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Jewish Literature
Jewish literature includes works written by Jews on Jewish themes, literary works written in Jewish languages on various themes, and literary works in any language written by Jewish writers. Ancient Jewish literature includes Biblical literature and rabbinic literature. Medieval Jewish literature includes not only rabbinic literature but also ethical literature, philosophical literature, mystical literature, various other forms of prose including history and fiction, and various forms of poetry of both religious and secular varieties. The production of Jewish literature has flowered with the modern emergence of secular Jewish culture. Modern Jewish literature has included Yiddish literature, Judeo-Tat literature, Ladino literature, Hebrew literature (especially Israeli literature), and Jewish American literature. Medieval Jewish literature Fiction Prominent examples of medieval Jewish fiction included: *''Sefer ha-Ma'asiyyot'', by Nissim b. Jacob b. Nissim ibn Shahin of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jewish Languages
Jewish languages are the various languages and dialects that developed in Jewish communities in the diaspora. The original Jewish language is Hebrew, supplanted as the primary vernacular by Aramaic following the Babylonian exile. Jewish languages feature a syncretism of indigenous Hebrew and Judeo-Aramaic with the languages of the local non-Jewish population. Ancient history Early Northwest Semitic (ENWS) materials are attested through the end of the Bronze Age—2350 to 1200 BCE. At this early state, Biblical Hebrew was not highly differentiated from the other Northwest Semitic languages ( Ugaritic and Amarna Canaanite), though noticeable differentiation did occur during the Iron Age (1200–540 BCE). Hebrew as a separate language developed during the latter half of the second millennium BCE between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an area known as Canaan. The earliest distinctively Hebrew writing yet discovered was found at Khirbet Qeiyafa and d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aggadah
Aggadah ( he, ''ʾAggāḏā'' or ''Haggāḏā''; Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: אַגָּדְתָא ''ʾAggāḏəṯāʾ''; "tales, fairytale, lore") is the non-legalistic exegesis which appears in the classical rabbinic literature of Judaism, particularly the Talmud and Midrash. In general, Aggadah is a compendium of rabbinic texts that incorporates folklore, historical anecdotes, moral exhortations, and practical advice in various spheres, from business to medicine. Etymology The Hebrew word ''haggadah'' (הַגָּדָה) is derived from the Hebrew root נגד, meaning "declare, make known, expound", also known from the common Hebrew verb להגיד.Berachyahu Lifshitz, "Aggadah Versus Haggadah : Towards a More Precise Understanding of the Distinction", ''Diné Yisrael'' 24 (2007): page 23 (English section). The majority scholarly opinion is that the Hebrew word ''aggadah'' (אַגָּדָה) and corresponding Aramaic ''aggadta'' (אַגָּדְתָא) are variants of ''h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metre (poetry)
In poetry, metre ( Commonwealth spelling) or meter ( American spelling; see spelling differences) is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study and the actual use of metres and forms of versification are both known as prosody. (Within linguistics, " prosody" is used in a more general sense that includes not only poetic metre but also the rhythmic aspects of prose, whether formal or informal, that vary from language to language, and sometimes between poetic traditions.) Characteristics An assortment of features can be identified when classifying poetry and its metre. Qualitative versus quantitative metre The metre of most poetry of the Western world and elsewhere is based on patterns of syllables of particular types. The familiar type of metre in English-language poetry is called qualitative metre, with stressed syllables com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rebecca Bat Meir Tiktiner
Rebecca bat Meir Tiktiner (; died 1605), was a Yiddish writer, whose works include a treatise on Jewish ethics in the style of musar literature as well as a poem about Simchat Torah. Life She or her father probably resided in the northeast Poland town of Tykocin. According to the records of the Altneushul, she was married to someone with rabbinic training (''ha-rav rabbi''). The ethical treatise, "Meneket Rivkah" (Prague, 1609. Cracow, 1618), is 36 folios long and organized by seven gates. The author focuses on the duties of a housewife in various relationships (e.g., to husband or guest) as well as a general ethical approach, dealing with niddah, health social practices. The treatise includes stories from the Talmud and midrashic literature. Tiktiner differentiates between the wisdom of the body and of the soul (''guf'' and ''nefesh''). This practical guidelines "paint a vivid picture of Jewish women's daily lives in the early modern period." Von Rohde claims that this is "p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qasmuna
Qasmūna bint Ismāʿil (; ), sometimes called Xemone, was an Iberian Jewish poet. She is the only female Arabic-language Jewish poet attested from medieval Andalusia, and, along with Sarah of Yemen and the anonymous wife of Dunash ben Labrat, one of few known female Jewish poets throughout the Middle Ages. Biography Little is known about Qasmūna's life. Both surviving sources say that her father was Jewish and that he taught her the art of verse. Whereas al-Maqqari simply calls him Ismāʿil al-Yahudi, however, al-Suyuti calls him Ismāʿil ibn Bagdāla al-Yahudi, and says Qasmūna lived in the twelfth century CE. It has been speculated that Qasmūna's father was Samuel ibn Naghrillah (d. ), or that Samuel was otherwise an ancestor, which would make Qasmuna an eleventh-century rather than a twelfth-century poet, but the foundations for these claims are shaky. Three poems by Qasmūna survive, due to being recorded by two later anthologists: Al-Suyuti, in his fifteenth-century ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dunash Ben Labrat
Dunash ha-Levi ben Labrat (920/925 – after 985) ( he, ר׳ דוֹנָש הַלֵּוִי בֵּן לָבְּרָט; ar, دناش بن لبراط) was a medieval Jewish commentator, poet, and grammarian of the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain. He is known for his philological commentary, ''Teshuvot Dunash'', and for his liturgical poems D'ror Yiqra and D'vai Haser. Life Dunash was, according to Moses ibn Ezra, born in Fes, the name ''Dunash'' being of Berber origin. In his youth he travelled to Baghdad to study with Saadia Gaon. On returning to Morocco he wrote many poems and became famous, and there were even poems written about him. He taught grammar and poetry. Hasdai ibn Shaprut, who lived in Córdoba, invited Dunash to Spain. Córdoba was then the center of culture and poetry in the Islamic world, and Hasdai endeavored to bring the best minds there. In Córdoba, Dunash met Menahem ben Saruq, also an important grammarian, though the two did not get along beca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Of Yemen
Sarah of Yemen ( ar, سارة, fl. 6th century CE) is noted as one of the small number of Arabic-language female poets known for the sixth century CE. It is possible that she was Jewish,Emily Taitz, Sondra Henry, and Cheryl Tallan, 'Sarah of Yemen', in ''The JPS Guide to Jewish Women: 600 B.C.E. to 1900 C.E.'' (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2003), p. 58. in which case she is one of only three attested female medieval Jewish poets (the others being the anonymous, tenth-century wife of Dunash ben Labrat and the probably twelfth-century Qasmuna).The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492, ed. and trans. by Peter Cole (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. 27, 364. The poem attributed to her survives in the tenth-century anthology named '' Kitab al-Aghani'': The eulogy implies that Sarah was a member of the Banu Qurayza, commenting on their defeat by Muslims around 627. Little more is known about Sarah, but she 'reputed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yehuda Halevi
Judah Halevi (also Yehuda Halevi or ha-Levi; he, יהודה הלוי and Judah ben Shmuel Halevi ; ar, يهوذا اللاوي ''Yahuḏa al-Lāwī''; 1075 – 1141) was a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher. He was born in Spain, either in Toledo or Tudela, in 1075 or 1086, and died shortly after arriving in the Holy Land in 1141, at that point the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Halevi is considered one of the greatest Hebrew poets, celebrated both for his religious and secular poems, many of which appear in present-day liturgy. His greatest philosophical work was the '' Sefer ha-Kuzari''. Biography Convention suggests that Judah ben Shmuel Halevi was born in Toledo, Spain in 1075. He often described himself as coming from Christian territory. Alfonso the Battler conquered Tudela in 1119; Toledo was conquered by Alfonso VI from the Muslims in Halevi's childhood (1086). As a youth, he seems to have gone to Granada, the main centre of Jewish literary and intel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solomon Ibn Gabirol
Solomon ibn Gabirol or Solomon ben Judah ( he, ר׳ שְׁלֹמֹה בֶּן יְהוּדָה אִבְּן גָּבִּירוֹל, Shlomo Ben Yehuda ibn Gabirol, ; ar, أبو أيوب سليمان بن يحيى بن جبيرول, ’Abū ’Ayyūb Sulaymān bin Yaḥyá bin Jabīrūl, ) was an 11th-century Andalusian poet and Jewish philosopher in the Neo-Platonic tradition. He published over a hundred poems, as well as works of biblical exegesis, philosophy, ethics and satire. One source credits ibn Gabirol with creating a golem, possibly female, for household chores. In the 19th century it was discovered that medieval translators had Latinized Gabirol's name to Avicebron or Avencebrol and had translated his work on Jewish Neo-Platonic philosophy into a Latin form that had in the intervening centuries been highly regarded as a work of Islamic or Christian scholarship. As such, ibn Gabirol is well known in the history of philosophy for the doctrine that all things, including ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eleazar Kalir
Eleazar ben Kalir, also known as Eleazar HaKalir, Eleazar ben Killir or Eleazar Kalir (c. 570c. 640) was a Byzantine Jew and a Hebrew poet whose classical liturgical verses, known as '' piyut'', have continued to be sung through the centuries during significant religious services, including those on ''Tisha B'Av'' and on the sabbath after a wedding. He was one of Judaism's earliest and most prolific of the ''paytanim'' (Hebrew liturgical poets). He wrote ''piyutim'' for all the main Jewish festivals, for special Sabbaths, for weekdays of festive character, and for the fasts. Many of his hymns have found their way into festive prayers of the Ashkenazi Jews' synagogal rite. Biography Although his poems have had a prominent place in printed ritual and he is known to have lived somewhere in the Near East, documentation regarding details of his life has been lost to history, including the exact year and circumstances of his birth and death. He is said to have been the disciple of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yanai (Payetan)
Yannai ( he, יניי or ינאי) was an important payyetan who lived in the late fifth-early sixth century in the Galilee in Israel (Byzantine-Palestina Syria). Sometimes referred to as the "father of piyyut," his poetry marks the beginning of the Classical Period of piyyut that ranged from the fifth-eighth centuries. He was the first poet of piyyut to sign his name in an acrostic, to use end-rhyme, and to wrote for weekly services (not just for the High Holidays and particular festivals). According to Laura Lieber, the liturgical form most associated with Yannai is the qedushta, which embellishes the first 3 blessing of the Amidah (a part of the Jewish prayer service).Laura Lieber, Yannai on Genesis: An Invitation to Piyyut (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2010) Although Yannai was renown and influential during his time (he influenced the poet Eleazar ben Kalir), by the Middle Ages, much of his poetry eventually disappeared from the prayer book. Excepting a few poems, Y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Palestine
The Diocese of the East ( la, Dioecesis Orientis; el, ) was a diocese of the later Roman Empire, incorporating the provinces of the western Middle East, between the Mediterranean Sea and Mesopotamia. During late Antiquity, it was one of the major commercial, agricultural, religious and intellectual areas of the empire, and its strategic location facing the Sassanid Empire and the unruly desert tribes gave it exceptional military importance. History The capital of the diocese was at Antioch, and its governor had the special title of '' comes Orientis'' ("Count of the East", of the rank ''vir spectabilis'' and later '' vir gloriosus'') instead of the ordinary "'' vicarius''". The diocese was established after the reforms of Diocletian (r. 284–305), and was subordinate to the praetorian prefecture of the East. The diocese included originally all Middle Eastern provinces of the Empire: Isauria, Cilicia, Cyprus, Euphratensis, Mesopotamia, Osroene, Syria Coele, Phoenice ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
