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Moses Hagiz
Moses Hagiz (1671 – c. 1750) (Hebrew: משה חגיז) was a Talmudic scholar, rabbi and writer born in Jerusalem during the time of the Old Yishuv. He was also one of the most prominent and influential Jewish leaders in 17th-century Amsterdam. During Hagiz's lifetime, there was an overall decline in rabbinic authority which was the result of migration and assimilation, and Hagiz devoted his career to restoring rabbinic authority. His most prominent talent was as a polemicist, and he campaigned ceaselessly against Jewish heresy in an attempt to unify the rabbinate. Biography Moses' father, Jacob Hagiz, died while Moses was still a child. The latter was therefore educated by his maternal grandfather, Moses Galante (the Younger), who had succeeded his son-in-law. With the death of Moses Galante (1689) support from Livorno was withdrawn, and Hagiz found himself in very straitened circumstances. He went to Safed to collect a claim which his mother had against the congregation, but suc ...
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Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved throughout history as the main liturgical language of Judaism (since the Second Temple period) and Samaritanism. Hebrew is the only Canaanite language still spoken today, and serves as the only truly successful example of a dead language that has been revived. It is also one of only two Northwest Semitic languages still in use, with the other being Aramaic. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to the 10th century BCE. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew, with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, during the time of the Babylonian captivity. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as '' Lashon Hakodesh'' (, ) since an ...
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Ashkenazic
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singular: , Modern Hebrew: are a Jewish diaspora population who coalesced in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium CE. Their traditional diaspora language is Yiddish (a West Germanic language with Jewish linguistic elements, including the Hebrew alphabet), which developed during the Middle Ages after they had moved from Germany and France into Northern Europe and Eastern Europe. For centuries, Ashkenazim in Europe used Hebrew only as a sacred language until the revival of Hebrew as a common language in 20th-century Israel. Throughout their numerous centuries living in Europe, Ashkenazim have made many important contributions to its philosophy, scholarship, literature, art, music, and science. The rabbinical term ''A ...
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Shulhan Arukh
The ''Shulchan Aruch'' ( he, שֻׁלְחָן עָרוּך , literally: "Set Table"), sometimes dubbed in English as the Code of Jewish Law, is the most widely consulted of the various legal codes in Judaism. It was authored in Safed (today in Israel) by Joseph Karo in 1563 and published in Venice two years later. Together with its commentaries, it is the most widely accepted compilation of Jewish law ever written. The ''halachic'' rulings in the ''Shulchan Aruch'' generally follow Sephardic law and customs, whereas Ashkenazi Jews generally follow the halachic rulings of Moses Isserles, whose glosses to the ''Shulchan Aruch'' note where the Sephardic and Ashkenazi customs differ. These glosses are widely referred to as the ''mappah'' (literally: the "tablecloth") to the ''Shulchan Aruch's'' "Set Table". Almost all published editions of the ''Shulchan Aruch'' include this gloss, and the term "Shulchan Aruch" has come to denote ''both'' Karo's work as well as Isserles', with Karo us ...
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Jacob Emden
Jacob Emden, also known as Ya'avetz (June 4, 1697 April 19, 1776), was a leading German rabbi and talmudist who championed Orthodox Judaism in the face of the growing influence of the Sabbatean movement. He was acclaimed in all circles for his extensive knowledge. Emden was the son of the hakham Tzvi Ashkenazi, and a descendant of Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chełm. He lived most his life in Altona (now a part of Hamburg, Germany), where he held no official rabbinic position and earned a living by printing books. His son was Meshullam Solomon, rabbi of the Hambro Synagogue in London who claimed authority as Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom from 1765 to 1780. The acronym Ya'avetz (also written Yaavetz) stands for the words Yaakov (Emden) ben Tzvi (his father's name) (Hebrew: יעקב (עמדין) בן צבי - יעב"ץ). Seven of his 31 works were published posthumously. Biography Jacob Emden (born Ashkenazi) was the 5th of his father's 15 children. Until the age of seventee ...
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Heinrich Gratz
Heinrich Graetz (; 31 October 1817 – 7 September 1891) was amongst the first historians to write a comprehensive history of the Jewish people from a Jewish perspective. Born Tzvi Hirsch Graetz to a butcher family in Xions (now Książ Wielkopolski), Grand Duchy of Posen, in Prussia (now in Poland), he attended Breslau University, but since Jews at that time were barred from receiving Ph.D.s there, he obtained his doctorate from the University of Jena.''Encyclopaedia Judaica'' (2007, 2nd ed.)
entry on "Graetz, Heinrich," by Shmuel Ettinger and Marcus Pyka
After 1845 he was principal of the school of the
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Zohar
The ''Zohar'' ( he, , ''Zōhar'', lit. "Splendor" or "Radiance") is a foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought known as Kabbalah. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah (the five books of Moses) and scriptural interpretations as well as material on mysticism, mythical cosmogony, and mystical psychology. The ''Zohar'' contains discussions of the nature of God, the origin and structure of the universe, the nature of souls, redemption, the relationship of Ego to Darkness and "true self" to "The Light of God". The ''Zohar'' was first publicized by Moses de León (c. 1240 – 1305 CE), who claimed it was a Tannaitic work recording the teachings of Simeon ben Yochai (). This claim is universally rejected by modern scholars, most of whom believe de León, also an infamous forger of Geonic material, wrote the book himself between 1280 and 1286. Some scholars argue that the ''Zohar'' is the work of multiple medieval author ...
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Moshe Chaim Luzzatto
Moshe Chaim Luzzatto ( he, משה חיים לוצאטו, also ''Moses Chaim'', ''Moses Hayyim'', also ''Luzzato'') (1707 – 16 May 1746 (26 ''Iyar'' 5506)), also known by the Hebrew acronym RaMCHaL (or RaMHaL, ), was a prominent Italian Jewish rabbi, kabbalist, and philosopher. Biography Early life Moshe Chaim Luzzatto was born in 1707 in the Jewish ghetto of Padua, Republic of Venice. The son of Jacob Vita and Diamente Luzzatto, he received classical Jewish and Italian education, showing a predilection for literature at a very early age. He may have attended the University of Padua and certainly associated with a group of students there, known to dabble in mysticism and alchemy. With his vast knowledge in religious lore, the arts, and science, he quickly became the dominant figure in that group. His writings demonstrate mastery of the Tanakh, the Talmud, and the rabbinical commentaries and codes of Jewish law. Poetry and literature At an early age, he began a thorou ...
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Herem (censure)
''Herem'' (, also Romanized ''chērem, ḥērem'') is the highest ecclesiastical censure in the Jewish community. It is the total exclusion of a person from the Jewish community. It is a form of shunning and is similar to ''vitandus'' "excommunication" in the Catholic Church. Cognate terms in other Semitic languages include the Arabic terms ''ḥarām'' "forbidden, taboo, off-limits, or immoral" and haram "set apart, sanctuary", and the Ge'ez word ''ʿirm'' "accursed". Arguably the most famous case of a herem is that of Baruch Spinoza, the seventeenth-century philosopher. Another renowned case is the herem the Vilna Gaon ruled against the early Hassidic groups in 1777 and then again in 1781, under the charge of believing in panentheism. Other famous subjects of a herem were early Russian communists Leon Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev. Sometime in 1918, while Ukraine was under German occupation, the rabbis of Odessa pronounced herem against Trotsky, Zinoviev, and other Jewish Bols ...
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Solomon Ayllon
Solomon Ayllon (1665 – April 10, 1728) was '' haham'' of the Sephardic congregations in London and Amsterdam, and a follower of Shabbethai Ẓebi. His name is derived from the town of Ayllon, in what is now the province of Segovia. Ayllon was neither a general scholar nor a Talmudist of standing, but his history is closely interwoven with that of Sabbateanism in both the East and the West. Life Ayllon's youth was spent in Salonica, which was probably his birthplace, although some assert that Safed was the place, because many Sabbateans claimed to be of Palestinian birth. He associated with the Sabbatean circles of Joseph Philosoph, Solomon Florentin, and other leading spirits of antinomian and communistic tendencies. There he is said to have married as his divinely appointed spouse a woman from whom another man had separated without the formality of a divorce, only to experience that she soon left him for a third spouse, whose "affinity" seemed holier to this strange ...
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Sabbateanism
The Sabbateans (or Sabbatians) were a variety of Jewish followers, disciples, and believers in Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676), a Sephardic Jewish rabbi and Kabbalist who was proclaimed to be the Jewish Messiah in 1666 by Nathan of Gaza. Vast numbers of Jews in the Jewish diaspora accepted his claims, even after he outwardly became an apostate due to his forced conversion to Islam in the same year. Sabbatai Zevi's followers, both during his proclaimed messiahship and after his forced conversion to Islam, are known as Sabbateans. Part of the Sabbateans lived on until well into 21st-century Turkey as descendants of the Dönmeh. Sabbatai Zevi Sabbatai Zevi was a Sephardic ordained rabbi from Smyrna (now İzmir, Turkey). A kabbalist of Romaniote origin, Zevi, who was active throughout the Ottoman Empire, claimed to be the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. He was the founder of the Sabbatean movement, whose followers subsequently were to be known as Dönmeh "converts" or crypto-Jews. ...
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Sabbatai Zevi
Sabbatai Zevi (; August 1, 1626 – c. September 17, 1676), also spelled Shabbetai Ẓevi, Shabbeṯāy Ṣeḇī, Shabsai Tzvi, Sabbatai Zvi, and ''Sabetay Sevi'' in Turkish, was a Jewish mystic and ordained rabbi from Smyrna (now İzmir, Turkey). A kabbalist of Romaniote or Sephardic origin, Zevi, who was active throughout the Ottoman Empire, claimed to be the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. He was the founder of the Sabbatean movement, whose followers subsequently came to be known as Dönme (converts) or crypto-Jews. Upon arriving in Constantinople in February 1666, Sabbatai was imprisoned on the order of the grand vizier Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pasha; in September of that same year, after being moved from different prisons around the capital to Adrianople, (modern Edirne, the imperial court's then seat) to be judged on accusations of fomenting sedition, Sabbatai was given the choice of either facing death by some type of ordeal, or of converting to Islam by the Grand V ...
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Hezekiah Da Silva
Rabbi Hezekiah da Silva (also Hezekiah Silva) (1659–1698) () was a Jewish author born in Livorno, Grand Duchy of Tuscany. He was the son-in-law of the dayan Mordechai Rafael Malachi. Biography Hezekiah Da Silva was born in 1659 in Livorno, Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Around the year 1679, at age 20, Da Silva left his native city for Jerusalem in then-Ottoman Syria (Damascus Eyalet), where he attended the yeshivah of Rabbi Moses Galante for ten years. In 1689, Galante died and Da Silva succeeded him as Rosh Yeshiva. He was sent to Europe to collect funds for Jerusalem. In 1691, when Da Silva was in Amsterdam, he received an offer to become the city's Sephardi rabbi, which he refused.Rabbi Gavin Michal (2018)"The Ban, Repeal, and Censoring of the Pri Chadash"/ref> Instead, he began the printing of his work ''Peri Chadash'' (), a commentary on the ''Yoreh De'ah''. Wealthy Amsterdam Jews offer to finance the publication. ''Peri Chadash'' was published in 1691 and immediately hailed ...
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