APOLOGISTS – Men of pious zeal who defended both the Jewish religion and the Jewish race against the attacks and accusations of their enemies by writing, either in the form of dissertations or of dialogues, works in defense of the spirit and...
APÔPHIS – The Egyptian king under whom, according to some early writers, Joseph came to Egypt, and who, according to Syncellus, flourished in the sixteenth century B.C. ("Chronographia," c. 115, § 7). Josephus names Apôphis as the second,...
APOPLEXY – A sudden loss or diminution of sensation and of the power of motion, caused by the rupture or plugging up of a blood-vessel in the cranial cavity and effusion of blood on or within the brain. Ordinarily it is referred to as a...
APOSTASY AND APOSTATES FROM JUDAISM – Terms derived from the Greek ἀποστασία ("defection, revolt") and ἀποστάτης ("rebel in a political sense") (I Macc. xi. 14, xiii. 16; Josephus, "Contra Ap." i. 19, § 4), applied in a religious sense to signify rebellion and...
APOSTLE AND APOSTLESHIP – Apostle (Greek ἀπόστολοσ, from ἀποστήλλειν, "to send"), a person delegated for a certain purpose; the same as sheliaḦ or sheluaḦ in Hebrew, one invested with representative power. "Apostoloi" was the official name given to the...
APOSTLES' TEACHING – See Didache.
APOSTOL, DANIIL PAVLOVICH – Hetman of the Cossacks on both sides of the Dnieper; born in South Russia in 1658; died Dec. 15, 1734. When Catherine I. expelled the Jews from the Ukraine (Little Russia) and from other parts of the Russian empire, May 7, 1727,...
APOSTOLÉ, APOSTOLI – These two words, while similar in appearance, differ in signification. "Apostolé" was a term given to certain moneys or taxes for Palestine; "Apostoli," the designation of the men or apostles sent forth to collect it. The first...
APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS – See Didascalia.
APOSTOMUS – The Talmudic Account. Among five catastrophes said to have overtaken the Jews on the seventeenth of Tammuz, the Mishnah (Ta'anit iv. 6) includes "the burning of the Torah by Apostomus" (written also Postemus and Apostemus)....
APOTHECARIES, JEWISH – See Medicine.
APOTHEKER, ABRAHAM ASHKENAZI – An apothecary ("aptheker," according to the customary Polish-Jewish syncopated pronunciation) and writer, whose name betokens both his nationality and his profession. He lived at Vladimir in Volhynia in the second half of the...
APOTHEKER, DAVID – Judæo-German writer and printer at Philadelphia, Pa.; born in Ponievyezh, gov. Kovno, Russia, Aug. 28, 1855. In 1868 he went to Vilkomir, where he studied under the guidance of Moses Loeb Lilienblum; in 1877 he became involved...
APPEAL – The carrying of a cause from a lower to a higher tribunal for a rehearing on the merits" is practically unknown to Jewish law. In the statute constituting courts of justice and setting forth the duty of the judges (Deut. xvi....
APPELLANTEN – A German word used to designate the assistants of the chief rabbi of Prague; called also "Oberjuristen"; generally three in number (see Prague).G. S.
APPLE – Biblical Data: The word "apple" is the commonly accepted translation of tappuaḦ, from the root napaḦ (to exhale = the sweet-scented). It is of pleasant smell ("the smell of thy nose like apples," Cant. vii. 9 [A. V. 8]), and is...
APPLE OF SODOM – A fruit described by Josephus ("B. J." iv. 8, § 4) and Tacitus ("Hist." v. 6) as growing near the site of Sodom, "externally of fair appearance, but turning to smoke and ashes when plucked with the hands." It has been identified...
APPRAISEMENT – The setting of a value by a court of justice either upon property, or upon damage done to person or property. It differs from Estimate (Hebrew ), the fixing of values by the Law itself.The Appraisement of damages, or "measure of...
APPROBATION – Of Christian Origin. Primarily, a favorable opinion given by rabbis or scholars as recommendation for a book composed wholly or partly in the Hebrew language. The Approbation is not of Jewish origin any more than the censorship....
APT – A small town, not far from Avignon, in the department of Vaucluse, France. In the Middle Ages it was inhabited by Jews, who had a separate quarter assigned to them. About the end of the thirteenth century the poet Isaac ben...
APTROD, DAVID – See Abterode.
APULIA – Early Settlement of Jews. A district of southern Italy, the limits of which have varied. It is usually regarded as the region bounded by the Frentani on the north, Samnium on the west, Calabria and Lucania on the south, and the...
AQUEDUCTS IN PALESTINE – Palestine, in contradistinction to Egypt, was a land of natural waters rather than of irrigation (Deut. xi. 10, 11), and there can be little doubt that the aqueducts, like the roads of the country, were constructed mainly by the...
AQUILA (Ακύλας, V02p034001.jpg) – Translator of the canonical Scriptures from Hebrew into Greek. He was by birth a Gentile from Pontus, and is said by Epiphanius to have been a connection by marriage of the emperor Hadrian and to have been appointed by him about...
AQUILINO, RAFFAELE – Italian apostate who renounced his religion in 1545—eight years before the public burning of the Talmud in Rome (1553)—and who was one of those that denounced Hebrew books, as Steinschneider deduces from a dedicatory passage in...