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M. Straschon
Mattityahu Strashun (, also spelled Strassen; October 1, 1817 – December 13, 1885) was a Lithuanian Talmudist, Midrashic scholar, book collector, communal leader, and philanthropist. He amassed a significant private collection of books and rare manuscripts which formed the basis for the Strashun Library of Vilnius, which operated from 1892 to 1941. Early life and education Mattityahu Strashun was born to Samuel Strashun (1794–1872), a prominent Talmudist and merchant, and his wife Sara Strashun, in Vilnius, Vilna Governorate. Coming from a well-to-do family, Mattityahu, at the age of 13, married the eldest daughter of the wealthy Joseph Elijah Eliasberg. His father-in-law bought him a business dealing in silks, which his wife managed so he could dedicate himself to Torah study. Strashun was financially independent throughout his life. Strashun studied under Rabbi Menashe of Ilya, a disciple of the Vilna Gaon, and Rabbi Yitzhak of Volozhin (son of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin). In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vilnius
Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population was 607,667, and the Vilnius urban area (which extends beyond the city limits) has an estimated population of 747,864. Vilnius is notable for the architecture of its Vilnius Old Town, Old Town, considered one of Europe's largest and best-preserved old towns. The city was declared a World Heritage Site, UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. The architectural style known as Vilnian Baroque is named after the city, which is farthest to the east among Baroque architecture, Baroque cities and the largest such city north of the Alps. The city was noted for its #Demographics, multicultural population during the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, with contemporary sources comparing it to Babylon. Before World War II and The Holocaust in Lithuania, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, highest population within its city limits of any city in the European Union. The city is also one of the states of Germany, being the List of German states by area, third smallest state in the country by area. Berlin is surrounded by the state of Brandenburg, and Brandenburg's capital Potsdam is nearby. The urban area of Berlin has a population of over 4.6 million and is therefore the most populous urban area in Germany. The Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region, Berlin-Brandenburg capital region has around 6.2 million inhabitants and is Germany's second-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr region, as well as the List of EU metropolitan areas by GDP, fifth-biggest metropolitan region by GDP in the European Union. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the survivors; honoring Jews who fought against their Nazi oppressors and gentiles who selflessly aided Jews in need; and researching the phenomenon of the Holocaust in particular and genocide in general, with the aim of avoiding such events in the future. Yad Vashem's vision, as stated on its website, is: "To lead the documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust, and to convey the chronicles of this singular Jewish and human event to every person in Israel, to the Jewish people, and to every significant and relevant audience worldwide." Established in 1953, Yad Vashem is located on the Mount of Remembrance, on the western slope of Mount Herzl, a height in western Jerusalem, Above mean sea level, above sea level and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
YIVO
YIVO (, , short for ) is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. Established in 1925 in Wilno in the Second Polish Republic (now Vilnius, Lithuania) as the Yiddish Scientific Institute (, ; the word ''yidisher'' means both "Yiddish" and "Jewish"). Its English name became Institute for Jewish Research after its relocation to New York City, but it is still known mainly by its Yiddish acronym. YIVO is now a partner of the Center for Jewish History, and serves as the '' de facto'' recognized language regulator of the Yiddish language in the secular world. The YIVO system is commonly taught in universities and known as () and sometimes "YIVO Yiddish" (). Activities YIVO preserves manuscripts, rare books, and diaries, and other Yiddish sources. The YIVO Library in New York contains over 385,000 volumes datin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hasidic Judaism
Hasidism () or Hasidic Judaism is a religious movement within Judaism that arose in the 18th century as a Spirituality, spiritual revival movement in contemporary Western Ukraine before spreading rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most of those affiliated with the movement, known as ''hassidim'', reside in Israel and in the United States (mostly Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley). Israel Ben Eliezer, the "Baal Shem Tov", is regarded as its founding father, and his disciples developed and disseminated it. Present-day Hasidism is a sub-group within Haredi Judaism and is noted for its religious conservatism and social seclusion. Its members aim to adhere closely both to Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jewish practice – with the movement's own unique emphases – and the prewar lifestyle of Eastern European Jews. Many elements of the latter, including various special styles of dress and the use of the Yiddish language, are nowadays associated almost exclusively with Hasidism. Has ... [...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] |
Conscription
Conscription, also known as the draft in the United States and Israel, is the practice in which the compulsory enlistment in a national service, mainly a military service, is enforced by law. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day under various names. The modern system of near-universal national conscription for young men dates to the French Revolution in the 1790s, where it became the basis of a very large and powerful military. Most European nations later copied the system in peacetime, so that men at a certain age would serve 1 to 8 years on active duty and then transfer to the reserve force. Conscription is controversial for a range of reasons, including conscientious objection to military engagements on religious or philosophical grounds; political objection, for example to service for a disliked government or unpopular war; sexism, in that historically men have been subject to the draft in the most cases; and ideol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chevra Kadisha
The term ''chevra kadisha'' () gained its modern sense of "burial society" in the nineteenth century. It is an organization of Jewish men and women who see to it that the bodies of deceased Jews are prepared for burial according to Jewish tradition and are protected from desecration, willful or not, until burial. Two of the main requirements are the showing of proper respect for a corpse, and the ritual cleansing of the body and subsequent dressing for burial. It is usually referred to as a burial society in English. Etymology In Rabbinic and Modern Hebrew, "sacred society" would be written (''ḥavurā qəḏošā''), while in Aramaic, it would be (''ḥavurtā qaddištā''). ''Chevra qadisha'' has an unclear etymology. The Aramaic phrase is first attested in the ''Yekum Purkan'' in a 13th-century copy of the ''Machzor Vitry'', but it was rarely used again in print until it gained its modern sense of "burial society" in the nineteenth century. The Hebrew phrase predated its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
August Wünsche
Karl August Wünsche (August 22, 1838, Hainewalde bei Zittau - November 15, 1912, Dresden) was a German Christian Hebraist. He devoted his attention almost exclusively to rabbinic literature. After completing his commentaries on the ''Book of Hosea'' (1868) and ''Book of Joel'' (1872), he wrote ''Neue Beiträge zur Erläuterung der Evangelien aus Talmud und Midrasch'' (1878), the most complete collection of the parallel passages of the Talmud and the New Testament since the works of John Lightfoot and Johann Christian Schöttgen. In his ''Bibliotheca Rabbinica'' (Leipzig, 1880–85) he made a German translation of the whole of the '' Midrash Rabbah'' and the '' Midrash to the Five Megillot'', and he also translated haggadic portions of the Jerusalem Talmud (1880) and of the Babylonian 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 modernity, in nearly all ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midrash Rabbah
Midrash Rabba or Midrash Rabbah can refer to part of or the collective whole of specific aggadic midrashim on the books of the Torah and the Five Megillot, generally having the term "Rabbah" (), meaning "great," as part of their name. These midrashim are as follows: *Genesis Rabbah * Exodus Rabbah *Leviticus Rabbah * Numbers Rabbah * Deuteronomy Rabbah * Song of Songs Midrash * Ruth Rabbah * Esther Rabbah *Lamentations Rabbah *Ecclesiastes Rabbah The designation "Rabbah" was first applied to the midrash to Genesis, and then applied to the midrashim to the other books of the Pentateuch ( Vayikra Rabbah, Shemot Rabbah, etc.) which were copied, with Bereshit Rabbah, even in (later) manuscripts. This collection eventually came to be called "Midrash Rabbot" (i.e., "Midrash of the Rabbot"), to which the midrashim most in use in connection with prayers—to Shir HaShirim, Ruth, Esther, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes—were subsequently added. Thus the Venice edition of 1545, in wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
