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Malkiel Ashkenazi
Malkiel (also spelled Malchiel) Ashkenazi (Hebrew: מלכיאל אשכנזי) was a Sephardic rabbi and leader of the Jewish community in Hebron in 1540. The story of his leading a community in Hebron has its root in 1517, when the Ottoman Turks invaded and Sephardic Jews living in Ottoman Salonika were allowed to move to the Holy Land. Many of these Jews had been expelled from Spain in 1492. It was this community that Rabbi Ashkenazi led when he purchased a walled compound in Hebron in 1540 and founded the Avraham Avinu Synagogue which became a center of study for Kabbalah Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "receiver"). The de .... He was a respected authority in Jewish law, and his decisions on religious matters were widely accepted, also outside of Hebron. He had an extensive library ...
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Hebrew Language
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 a ...
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Sephardic
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefarditas or Hispanic Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the Iberian Peninsula. The term, which is derived from the Hebrew ''Sepharad'' (), can also refer to the Mizrahi Jews of Western Asia and North Africa, who were also influenced by Sephardic law and customs. Many Iberian Jewish exiles also later sought refuge in Mizrahi Jewish communities, resulting in integration with those communities. The Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula prospered for centuries under the Muslim reign of Al-Andalus following the Umayyad conquest of Hispania, but their fortunes began to decline with the Christian ''Reconquista'' campaign to retake Spain. In 1492, the Alhambra Decree by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain called for the expulsio ...
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Rabbi
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of the rabbi developed in the Pharisees, Pharisaic (167 BCE–73 CE) and Talmudic (70–640 CE) eras, when learned teachers assembled to codify Judaism's written and oral laws. The title "rabbi" was first used in the first century CE. In more recent centuries, the duties of a rabbi became increasingly influenced by the duties of the Clergy, Protestant Christian minister, hence the title "pulpit rabbis", and in 19th-century Germany and the United States rabbinic activities including sermons, pastoral counseling, and representing the community to the outside, all increased in importance. Within the various Jewish denominations, there are different requirements for rabbinic ordination, and differences in opinion regarding who is recognized as ...
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Hebron
Hebron ( ar, الخليل or ; he, חֶבְרוֹן ) is a State of Palestine, Palestinian. city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judaean Mountains, it lies Above mean sea level, above sea level. The second-largest city in the West Bank (after East Jerusalem), and the third-largest in the Palestinian territories (after East Jerusalem and Gaza City, Gaza), it has a population of over 215,000 Palestinians (2016), and seven hundred Israeli settlement, Jewish settlers concentrated on the outskirts of its Old City of Hebron, Old City. It includes the Cave of the Patriarchs, which Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions all designate as the burial site of three key Patriarchs (Bible), patriarchal/Patriarchs (Bible), matriarchal couples. The city is often considered one of the Four Holy Cities, four holy cities in Judaism. as well as in Islam. Hebron is considered one of the oldest cities in the Levant. According to the Bible, Abraham settled in Hebr ...
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Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) // CITED: p. 36 (PDF p. 38/338) also known as the Turkish Empire, was an empire that controlled much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa, Northern Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. It was founded at the end of the 13th century in northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt (modern-day Bilecik Province) by the Turkoman (ethnonym), Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe and, with the Ottoman wars in Europe, conquest of the Balkans, the Ottoman Anatolian beyliks, beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the Fall of Constantinople, conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed the Conqueror. Under the reign of Sule ...
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Salonika
Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area, and the capital city, capital of the geographic regions of Greece, geographic region of Macedonia (Greece), Macedonia, the administrative regions of Greece, administrative region of Central Macedonia and the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace. It is also known in Greek language, Greek as (), literally "the co-capital", a reference to its historical status as the () or "co-reigning" city of the Byzantine Empire alongside Constantinople. Thessaloniki is located on the Thermaic Gulf, at the northwest corner of the Aegean Sea. It is bounded on the west by the delta of the Vardar, Axios. The Thessaloniki (municipality), municipality of Thessaloniki, the historical center, had a population of 317,778 in 2021, while the Thessaloniki metro ...
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Holy Land
The Holy Land; Arabic: or is an area roughly located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River, traditionally synonymous both with the biblical Land of Israel and with the region of Palestine. The term "Holy Land" usually refers to a territory roughly corresponding to the modern State of Israel and the modern State of Palestine. Jews, Christians, and Muslims regard it as holy. Part of the significance of the land stems from the religious significance of Jerusalem (the holiest city to Judaism, and the location of the First and Second Temples), as the historical region of Jesus' ministry, and as the site of the first Qibla of Islam, as well as the site of the Isra and Mi'raj event of 621 CE in Islam. The holiness of the land as a destination of Christian pilgrimage contributed to launching the Crusades, as European Christians sought to win back the Holy Land from Muslims, who had conquered it from the Christian Eastern Roman Empir ...
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History Of The Jews In Spain
While the history of the Jews in the current-day Spanish territory stretches back to Biblical times according to legendary Jewish tradition, 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. From the late-6th century onward, following the Visigothic monarchs' conversion from Arianism to the Nicene creed, conditions for Jews in Iberia considerably worsened. Following the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in the early 8th century, Jews lived under the ''Dhimmi'' system and progressively arabised. Jews of Al-Andalus stood out particularly during the 10th and 11th centuries, in the caliphal and first taifa periods. Scientific and philological study of the Hebrew Bible began, and secular poetry was written in Hebrew for the first time. Following th ...
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Avraham Avinu Synagogue
The Abraham Avinu Synagogue ( he, בית הכנסת על שם אברהם אבינו) was built by Hakham Malkiel Ashkenazi in the Jewish Quarter of Hebron in 1540. The domed structure represented the physical center of the Jewish Quarter of Hebron. Located in the Old City of Hebron, it became the spiritual hub of the Jewish community there and a major center for the study of Kabbalah. It was restored in 1738 and enlarged in 1864. The synagogue stood empty since the 1929 Hebron massacre and was destroyed after 1948. History The synagogue is mentioned by Rabbi Naftali Hertz Bachrach in his 1648 book ''Emek HaMelech''. The book deals with the kabbalah, but in the introduction, he mentions a dramatic story about the Avraham Avinu synagogue. Jordan took control of the area in 1948, and after this time a wholesale market, trash dump and public toilet were placed on the site of the Jewish Quarter. The ruins of the synagogue were turned into a goat and donkey pen. The adjacent, "Kabba ...
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Kabbalah
Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "receiver"). The definition of Kabbalah varies according to the tradition and aims of those following it, from its origin in medieval Judaism to its later adaptations in Western esotericism ( Christian Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah). Jewish Kabbalah is a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between the unchanging, eternal God—the mysterious '' Ein Sof'' (, ''"The Infinite"'')—and the mortal, finite universe (God's creation). It forms the foundation of mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. Jewish Kabbalists originally developed their own transmission of sacred texts within the realm of Jewish tradition and often use classical Jewish scriptures to explain and demonstrate its mystical teachings. These teachings are h ...
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Hayyim Ben Joseph Vital
Hayyim ben Joseph Vital ( he, רָבִּי חַיִּים בֶּן יוֹסֵף וִיטָאל; Safed, October 23, 1542 (Julian calendar) and October 11, 1542 (Gregorian Calendar) – Damascus, 23 April 1620) was a rabbi in Safed and the foremost disciple of Isaac Luria. He recorded much of his master's teachings. After Vital's death, his writings began to spread and led to a "powerful impact on various circles throughout the Jewish world." Fine 2003, p2/ref> Early life Born in Safed, as a young boy Hayyim Vital was educated by the scholar Moshe Alshich. Joseph Karo is said to have paid special attention to Vital's early talents and in 1557 requested that Alshich take special care in his education as he was destined to succeed his teacher in the world of Torah study. That same year, Vital first became acquainted with the kabbalist Isaac Luria, who would have a lasting influence on him. Vital apparently married at a young age. It was an unhappy marriage, and when he left hi ...
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Old Jewish Cemetery, Hebron
The old Jewish cemetery in Hebron, is located to the west of the Tomb of Machpela on a hill and has been used as a Jewish cemetery for hundreds of years, as attested to by Ishtori Haparchi, who noted a Jewish cemetery in the area in 1322. Other sources indicate the cemetery being mentioned in a letter dated to 1290. Among the prominent rabbinical sages and community figures buried in the cemetery include Rabbi Eliyahu de Vidas known as the Reshit Hokhma, Rabbi Abraham Azulai, Rabbi Solomon Adeni, Rabbi Elijah Mizrachi, Rabbi Chaim Hezekiah Medini known as the Sdei Chemed, Rabbi Judah Bibas, Rabbi Haim Rahamim Yosef Franco, Rabbi Hillel Moshe Gelbstein, Rabbi Shimon Menashe Chaikin, and Menucha Rochel Slonim. Menachem Mendel of Kamenitz, the first hotelier in the Land of Israel, references his visit to the grave of Eliyahu de Vidas in his 1839 book ''Sefer Korot Ha-Itim''. He states, ''"here I write of the graves of the righteous to which I paid my respects." After describin ...
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