ALYPIUS OF ANTIOCH – Eminent geographer of the fourth century; intimate friend of the Roman emperor, Julian the Apostate. Alypius, of noble and generous character, was governor of Britain 355-360, whence he was recalled by the emperor to superintend...
ALZEY – A town in Rhein-Hessen (Germany), on the Setez. While the first traces of the residence of Jews in the Palatinate, to which Alzey belonged from the time of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, date from the beginning of the...
AMADEO OF RIMINI – See Jedidiah ben Moses of Recanati.
AMADIA, AMADIAH, AMADIEH, AMADEEYAH – A town in Asiatic Turkey, vilayet of Bagdad, north of Mosul, the birthplace of the pseudo-Messiah, David Alrui (Alroy). In 1163, according to the author of "'Emeḳ ha-Baka," it had a Jewish population of about a thousand...
AMADO, JOSHUA JUDAH – Talmudist, of a Spanish family settled at Salonica in the early part of the nineteenth century. He wrote "Ohole Yehudah" (The Tents of Judah), published at Salonica in 1820. It contains (1) homilies on the Pentateuch, and (2)...
AMADOR DE LOS RIOS, JOSÉ – Spanish historian of the Jews in Spain and Portugal, and archeologist; born 1818; died at Seville, 1878. De los Rios was for some time inspector-general of public instruction in Spain. He wrote many works archeological in...
AMALEK, AMALEKITES – Position and Connections. —Biblical Data: Name of a nomadic nation south of Palestine. That the Amalekites were not Arabs, but of a stock related to the Edomites (consequently also to the Hebrews), can be concluded from the...
AMAN – 1. This name is found only in the Apocrypha, Tobit, xiv. 10. He is there mentioned as the persecutor of Achiacharus, but even in that passage the reading is not certain, the versions giving Nadab, Accab, and Adam as possible...
AMANA – 1. River rising in Anti-Lebanon and flowing through Damascus, the modern Nahr Barada (II Kings, v. 12, where there is a variant, Abana; see Abana). 2. Mountainous district of the Lebanon from which the Amana river rises (Cant....
AMARAGI, ISAAC BEKOR – Translator and historical writer of the nineteenth century, who lived in Salonica. He translated, from the Hebrew into Judæo-Spanish, Samson Bloch's geographical work, "Shebile 'Olam" (Salonica, 1853-57, 1860), with additions of...
AMARAGI, MOSES – Physician in ordinary to the court of Sultan Murad IV. (1623-40) in Constantinople. He was rich and learned and a patron of Jewish scholars. In his old age he returned to his native city, Salonica, where he died.M. K....
'AM HA-AREẒ – A term used in common parlance in the sense of "ignoramus," applied particularly to one ignorant of Jewish matters. Compare Gamaliel's maxim (Abot, ii. 5): "No 'Am ha-Areẓ can be pious [Ḧasid]; also Lev. R. xxxvii.: "Jephthah,...
AMARIAH – 1. The great-grandfather of the prophet Zephaniah (Zeph. i.) 2. The son of Azariah, who was high priest-in Solomon's temple (I Chron. v. 37). According to Ezra, vii. 3, he was an ancestor of his. In I Esd. viii. 2, and II Esd....
AMARILLO, AARON BEN SOLOMON – Talmudic author of the eighteenth century. He was a descendant of the Amarillos, a family of scholars that gave several great rabbis to Turkey. Like his father, Solomon, and brother, Moses, both authors of several rabbinical...
AMARILLO, ABRAHAM – Rabbi at Salonica about the beginning of the nineteenth century. His sermons on the Pentateuch were published under the title, "Sefer Berit Abraham" (The Covenant of Abraham), Salonica, 1802 (see Zedner, "Cat. Hebr. Books Brit....
AMARILLO (ḤAYYIM), MOSES BEN SOLOMON – Rabbi at Salonica during the first half of the eighteenth century. He edited, and often annotated, the works of his father, Solomon Amarillo, and is the author of a collection of novellæ on legal questions treated of by...
AMARILLO, SAMUEL – Collector of royal taxes at Tudela, Navarre, from 1380 to 1391, particularly of the duties paid by the Jews and the Moors of the town on real estate sold to Christians. At the court of Navarre he superintended the purchasing of...
AMARILLO, SOLOMON BEN JOSEPH – Rabbi at Salonica, who died in 1722. Amarillo was the father-in-law of Solomon Abdallah and an intimate friend of the learned rabbi Joseph Cobo. Amarillo wrote a number of works, all of which were published during his lifetime...
AMARKOL – A title applied to "a Temple trustee superintending the cashiers" (Jastrow, "Dict."; see Sheḳ. v. 2). While the three—or, according to Baraita, Tamid, 27a, thirteen—cashiers (gizbarim) handled all the money that flowed into the...
AMASA – Biblical Data: 1. According to II Sam. xvii. 25, the son of Ithra, an Israelite; I Chron. ii. 17 calls his father Jether, the Ishmaelite. He was a nephew of David and cousin of Absalom, who made him chief of the army that rose...
AMASAI – 1. Son of Elkanah, a Levite of the Kohathite family (I Chron. vi. 10, 20; II Chron. xxix. 12). 2. Chief of the captains who met David at Ziklag and offered their services to him. It is possible that he is identical with Amasa (I...
AMASHAI – A priest who dwelt at Jerusalem (Neh. xi. 13). G. B. L.
AMASIA, AMASIEH – City in Asia Minor, on the Yeshil-Irmak (the ancient Iris). The population in 1900 was 23,000. The city is now of little importance; but, to judge from the number of Spanish fugitives that sought shelter there, it must have been...
AMATHUS – A fortress near the Jordan, north of the river Jabbok and 21 miles south of Pella. At the beginning of the first century B.C., Amathus was an important fortress held by the despot Theodorus. About the year 98, Alexander Jannæus...
AMATUS (ḤABIB) LUSITANUS – Physician. See Juan Rodrigo de Castel-Branco.