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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 o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jews
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly interrelated, as Judaism is their ethnic religion, though it is not practiced by all ethnic Jews. Despite this, religious Jews regard Gerim, converts to Judaism as members of the Jewish nation, pursuant to the Conversion to Judaism, long-standing conversion process. The Israelites emerged from the pre-existing Canaanite peoples to establish Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), Israel and Kingdom of Judah, Judah in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age.John Day (Old Testament scholar), John Day (2005), ''In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel'', Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 47.5 [48] 'In this sense, the emergence of ancient Israel is viewed not as the cause of the demise of Canaanite culture but as its upshot'. Originally, J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was born in Lumbini, in what is now Nepal, to royal parents of the Shakya clan, but renounced his home life to live as a wandering ascetic. After leading a life of mendicancy, asceticism, and meditation, he attained nirvana at Bodh Gayā in what is now India. The Buddha then wandered through the lower Indo-Gangetic Plain, teaching and building a monastic order. Buddhist tradition holds he died in Kushinagar and reached ''parinirvana'' ("final release from conditioned existence"). According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and severe asceticism, leading to freedom from ignorance, craving, rebirth, and suffering. His core teachings are summarized in the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Ei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dunash Ben Labrat
Dunash ha-Levi ben Labrat (920/925 – after 985) (; ) 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 because of their many grammatical disputes as well as Menahem's tough criticism of Saadia Gaon, Du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Of Yemen
Sarah of Yemen (, fl. 6th century) is noted as one of the small number of female composers of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry known from the sixth century. 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; ; ; c. 1075 – 1141) was a Sephardic Jewish poet, physician and philosopher. Halevi is considered one of the greatest Hebrew poets and is celebrated for his secular and religious poems, many of which appear in present-day liturgy. Judah haLevi was born in Tudela, in the region of Navarre, then part of Muslim Spain. Although little is known about his early life or education, it is clear that he was well-versed in Arabic, Hebrew, and classical sciences including medicine and philosophy. In his youth, he began composing Hebrew poetry, and his reputation eventually reached Moses ibn Ezra in Granada. After initial difficulties in traveling due to political shifts, haLevi was able to establish literary connections across major Jewish centers in al-Andalus. HaLevi's poetic corpus includes a wide array of genres, including panegyrics, friendship poems, wine songs, riddles, didactic verse, and wedding poems. However, he is best remembered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solomon Ibn Gabirol
Solomon ibn Gabirol or Solomon ben Judah (, ; , ) was an 11th-century Jews, Jewish poet and Jewish philosopher, philosopher in the Neoplatonism, Neo-Platonic tradition in Al-Andalus. 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 Latinisation of names, 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 soul and intellect, are composed of matter and form ("Universal Hylomorphism"), and for his emphasis on divine will. Biography Little is known of Gabirol's life, and some sou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eleazar Kalir
Eleazar beRabbi Qallir (; ), also known as Eleazar ha-Kalir, was a Byzantine Jewish poet whose Hebrew-language liturgical verses or piyyuṭim are sung during significant religious services, especially in the Nusach Ashkenaz rite, as well as in the Italian Nusach and well as the Romaniote rite. In particular, he wrote hymns for the Three Pilgrimage Festivals, for special Shabbats, for weekdays of festive character, and the fast days. 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 another 6th-century composer of piyyuṭim, Yannai, who, according to a certain legend, grew jealous of Eleazar's superior knowledge and caused his death by inserting into his shoe a scorpion whose sting proved to be fatal. Samuel David ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yannai (Payetan)
Yannai () 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 write 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 renowned and influential during his time (he influenced the poet Eleazar ben Kalir), by the Middle Ages, much of his poetry had disappeared from the prayer book. Excepting a few poems, Yannai's work was essentially l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yose Ben Yose
Jose ben Jose () was an early payyetan who lived in Israel in the 4th to 5th century CE. In some sources he is called "Jose ben Jose the orphan", on the assumption that only an orphan would receive the same name as his father; however, this assumption is not accurate in relation to all communities at the time. Alternatively, "orphan" was a title of honor, given due to his being "alone" in his skills and accomplishments. According to one tradition, he was a kohen and was given the title of Kohen Gadol. His poetry was rich, but written in relatively simple language. His poems have been compared to those of Yannai and Kalir, but do not have rhyme schemes and do not allude to midrash, though they do have standard meter. Most of his poetry has been lost, but some is preserved in the contemporary Ashkenazic prayer books. Although he was from an era before poets would sign their piyyutim, the Teqiatoth (piyyutim of the special blessings of Mussaf on Rosh Hashanah) of the second day ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Palestine
Roman Palestine was a period in the history of Palestine characterised by Roman rule in the Palestine region. Historians typically trace the period from the Hasmonean civil war in 63 BCE up until the end of the Byzantine rule with the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 7th century. The period is commonly subdivided into a pagan Roman period and a Christian Byzantine period. The Roman period (narrow sense) can be subdivided into early and late phases, transitioning at either the First Jewish–Roman War c. 70 CE or the Bar Kokhba Revolt c. 135 CE. During this period, Palestine went through a series of administrative changes, beginning as a series of Roman client states under the Judean Hasmonean and Herodian dynasties before being gradually annexed into the Roman Empire as the fully incorporated Roman province of Judaea, as well as the Nabatean Kingdom in the peripherial areas. After 135 CE, Roman Palestine was re-organised into the Roman province of Syria Palaestina, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piyyut
A piyyuṭ (plural piyyuṭim, ; from ) is a Jewish liturgical poem, usually designated to be sung, chanted, or recited during religious services. Most piyyuṭim are in Mishnaic Hebrew or Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, and most follow some poetic scheme, such as an acrostic following the order of the Hebrew alphabet or spelling out the name of the author. Many piyyuṭim are familiar to regular attendees of synagogue services. For example, the best-known piyyuṭ may be ''Adon Olam'' "Lord of the World." Its poetic form consists of a repeated rhythmic pattern of short-long-long-long (the so-called hazaj meter). It is so beloved that it is often sung after many synagogue services after the ritual nightly recitation of the Shema and during the morning ritual of putting on tefillin. Another beloved piyyuṭ is ''Yigdal'' "May God be Hallowed," which is based upon the thirteen principles of faith set forth by Maimonides. Scholars of piyyuṭ today include Shulamit Elizur and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a Slavery in ancient Greece, slave and storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 Before the Common Era, BCE. Of varied and unclear origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to modern times through a number of sources and continue to be reinterpreted in different verbal Register (sociolinguistics), registers and in popular as well as artistic media. The fables were part of oral tradition and were not collected until about three centuries after Aesop's death. By that time, a variety of other stories, jokes and proverbs were being ascribed to him, although some of that material was from sources earlier than him or came from beyond the Greek cultural sphere. The process of inclusion has continued until the present, with some of the fables unrecorded before the Late Middle Ages and others arriving from outside Europe. The process is continuous and new stories are still b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
