendel, Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk is the subject of 15 of the stories in Martin Bubers Tales of the Hasidim. Pri HaAretz Pri HaEitz Likkutei Amarim Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, The Pioneering Rebbe by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed KALISKER, ABRAHAM BEN ALEXANDER HA-KOHEN, the Jewish Encyclopedia
27.
Haim Farhi
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Haim Farhi, was an adviser to the governors of the Galilee in the days of the Ottoman Empire. Among the Jews he was known as Hakham Haim, because of his Talmudic learning, Farhi was chief advisor to Ahmad al-Jazzar of Acre, whose whims included blinding Farhi and leaving him physically scarred. Until his assassination in 1820, instigated by Farhis own protege Abdullah Pasha, Farhi was the financial vizier, after the murder, Abdullah Pasha ordered Farhis body cast into the sea and confiscated all his property. Two of Farhi’s brothers, Soliman and Rafael, living in Damascus, after the Ottoman conquest of the Levant from the Mamluks in 1516, Galilee became part of its empire. Vast areas of Turkey, Asia, North Africa and Southeastern Europe were ruled almost autonomously by local governors, the Levant in particular, split into numerous feuding power centers. Rule over the Sanjak of Acre was supposed to derive from the authority of the Damascus governorate, after the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji was signed with Russia on July 21,1774, Sultan Abdul Hamid I sought to reassert Turkish sovereignty by attacking Dhaher and blockading the port of Acre. His troops rose in revolt and murdered their leader, in 1775 a Turkish officer, the Bosnian Mameluk Ahmad al-Jazzar took over, and the Turks regained control over the northern areas of the land. Zahir al-Umar actively encouraged Jewish resettlement and personally invited Hayyim ben Jacob Abulafia of İzmir to settle in the Galilee, the rabbi, born in Hebron, then part of the Jerusalem Mutassariflik, returned in 1740 and was received with full honours by Zahir. He settled in Tiberias, which was restored from its ruinous state, an impressive synagogue was built, roads were constructed, and Jewish agricultural settlements were founded at Pekiin, Shefa-Amr, and Kafr Yasif. These policies continued under Ahmad al-Jazzar, the existence of a strong local authority enforced the law and prevented Bedouin banditry on the roads. Zahir was one of the most tolerant and efficient local leaders and meted out justice equally to Muslim, Christian and Jew. This was the case in the days of Zahir and al-Jazzar who transformed the Galilee into a region that attracted both Arabs from Syria and Lebanon, and Jews from the east and west, Haim Farhi was born to a respected and ancient Jewish family in Damascus. His father Saul had established a business that flourished to the extent that it expanded to control Syrias finances, banking. Together with other members, Farhi worked as a financial agent in the Damascus district. Contemporary sources often mention the family as being the real rulers of Syria and they may also have mediated between the Jewish community and the authorities, trying to alleviate the tax burden placed on the Jews of Safed. Farhi succeeded his father as banker of the ruler of Damascus and he gained extensive influence with the Turkish government and became the adviser to Ahmad al-Jazzar, ruler of Acre. This was probably due to his intrigues that led to the execution of the advisor, Mikhail Sakruj. Al-Jazzar was a violent and cruel ruler, which is evidenced from his title al-Jazzar meaning The Butcher and he would often find pretext to lash out in savage assaults
28.
Jacob Saphir
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Jacob Saphir was a Meshulach and traveler of Romanian Jewish descent, born in Ashmyany, government of Wilna. While still a boy, he went to Ottoman Palestine with his parents, who settled at Safed, in 1848, he was commissioned by the Jewish community of the latter city to travel through the southern countries to collect alms for the poor of Jerusalem. In 1854 he undertook a tour to collect funds for the construction of the Hurva Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter, which led him in 1859 to Yemen, British India, Egypt. Saphir published also Iggeret Teman, a work on the appearance in Yemen of the pseudo-Messiah Judah ben Shalom, Saphir died in Jerusalem in 1886. Sapir also did a lot of research and writings on Yanover, Palestinian, fuenn, Keneset Yisrael, pp. 557–558, idem, in Ha-Karmel, vi, Wilna,1866, Geiger, Abraham, in Jüd. Jewish Encyclopedia article on Jacob Saphir written by Isidore Singer & Schulim Ochser, new York, Funk & Wagnalls Company
29.
Haim Aharon Valero
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Haim Aharon Valero was a banker, entrepreneur and a prominent figure in the Jewish community of 19th century Jerusalem. Under his direction, the Valero Bank, founded in 1848 by his father Jacob, at the start of the 19th century Jerusalem was a small, poverty stricken town on the margins of the Ottoman Empire. It was fought over by the great powers for centuries. Trade was scarce and there was no industry other than small-scale production of soap, olive oil. In the first half of the 19th century all the population lived within the walled city. Poverty was pervasive, housing poor, living conditions hard, the streets narrow, even within the walls, a third of the city was a wasteland, covered in thickets of prickly pear cacti. No one lived beyond the city walls and whole surrounding area was ground for criminal gangs. At sunset the city gates were locked, Haim Aharon’s father, Jacob Valero, was of Spanish-Jewish origins, whose ancestors were forced out of Spain by the Spanish Inquisition in the late 15th century. His family migrated to the Ottoman Empire and Jacob was born in Istanbul and he received a traditional Jewish education and as a young man migrated to Ottoman Syria and settled in Jerusalem. Jacob Valero married Esther Aziza Levi and had three children, initially he worked as a butcher, but after a while switched to money changing, which went from strength to strength. In collaboration with Haim Amzalak, Gavriel Papu and Jacob Pascal, he founded in 1848 the first bank in Palestine, the main branch was located in the Old City close to the Jaffa Gate, in a small two room flat. With the expansion of its operations, a branch was opened in the port of Jaffa, directed by his eldest son Joseph, Haim Aharon was born in Jerusalem in 1845. He benefitted from an education, including five languages, French, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew. At the age of fifteen he started working as clerk in the run by his father. By this time the bank had no other partners, in 1880, after the death of his older brother Joseph, he became director of the bank. Haim Aharon Valero was married to Simha Papu and had seven children with her, after she died at the age of 38, he married his niece, Miriam Valero, and had two more children. He died in 1923 and was buried at the Mount of Olives cemetery and his activities and wealth soon earned Haim Aharon an important standing in the city, both in the Jewish and the wider community. His education and mastery of different languages were critical to Haim Aharon’s ability to perform his various roles in the social, commercial and political spheres, between 1831 and 1841, after the conquest of Jerusalem by Egypt, he served as member of the district management committee
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Balady citron
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The balady citron is a variety of citron, or etrog, grown in Israel, mostly for Jewish ritual purposes. Not native to the region, it was imported around 500 or 300 BCE by either Jewish or Greek settlers, initially not widely grown, it was promoted and popularized in the 1870s by Rabbi Chaim Elozor Wax. Local Arab farmers began using this name in the century to distinguish this variety from the Greek citron. The balady citron is a variety, alongside the Florentine and Diamante citron from Italy. Citrus fruits are not native to Israel and it is thought that the citron is the oldest cultivated fruit in the country. Being of ritual significance for Jews, the citron was exported abroad in small quantities during Roman times, during the 1800s, the Balady was grown on the outskirts of Nablus, Nazareth, Tiberias, Safed and Alma al-Shaib, in Umm al-Fahm and in Lifta village near Jerusalem. In the 1870s, Rabbi Chaim Elozor Wax devoted himself to its cultivation and he felt the Balady citron had the strongest traditional lineage of specie pureness, and claimed it was to be found in the wild when Nahmanides arrived in the county. He wrote many letters to the rabbis hoping to influence the diaspora to use the Balady citron and these letters were published in his responsa Nefesh Haya and the responsa of his correspondents, as well as in pamphlets addressing the Greek citron controversy. Under his influence, many Jews began to purchase the Balady instead of the Greek citron, while the variety was not domesticated, it was used by important scholars and pious Jews who believed in its purity and appropriateness. Rabbi Wax also saw the trade in this citron as an important source of income for the Jewish community in Palestine. He invested large sums establishing orchards in Hittin donating the profits to charity, in 1875, Wax planted 600 trees and by 1883 over 40,000 citrons had been exported. The pro-Zionist newspapers HaMelitz and HaLevanon were instrumental in stirring up interest in etrog cultivation in Palestine, some years before, the Greek citron had already been introduced for plantation by newly arrived Sephardic Jews with the financial backing of Sir Moses Montefiore. The new Greek-Jaffa variety was commercially successful than Balady. Despite all efforts, the Balady was still unable to compete with the Greek citron and at the beginning of that 20th-century its cultivation was very primitive, the Baldy was considered unattractive and some of the new immigrants continued using varieties they were accustomed to in the diaspora. The supporters of the Balady were strained in a conflict of interest, while the Greek citron grown in Jaffa showed a good economical future, the Halachic intentions were against it. As a partial solution, the Greek-Jaffa citron was occasionally grafted onto Balady rootstock, the Old Yishuv rabbis Shmuel Salant and Meir Auerbach supported the progeny of Umm el-Fahm, but those declined quickly. Later, some Israeli rabbis did their utmost for the rescue of Balady, each collected propagation material from a different place and brought it into cultivation under close supervision. This is how a diversity of sub-varieties or selections with different names developed, when the Chazon Ish reached the Holy Land, he made his own selection according to his satisfaction
31.
Nissan Beck
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Nissan Beck, also spelled Nisan Bak was a leader of the Hasidic Jewish community of the Old Yishuv in Ottoman Palestine. He was the founder of two Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Kirya Neemana and a Yemenite neighborhood, and builder of the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue, Beck was born in Berdichev to a family of Sadigura Hasidim headed by Rabbi Israel Beck. The family immigrated to the Land of Israel in 1831, Israel Beck first owned a printing press in Safed and founded the first Hebrew press in Jerusalem. Nissan helped his father run the printing press, Israel Beck was also one of the developers of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. In the early 1840s, father and son established the first Hasidic community in Jerusalem, although Hasidim had arrived in Jerusalem by 1747, it was only in 1839 that Nissan Beck began plans for a Hasidic synagogue. Until then, they had prayed in small, private locations like his fathers home, in 1843, Nissan Beck traveled from Jerusalem to visit the Ruzhiner Rebbe in Sadigura. He informed him that Czar Nikolai I intended to buy a plot of land near the Western Wall with the intention of building a church, the Ruzhiner Rebbe, who was very involved in assisting the Yishuv, gave Beck the task to thwart the Czars attempt. Beck managed to buy the land from its Arab owners for an exorbitant sum mere days before the Czar ordered the Russian consul in Jerusalem to make the purchase for him. The Czar was forced to buy a different plot of land for a church, the synagogue project, with Beck as architect and contractor, was plagued by constant delays. Over ten years were spent raising funds and building took six years, the imposing, three-story synagogue was inaugurated on 19 August 1872. For the next 75 years, it served as the centre for the Hasidic community in the city and it was considered one of the most beautiful synagogues of Jerusalem, with a commanding view of the Temple Mount, ornate decorations, and beautiful silver objects donated by Hasidim. It was destroyed by the Arab Legion during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, in 1875 Beck, together with Rabbi Shmuel Mordechai Warshavsky and under the auspices of Kollel Volhin, founded the Jewish neighborhood of Kirya Neemana, popularly known as Batei Nissan Bak. The neighborhood was intended for Hasidic Jews, but due to lack of financing. The remainder of the land was apportioned to several groups, Syrian, Iraqi. In the 1890s another neighborhood, Eshel Avraham, was erected next to Kirya Neemana for Georgian and Caucasian Jews and these neighborhoods were virtually abandoned during the 1929 Palestine riots and the homes taken over by Christians and Muslims. The remaining Jewish residents left with the Arab takeover of East Jerusalem after 1948, Beck died in 1889 and was buried in the Mount of Olives Jewish cemetery. Departure from the walls Assaf, David, YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. עיר בראי תקופה, ירושלים החדשה בראשיתה, the House of Rizhin, Chassidus and the Rizhiner dynasty
32.
Kerem Avraham
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Kerem Avraham is a neighbourhood near Geula in central Jerusalem, Israel, founded in 1855. It is bounded by Malkhei Yisrael Street, Yechezkel Street, Tzefanya Street, Kerem Avraham was established by James Finn, British Consul in Ottoman Jerusalem, and his wife Elizabeth Anne Finn. Finn was a devout Christian, who belonged to the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, in 1853, Finn purchased Karm al-Khalil, a 10-acre plot of barren land outside the walls of the Old City. The manager was a Christian named Dunn who believed he was a descendant of the tribe of Dan, Finn employed Jewish laborers to build the first house there in 1855 and cisterns for water storage were built. After Finns death, a factory was established by his widow and high quality kosher soap was produced which was sold locally. The soap was made from olive oil fat mixed with alkali, the soap production became the most widely known industry which took place at the compound. Israeli novelist Amos Oz grew up in Kerem Avraham in the 1940s, most of the residents of Kerem Avraham today are Orthodox
33.
Kollel
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A kolel or kollel is an institute for full-time, advanced study of the Talmud and rabbinic literature. Like a yeshiva, a kollel features shiurim and learning sedarim, unlike a yeshiva, a Kollel generally pays a regular monthly stipend to its members. Originally, the word was used in the sense of community, each new group of Jews, who came from various European countries to settle in Israel, established their own separate community with their own support system. Each community was referred to as the kollel of, to identify the specific community of the Old Yishuv. The overwhelming majority of these Jews were scholars, who left their homelands to devote themselves to study Torah, the kollel was the umbrella organization for all their needs. The first examples were Kolel Perushim consisting of the students of the Vilna Gaon who established the first Ashkenazi Jewish settlement in Jerusalem, the last initially included the entire Austro-Hungarian Kingdom, but as each subparty looking for more courteous distribution, the Hungarians separated into Kolel Shomrei HaChomos. The first kollel, in the sense of the term. It was founded by Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, and directed by Rabbi Isaac Blaser, the ten students enrolled were required to separate from their families, except for the Sabbath, and devote themselves to studying for the Rabbinate. There was a limit on ones membership in the kollel. The community kollel movement was fostered by Torah Umesorah, the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools. Currently, the term is applied in America to any stipend given for yeshiva study and is now a term for the yeshivah approach to life. The reward of the supporter in the World-To-Come is seen to be equal to that of the scholars reward, in the late 20th century, community kollelim were introduced. They are an Orthodox outreach tool, aimed to decrease assimilation, in the early 1990s community kollelim in North America were functioning in Los Angeles, Toronto, and Detroit, a kollel was also established in Montreal. Other locations with community kollelim include Miami Beach, Dallas, St. Louis, Missouri, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, topics include everything from basic Hebrew to advanced Talmud. In addition to imparting Torah knowledge, such function to impart technical skills required for self-study. Most kollels have a serving as a Rosh Kollel, or head of the kollel. He decides on the subject studied by the kollel. In many cases he also has to spend considerable time fund-raising to support the kollel, many kollels employ former students as fundraisers, often giving them euphemistic titles such as Executive Director or Director of Community Programming
34.
Halukka
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The halukka or chalukah was an organized collection and distribution of charity funds for Jewish residents of the Holy Land. The distributions were made semiannually, before the Passover and the New-Year festivals, the term messenger of Zion was applied during the Amoraic era to Rabbi Hama ben Ada, who traveled between Babylon and Eretz Israel, delivering decisions and messages, and probably soliciting relief. There exists a scholarly dispute whether Rabbi Yechiel of Paris transferred his yeshiva from Paris to Acre or not. This would make Rabbi Jacob the first documented meshulach, during the famine of 1441, the Jewish community of Jerusalem sent a meshulach, whose name is curiously recorded as Esrim we-Arbaah, to European countries. The meshulach was directed to go first to a Jewish central committee located in Constantinople in order to obtain necessary credentials. Rabbi Joseph Caro of Safed, author of the code of Jewish Law. The prior, longstanding, and still legitimate opposing view is that residents of ones own city or adopted country have the superior claim. Another takkanah was afterward issued which practically amounted to a confiscation, for the benefit of the halukkah, of the chattels, money and this so-called inheritance tax was strenuously opposed by the richer classes, and it was spasmodically abolished and reenacted. Hagiz estimated the appropriation of the halukkah for 1,500 souls in Southern Syria, including 1,000 in Jerusalem, nevertheless, he was ready to state under oath that the halukkah barely supplied one-third of their actual necessaries of life. The main sources of the halukkah at that time in Europe were London, Amsterdam, Venice, the term of this contract would generally be from three to ten years, but could be longer. In a mission to an important city, a meshulach might sometimes accept a rabbinate or the position of a maggid-preacher, occasionally, a meshulach would undertake the promotion of a business enterprise. He would also serve as a news-trafficker, over time, the position would develop a level of disrepute due to those among the meshulachim who thought chiefly of personal gain, and cared little for the cause they represented. Pseudo-meshulachim, who represented no community, but travelled on their own behalf, also contributed largely to bring discredit upon the office, during the middle of the eighteenth century, Ashkenazi Hasidim began arriving in the Holy Land, and began to receive a share of the halukkah. The share, however, they asserted, was not in proportion to their numbers and they complained to the Ashkenazi gabbaim of Europe, and eventually created their own hallukah organization, with the aid of the Council of the Four Lands, headquartered in Lublin, Poland. Later, Rabbi Abraham Gershon Kutawer, leader of the Hasidim in Hebron, sent meshulachhim to Metz, the Ashkenazim of Safed remained united with the Sephardim and drew from the general halukkah. Out of this sum they paid 2,000 lire to the Pasha for taxes and 250 lire for expenses of the meshulachim, a group of the hasidim from South Russia settled in Tiberias. Meanwhile, the halukkah being exhausted, the Hasidim had to borrow money in anticipation of the next remittances, the requirements of the halukkah at that time exceeded 700 ducats. A subscription fund-raising campaign for the halukkah was introduced by Rabbi Abraham Kalisker, leader of the Hasidim in Tiberias and he secured the assistance of Rabbi Mordecai of Niesvizh, who issued a proclamation, dated 22 Adar I
35.
Moses Montefiore
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Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, FRS was a British financier and banker, activist, philanthropist and Sheriff of London. Moses Montefiore was born in Leghorn, Tuscany, in 1784 and his grandfather, Moses Vita Montefiore, had emigrated from Livorno to London in the 1740s, but retained close contact with the town, then famous for its straw bonnets. The family returned to Kennington in London, where Montefiore went to school and began his career as an apprentice to a firm of grocers and he then entered a counting house in the City of London, and ultimately became one of the twelve Jew brokers licensed by the city. His brother Abraham joined him in the business, and their firm gained a high reputation, in 1812, Moses Montefiore married Judith Cohen, daughter of Levy Barent Cohen. Her sister, Henriette, married Nathan Mayer Rothschild, for whom Montefiores firm acted as stockbrokers, Nathan Rothschild headed the familys banking business in Britain, and the two brothers-in-law became business partners. Montefiore retired from his business in 1824, and used his time and fortune for communal and civic responsibilities. In 1836 he became a governor of Christs Hospital, the Bluecoat school, after assisting in the case of a man who had appealed to Montefiore to help his soon-to-be-widowed wife. Physically imposing at 6 ft 3 in, he was elected Sheriff of London in 1837 and he was also knighted that same year by Queen Victoria and received a baronetcy in 1846 in recognition of his services to humanitarian causes on behalf of the Jewish people. Though somewhat lax in religious observance in his life, after his first visit to the Holy Land in 1827. He was in the habit of traveling with a personal shohet, following this shift he exerted a strong influence in limiting the growth of the Reform Jewish movement in England of the time. In 1831, Montefiore purchased an estate with twenty-four acres on the East Cliff of the then fashionable seaside town of Ramsgate. The property had previously been a house of Queen Caroline. It had then been owned by the Marquess Wellesley, a brother of the Duke of Wellington, soon afterwards, Montefiore purchased the adjoining land and commissioned his cousin, architect David Mocatta, to design a private synagogue, known as the Montefiore Synagogue. It opened with a public ceremony in 1833. Montefiore died in 1885, at age 100 and he had no known children and his principal heir in both name and property was a nephew, Joseph Sebag Montefiore. After retiring from business in 1824, Montefiore devoted the rest of his life to philanthropy and he was president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews from 1835 to 1874, a period of 39 years, the longest tenure ever, and member of Bevis Marks Synagogue. As president, his correspondence with the British consul in Damascus Charles Henry Churchill in 1841–42 is seen as pivotal to the development of Proto-Zionism. In business, he was an innovator, investing in the supply of piped gas for lighting to European cities via the Imperial Continental Gas Association
36.
Judah Touro
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Judah Touro was an American businessman and philanthropist. His father, Isaac Touro of Holland, was chosen in 1762 as the hazzan at the Touro Synagogue, after the British captured Newport, Isaac and his family moved to New York in 1780, and then in 1782 to Kingston, Jamaica. In 1783 Isaac died and his wife, Reyna, moved the family to Boston, to live with her brother, Reyna Touro died in 1787, and Judah and his siblings were raised by his uncle, a merchant who helped found Bostons first bank. Mr. Shepherd helped nurse Judah back to health, and their friendship continued throughout their lives. Following the war, he recovered for a year, then resumed building his business interests in shipping, trade, Judah Touros lasting fame, however, was as a philanthropist. He contributed $40, 000—an immense sum at the time—to the Jewish cemetery at Newport, the park surrounding it is still known as Touro Park. The infirmary became the largest free hospital in Louisiana, the Touro Infirmary, in a New Orleans fund-raising drive for Christians suffering persecution in Jerusalem, he gave ten times more than any other donor. His $20,000 donation to The Jews Hospital in New York City led to its opening in 1855, rev. Theodore Clapp reported that Touro had given him not less than $20,000 over the course of their friendship. These stories are said to represent only a portion of his personal giving. Morais remarks, It would be an impossibility to enumerate all the acts of munificent beneficence performed by Judah Touro, at his death, his estate provided endowments for nearly all the Jewish congregations in the United States, bequests to hospitals and orphanages in Massachusetts. His bequeaths funded the first Jewish residential settlement and almshouse outside of the Old City of Jerusalem, in total, his will gave more than $500,000 to different causes, a sum which would equal approximately $9 million in modern terms. His will also included another bequest, to his cousin Catherine Hays—as an expression of the remembrance in which that esteemed friend is held by me. Hays, however, died in Virginia only days before Touros own death and he is buried in the Jewish of Newport. The inscription on his tombstone reads, To the Memory of / Judah Touro / He inscribed it in the Book of / Philanthropy / To be remembered forever. Touro lived in New Orleans for more than 50 years, Touro Infirmary and Touro Synagogue named in his memory and thanks to his charity are among his more prominent legacies in the city. A Judah Touro Scholarship is given at Tulane University in New Orleans, among the winners of the award was the late Louisiana Judge Henry L. Yelverton. Touro College, chartered in New York State in 1970, takes its name from the Touro family of Judah Touro, Judah Touro and Isaac Touro were Jewish community leaders of colonial America, who represent the ideals upon which Touro College bases its mission. Life and times of Judah Touro, aaron Lopez and Judah Touro, A refugee and a son of a refugee
37.
Sephardi Jews
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They established communities throughout Spain and Portugal, where they traditionally resided, evolving what would become their distinctive characteristics and diasporic identity. Spoken by Sephardim in the Eastern Mediterranean, Haketia, an Arabic influenced Judaeo-Spanish variety also derived from Old Spanish, with numerous Hebrew and Aramaic terms. Taken with them in the 15th century after the expulsion from Spain in 1492, Early Modern Spanish and Early Modern Portuguese, including in a mixture of the two. Traditionally spoken or used liturgically by the ex-converso Western Sephardim, taken with them during their later migration out of Iberia in the 16th to 18th centuries as conversos, after which they reverted to Judaism. In most cases these varieties have incorporated loanwords from the languages of the Americas introduced following the Spanish conquest. This article deals with Sephardim within the narrower ethnic definition, the name Sephardi means Spanish or Hispanic, derived from Sepharad, a Biblical location. The location of the biblical Sepharad is disputed, but Sepharad was identified by later Jews as Hispania, that is, Sepharad still means Spain in modern Hebrew. In its most basic form, this broad definition of a Sephardi refers to any Jew, of any ethnic background. The term Sephardi in the sense, thus describes the nusach used by Sephardi Jews in their Siddur. A nusach is defined by a liturgical traditions choice of prayers, order of prayers, text of prayers, Sephardim traditionally pray using Minhag Sefarad. Additionally, Ethiopian Jews, whose branch of practiced Judaism is known as Haymanot, have come under the umbrella of Israels already broad Sephardic Chief Rabbinate. The divisions among Sephardim and their descendants today is largely a result of the consequences of the Royal edicts of expulsion. In the case of the Alhambra Decree of 1492, the purpose was to eliminate their influence on Spains large converso population. Indeed, a number of those Jews who had not yet joined the converso community finally chose to convert. While the stipulations were similar in the Portuguese decree, King Manuel then largely prevented Portugals Jews from leaving, by blocking Portugals ports of exit. This failure to leave Portugal was then reasoned by the king to signify a default acceptance of Catholicism by the Jews, actual physical forced conversions, however, were also experienced throughout Portugal. Sephardi Jews, therefore, encompass Jews descended from those Jews who left the Iberian Peninsula as Jews by the expiration of the respective decreed deadlines. This group is divided between those who fled south to North Africa, as opposed to those who fled eastwards to the Balkans, West Asia
38.
Perushim
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They were from the section of the community known as mitnagdim in Lithuania. The name Perushim comes from the פרש parash, meaning to separate, the group sought to separate themselves from what they saw as the impurities of the society around them in Europe, and the name literally means separated. Coincidentally this was the name by which the Pharisees of antiquity were known. However the latter-day Perushim did not make any claim to be successors of the Pharisees, in the generations prior to their departure for Israel, the term Perushim referred to commentaries in the sifrei kodesh. It was later applied to the Vilna group, alluding to their practice of studying Biblical commentaries, not just the Talmud and later commentaries. Enduring great hardships and danger, they traveled to and settled in the Holy Land, most of the Perushim settled in Safed, Tiberias, Jaffa and in Jerusalem, setting up what were known as the Kollel Perushim, and forming the basis of the Ashkenazi communities there. The conflict between Chassidic and non-Chassidic Jews was ended by World War II, as the old religious Jewish presence in those countries was destroyed. Most of these people, although they influenced the State of Israel especially through the creation of crafts, newspapers and daycare for Jews, like most deeply religious poor Jews, they were very hesitant to serve in any army or militia. The majority of their descendants established themselves in middle-class neighborhoods of the America, the phenomenon of Orthodox refusal to serve in the Israeli military remains a divisive issue in modern Israel. Later, when the Haggannah developed into the IDF and following the formation of the State of Israel, Chief Rabbi Kook had public meetings with Israeli generals. Thus the first Chief Rabbi marshaled religious support for Jewish nationalism, the perushim began their journey from the city of Shklov, about 300 kilometers southeast of Vilna in Lithuania. The perushim migrated in three groups, the first group left in 1808 led by Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Shklov, and the following two in 1809, led by Rabbi Saadya Ben Rabbi Noson Nota of Vilna, and Rabbi Yisroel ben Shmuel of Shklov. They traveled via Constantinople on foot and by horse and wagon, the trips lasted about fifteen months, and the travelers suffered many hardships, including starvation. The journey was all the more dangerous because of the Napoleonic Wars that were raging across Europe. Reaching the shores of Palestine, however, was not the end of their journey, when the perushim first arrived, they faced a ban on Ashkenazi Jews settling in Jerusalem. While some managed to evade the ban by entering Jerusalem disguised as Sephardi Jews, most of the perushim journeyed on to Safed, besides the Sephardim, the community included many Hasidic Jews, with whom the perushim had an ongoing feud. However, the two set aside their ideological differences and worked hand in hand to settle the land and develop their community. Safed in the first quarter of the 19th century was a town of over five thousand Jewish inhabitants
