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Kuzari
The ''Kuzari'', full title ''Book of Refutation and Proof on Behalf of the Despised Religion'' (; : ''Kitâb al-ḥujja wa'l-dalîl fi naṣr al-dîn al-dhalîl''), also known as the Book of the Khazar (: ''Sefer ha-Kuzari''), is one of the most famous works of the medieval Spanish Jewish philosopher, physician, and poet Judah Halevi, completed in the Hebrew year 4900 (1139-40CE). Originally written in Arabic, prompted by Halevi's contact with a Spanish Karaite, it was then translated by numerous scholars, including Judah ben Saul ibn Tibbon, into Hebrew and other languages, and is regarded as one of the most important apologetic works of Jewish philosophy. Divided into five parts (''ma'amarim'' "articles"), it takes the form of a dialogue between a rabbi and the king of the Khazars, who has invited the former to instruct him in the tenets of Judaism in comparison with those of the other two Abrahamic religions: Christianity and Islam. Historical foundation The Kuzari take ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judah 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] |
Khazars
The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, and Kazakhstan. They created what, for its duration, was the most powerful polity to emerge from the break-up of the Western Turkic Khaganate. Astride a major artery of commerce between Eastern Europe and Southwestern Asia, Khazaria became one of the foremost trading empires of the early medieval world, commanding the western marches of the Silk Road and playing a key commercial role as a crossroad between China, the Middle East, and Kievan Rus'. For some three centuries (–965), the Khazars dominated the vast area extending from the Volga-Don steppes to the eastern Crimea and the northern Caucasus. Khazaria long served as a buffer state between the Byzantine Empire, the nomads of the northern steppes, and the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khazar Khaganate
The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a Nomadic empire, nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, and Kazakhstan. They created what, for its duration, was the most powerful polity to emerge from the break-up of the Western Turkic Khaganate. Astride a major artery of commerce between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, Southwestern Asia, Khazaria became one of the foremost trading empires of the Early Middle Ages, early medieval world, commanding the western March (territory), marches of the Silk Road and playing a key commercial role as a crossroad between China, the Middle East, and Kievan Rus'. For some three centuries (–965), the Khazars dominated the vast area extending from the Volga-Don steppes to the eastern Crimea and the northern Caucasus. Khazaria long served as a buffer state between the Byzantine Empire, the nom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yitzhak Ha-Sangari
Yitzhak ha-Sangari was the rabbi who purportedly converted the Khazar royalty to Judaism, according to medieval Jewish sources. According to D. M. Dunlop, "the name Isaac Sangari is perhaps not attested before the 13th century when he is mentioned by Nahmanides." In ''Sefer ha-Emunot'' ("Book of Beliefs"; early 15th century), Rabbi Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov wrote: I have been preceded by Rabbi Yitzhak ha-Sangeri, companion averto the king of the Khazars, who converted through that sage a number of years ago in Turgema and of Togarmah, i.e. the Turks as is known from several books. The abbinicresponsa and the valuable and wise sayings of this sage, which show his wisdom in Torah and Kabbalah and other fields are scattered in ifferent booksin Arabic. The sage Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, the poet, of Spain, found them and put them into his book, in Arabic, and it has been translated into our language ebrew.. See also * Bulan (Khazar) * Khazar Correspondence * Schechter Letter * Sera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karaite Judaism
Karaite Judaism or Karaism is a Rabbinic Judaism, non-Rabbinical Jewish religious movements, Jewish sect characterized by the recognition of the written Tanakh alone as its supreme religious text, authority in ''halakha'' (religious law) and theology. Karaites believe that all of the Mitzvah, divine commandments which were handed down to Moses by God were recorded in the written Torah without any additional Oral Torah, Oral Law or explanation. Unlike mainstream Rabbinic Judaism, which regards the Oral Torah, codified in the Talmud and subsequent works, as authoritative interpretations of the Torah, Karaite Jews do not treat the written collections of the oral tradition in the Midrash or the Talmud as binding. Karaite interpretation of the Torah strives to adhere to the plain or most obvious meaning (''peshat'') of the text; this is not necessarily the literal meaning of the text—instead, it is the meaning of the text that would have been naturally understood by the ancient He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judah Ben Saul Ibn Tibbon
Judah ben Saul ibn Tibbon (1120 – after 1190) was a translator and physician. Born in Granada, he left Spain in 1150, probably on account of persecution by the Almohades, and went to Lunel in southern France. Benjamin of Tudela mentions him as a physician there in 1160. He died around 1190, in Marseille, France. Judah lived on terms of intimacy with Meshullam ben Jacob and with Meshullam's two sons, Asher and Aaron, whom in his will he recommends as friends to his only son, Samuel. He was also a close friend of Abraham ben David of Posquières and of Zerahiah ha-Levi, the latter of whom he freely recognized as a greater scholar than himself, and whose son he also wished to have as a friend for his own son. He had two daughters whose marriage caused him much anxiety. Translations Judah's works include the translation into Hebrew of the following: *Bahya ibn Paquda's '' Chovot ha-Levavot''. The Arabic title of this work was "Al-Hidayah ila Fara'id al-Qulub." In English, 'The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jewish Philosophy
Jewish philosophy () includes all philosophy carried out by Jews or in relation to the religion of Judaism. Until the modern ''Haskalah'' (Jewish Enlightenment) and Jewish emancipation, Jewish philosophy was preoccupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism, thus organizing emergent ideas that are not necessarily Jewish into a uniquely Jewish scholastic framework and worldview. With their admission into broader modern society, Jews with secular educations embraced or developed entirely new philosophies to meet the world's demands in which they now found themselves. Medieval rediscovery of ancient Greek philosophy among the ''Geonim'' of 10th-century Babylonian academies brought Rationalism, rationalist philosophy into Tanakh, Biblical-Talmudic Judaism. During the ''Geonic'' period, philosophy was generally in competition with Kabbalah. Both schools would become part of classic Rabbinic literature, though the decline of scholastic r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maimonides
Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and Jewish philosophy, philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. In his time, he was also a preeminent astronomer and physician, serving as the personal physician of Saladin. He was born on Passover eve 1138 or 1135, and lived in Córdoba, Spain, Córdoba in al-Andalus (now in Spain) within the Almoravid dynasty, Almoravid Empire until his family was expelled for refusing to convert to Islam. Later, he lived in Morocco and Egypt and worked as a rabbi, physician and philosopher. During his lifetime, most Jews greeted Maimonides' writings on Halakha, Jewish law and Jewish ethics, ethics with acclaim and gratitude, even as far away as Iraq and Yemen. Yet, while Maimonides rose to become the revered head of the History of the Jews in Egypt, Jewish community in Egypt, his writings also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of The Jews In Spain
The history of the Jews in the current-day Spanish territory stretches back to Biblical times according to Jewish tradition, but the settlement of organised Jewish communities in the Iberian Peninsula possibly traces back to the times after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The earliest archaeological evidence of Hebrew presence in Iberia consists of a 2nd-century gravestone found in Mérida, Spain, Mérida. From the late 6th century onward, following the Visigoths, Visigothic monarchs' conversion from Arianism to the Nicene Creed, conditions for Jews in Iberia considerably worsened. After the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the early 8th century, Jews lived under the ''Dhimmi'' system and progressively Arabization, Arabised. Jews of Al-Andalus stood out particularly during the 10th and the 11th centuries, in the Caliphate of Córdoba, caliphal and first taifa periods. Scientific and philology, philological study of the Hebrew Bible began, and secular poetry was wri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khazar Correspondence
The Khazar Correspondence is a set of documents, which are alleged to date from the 950s or 960s, and to be letters between Hasdai ibn Shaprut, foreign secretary to the Caliph of Cordoba, and Joseph Khagan of the Khazars. The correspondence is one of only a few documents attributed to a Khazar author, and potentially one of only a small number of primary sources on Khazar history. The authenticity of the correspondence has been challenged, on the grounds that it has little in common with the otherwise attested chronology, language, borders and economy of the Khazars at the time. Ostensibly it gives both account of the Khazar conversion to Judaism and of its progress in subsequent generations, as well as potentially showing that within a generation of the fall of the Khazar empire in 969, the Khazar state was still militarily powerful and received tribute from several polities. Background The alleged correspondence originated with Hasdai ibn Shaprut, foreign secretary to Abd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moshe Gil
Moshe Gil (; February 8, 1921 – January 23, 2014) was an Israeli historian. Academic career Moshe Gil specialized in the historical interaction between Islam and the Jews, including the history of Palestine under Islamic rule, the institution of the Exilarchate, and Jewish merchants such as the Radhanites. Gil was professor emeritus of the Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies at Tel Aviv University and held the Joseph and Ceil Mazer Chair in the History of the Jews in Muslim Lands. Awards In 1998, Gil was awarded the Israel Prize, for Land of Israel studies, primarily for his work analyzing some 846 document fragments from the Cairo Genizah and for his work in documenting the role of Jewish merchants in the development of medieval society. Published works *(1997) "The Babylonian Encounter and the Exilarchic House in the Light of Cairo Geniza Documents and Parallel Arab Sources." (Conference Paper in ''Proceedings: Judaeo-Arabic studies proceedings of the Founding Confer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shaul Stampfer
Shaul Stampfer (; born 1948) is a researcher of East European Jewry specializing in Lithuanian yeshivas, Jewish demography, migration and education. Biography Shaul Stampfer was born in Atlanta, Georgia, to a Jewish family, and is a descendant of Yehoshua Stampfer. He graduated from Lincoln High School in 1965 and moved to Israel in the 1970s. He received his BA from the Yeshiva University in 1970 and his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1982. He also studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion in Alon Shevut. Professor Stampfer currently resides in the Ramot neighborhood of Jerusalem. Academic career In 1989–1992 Stampfer was a head of the Institute for Jewish Studies in Moscow and helped to establish the city's Jewish University. Stampfer is currently a professor emeritus of Soviet and East European Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
