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Jacob Sasportas
Jacob ben Aaron Sasportas (1610 – April 15, 1698) was an Algerian-born rabbi, kabbalist, diplomat and author. He served as the rabbi of various Jewish communities in North Africa and later in Western Sephardic communities across Europe, including London and Amsterdam. He is perhaps best known for his vocal opposition to the messianic claims of Sabbatai Zevi. Biography Sasportas was born in Oran, Algeria, then under Spanish rule, to a distinguished family of scholars and diplomats. A child prodigy, he joined the Tlemcen rabbinical court at eighteen. He became the rabbi of Tlemcen at twenty-four, and later held the same position in Marrakesh, Fes, and Salé. Around 1646, he was imprisoned by the Moorish king but managed to escape with his family to Amsterdam around 1653. He stayed there till the disorders in Africa ceased, when he was called back by the King of Morocco and sent on a special mission to the Spanish court (ca. 1659) to ask for aid against the rebels. On his r ...
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Oran
Oran () is a major coastal city located in the northwest of Algeria. It is considered the second most important city of Algeria, after the capital, Algiers, because of its population and commercial, industrial and cultural importance. It is west-southwest from Algiers. The total population of the city was 803,329 in 2008, while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately 1,500,000, making it the second-largest city in Algeria. Etymology The word ''Wahran'' comes from the Berber expression ''wa - iharan'' (place of lions). A locally popular legend tells that in the period around AD 900, there were sightings of Barbary lions in the area. The last two lions were killed on a mountain near Oran, and it became known as ''la montagne des lions'' ("The Mountain of Lions"). Two giant lion statues stand in front of Oran's city hall, symbolizing the city. History Overview During the Roman Empire, a small settlement called ''Unica Colonia'' existed in the area of the current ...
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Sabbateans
The Sabbateans (or Sabbatians) are a variety of Jewish followers, disciples, and believers in Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676), an Ottoman 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. In the late 17th century, northern Italy experienced a surge of Sabbatean activity, driven by the missionary efforts of Abraham Miguel Cardoso. Around 1700, a radical faction within the Dönmeh movement, led by Baruchiah Russo, emerged, which sought to abolish many biblical prohibitions. During the same period, Sabbatean groups from Poland migrated to the Land of Israel. The Sabbatean movement continued to disseminate throughout central Europe and ...
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Moritz Steinschneider
Moritz Steinschneider (; 30 March 1816 – 24 January 1907) was a Moravian bibliographer and Orientalist, and an important figure in Jewish studies and Jewish history. He is credited as having invented the term ''antisemitism.'' Education Moritz Steinschneider was born in Prostějov, Moravia, in 1816. He received his early instruction in Hebrew from his father, Jacob Steinschneider ( 1782;  March 1856), who was not only an expert Talmudist, but was also well versed in secular science. The house of the elder Steinschneider was the rendezvous of a few progressive Hebraists, among whom was his brother-in-law, the physician and writer Gideon Brecher. At the age of six Steinschneider was sent to the public school, which was still an uncommon choice for Jews in the Austro-Hungarian empire at the time; and at the age of thirteen he became the pupil of Rabbi Nahum Trebitsch, whom he followed to Mikulov, Moravia in 1832. The following year, in order to continue his Talmud ...
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Abraham Sasportas
Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father who began the covenantal relationship between the Jewish people and God; in Christianity, he is the spiritual progenitor of all believers, whether Jewish or non-Jewish; and in Islam, he is a link in the chain of Islamic prophets that begins with Adam and culminates in Muhammad. Abraham is also revered in other Abrahamic religions such as the Baháʼí Faith and the Druze faith. The story of the life of Abraham, as told in the narrative of the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, revolves around the themes of posterity and land. He is said to have been called by God to leave the house of his father Terah and settle in the land of Canaan, which God now promises to Abraham and his progeny. This promise is subsequently inherited by Isaac, Abraham's son by his wife Sarah, while Isaac's half-brother Ishmael is also ...
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Meyer Kayserling
Meyer Kayserling (also '' Meir'' or ''Moritz'', 17 June 1829 – 21 April 1905) was a German rabbi and historian. Life Kayserling was born in Gleidingen near Hanover, and was the brother of writer and educator Simon Kayserling. He was educated at Halberstadt, at Nikolsburg (Moravia) where he studied under Samson Raphael Hirsch, at Prague where he studied under S.J. Rapoport, at Würzburg where he studied under Seligman Baer Bamberger, and finally at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He devoted himself to history and philosophy. Encouraged in historical researches in Berlin by Leopold von Ranke, Kayserling turned his attention to the history and literature of the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula. In 1861 the government of Aargau appointed him rabbi of the two Swiss Jewish municipalities of Endingen and Lengnau in Surbtal, an office he held until 1870. During his residence in Switzerland he argued in favor of civil equality for his coreligionists, and also maintained co ...
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Julius Fürst
Julius Fürst (; 12 May 1805, Żerków, South Prussia – 9 February 1873, Leipzig), born Joseph Alsari, was a Jewish German oriental studies, orientalist and the son of noted maggid, teacher, and Hebrew grammarian Jacob Alsari. Fürst was a distinguished scholar of Semitic languages and literature. During his years as professor in the department of oriental languages and Oriental Literature, literature at the University of Leipzig (1864–1873), he wrote many works on literary history and linguistics. Biography His father was Hebrew grammarian Jacob Alsari. At an early age, Fürst had a remarkable knowledge of Hebrew literature, Old Testament scriptures and oriental languages. In 1825, after having studied at Berlin, where Hegel and Johann August Wilhelm Neander, Neander were among his teachers, he took a course in Jewish theology at Grand Duchy of Posen, Posen. In 1829, after having abandoned his Jewish orthodoxy, he went to University of Breslau, Breslau, and in 1831 to Univ ...
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Samuel Joseph Fuenn
Samuel Joseph Fuenn (; 15 October 1818 – 11 January 1891), also known as Rashi Fuenn () and Rashif (), was a Lithuanian Hebrew writer, scholar, printer, and editor. He was a leading figure of the eastern European Haskalah, and an early member of Ḥovevei Zion. Biography Fuenn was born in Vilna, Russian Empire, the son of merchant and Torah scholar Yitsḥak Aizik Fuenn of Grodno. Though he received a traditional religious education until the age of 17, he also acquired an extensive general knowledge of German literature and other secular subjects, and became proficient in Russian, French, Latin, Polish, and English. He afterwards joined Vilna's circle of young '' maskilim''. In 1848 the government appointed him teacher of Hebrew and Jewish history in the newly founded rabbinical school of Vilna. Fuenn filled this position with great distinction till 1856, when he resigned. The government then appointed him superintendent of the Jewish public schools in the district of Vil ...
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Moses Ben Maimon Elbaz
In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the Exodus from Egypt. He is considered the most important prophet in Judaism and Samaritanism, and one of the most important prophets in Christianity, Islam, the Manifestation of God (Baháʼí Faith)#Known messengers, Baháʼí Faith, and Table of prophets of Abrahamic religions, other Abrahamic religions. According to both the Bible and the Quran, God in Abrahamic religions, God dictated the Mosaic Law to Moses, which he Mosaic authorship, wrote down in the five books of the Torah. According to the Book of Exodus, Moses was born in a period when his people, the Israelites, who were an slavery, enslaved minority, were increasing in population; consequently, the Pharaohs in the Bible#In the Book of Exodus, Egyptian Pharaoh was worried that they might ally themselves with New Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt's enemies. When Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed in order to reduc ...
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Talmud
The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewish culture, Jewish cultural life and was foundational to "all Jewish thought and aspirations", serving also as "the guide for the daily life" of Jews. The Talmud includes the teachings and opinions of thousands of rabbis on a variety of subjects, including halakha, Jewish ethics, Jewish philosophy, philosophy, Jewish customs, customs, Jewish history, history, and Jewish folklore, folklore, and many other topics. The Talmud is a commentary on the Mishnah. This text is made up of 63 Masekhet, tractates, each covering one subject area. The language of the Talmud is Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. Talmudic tradition emerged and was compiled between the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the Arab conquest in the early seve ...
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Jerusalem Talmud
The Jerusalem Talmud (, often for short) or Palestinian Talmud, also known as the Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century Jewish oral tradition known as the Mishnah. Naming this version of the Talmud after Palestine or the Land of Israelrather than Jerusalemis considered more accurate, as the text originated mainly from Galilee in Byzantine Palaestina Secunda rather than from Jerusalem, where no Jews were allowed to live at the time. The Jerusalem Talmud predates its counterpart, the Babylonian Talmud (known in Hebrew as the ), by about a century. It was written primarily in Galilean Aramaic. It was compiled between the late fourth century to the first half of the fifth century. Both versions of the Talmud have two parts, the Mishnah (of which there is only one version), which was finalized by Judah ha-Nasi around the year 200 CE, and either the Babylonian or the Jerusalem Gemara. The Gemara is what differentiates the Jerusalem ...
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Isaac Ben Jacob Sasportas
Isaac ( ; ; ; ; ; ) is one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baháʼí Faith. Isaac first appears in the Torah, in which he is the son of Abraham and Sarah, the father of Jacob and Esau, and the grandfather of the twelve tribes of Israel. Isaac's name means "he will laugh", reflecting the laughter, in disbelief, of Abraham and Sarah, when told by God that they would have a child., He is the only patriarch whose name was not changed, and the only one who did not move out of Canaan. According to the narrative, he died aged 180, the longest-lived of the three patriarchs. Recent scholarship has discussed the possibility that Isaac could have originally been an ancestor from the Beersheba region who was venerated at a sanctuary. Etymology The anglicized name "Isaac" is a transliteration of the Hebrew name () which literally means "He laughs/will laugh". Ugaritic texts datin ...
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Aaron Ben Samuel
Aaron Jekel ben Samuel Schor of Frankfurt (Hebrew: אהרון יקל בן שמואל שור מפרנקפורט; 1620 – 1701) also known as the Beis Aharon of Frankfurt was a 17th-century Jewish-German rabbi and Hebrew author, best known for his work "Beis Aharon", which is considered to be amongst the most important concordances of the Bible. Biography Aaron Jekel Schor was born around 1620 in Lipník nad Bečvou, Moravia, where his father Samuel Schor (1590-1663) was serving as the town's rabbi. His family held a tradition of paternal descent from the medieval Tosafist, Joseph Bekhor Schor. In his early years, Aaron moved to Frankfurt an der Oder, where he married Suessele Horowitz (d. 1688) who was a great-granddaughter of Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller. Aaron was known to have published three other works, which are no longer extant and are only known, because of a passing remark in the introduction of Beis Aharon. Those works are: Sissera Torah – a midrashic commentary on Judge ...
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