AQUIN, LOUIS-HENRI D' – Writer and translator of the seventeenth century; son of Philippe D'Aquin. He was converted to Christianity at Aquino in the kingdom of Naples. He left many works relating to the Hebrew language and literature, among which were...
AQUIN, PHILIPPE D' – Hebraist; born at Carpentras about 1578; died at Paris in 1650. Early in life he left his native town and went to Aquino, where he became converted to Christianity and changed his name Mordecai or Mardochée to Philippe d'Aquin....
AQUINAS, THOMAS – Most eminent of the Christian theological philosophers of the Middle Ages; born 1227 at Aquino, kingdom of Naples; died 1274. Like his teacher Albertus Magnus, Thomas made philosophy his favorite study, and sought to harmonize...
AR – Occurs as follows in the Old Testament: Num. xxi. 15, 28; Deut. ii. 9, 18, 29; Isa. xv. 1. It is generally identified with the Hebrew "'ir" (city), so that "Ar Moab" would be "city of Moab," a supposed ancient capital of the...
ARABAH – The Hebrew word Arabah ( ) denotes desert, steppe. With the article, it refers especially to that extensive depression the center of which is marked by the Dead Sea. In some passages it is applied to the southern portion of this...
ARABAH – See Beth-Arabah.
ARABARCH, THE – See Alabarch.
ARABIA – Peninsula lying between the mainlands of Africa and Asia. It is separated from Africa on the south by the Red Sea and on the north by the Sinaitic peninsula and the strip of land which in modern times has been cut through for...
ARABIAN NIGHTS – Popular name of a collection of tales written in Arabic under the title "Alf Lailat wa Lailah" (One Thousand and One Nights), and rendered familiar to all Europe by Galland's French adaptation of 1703-1717. The
ARABIC-JEWISH PHILOSOPHY, General View of – Mosaism a System of Mandates. So thoroughly were the writings of Arabic-speaking Jews influenced by what may be termed Mosaism, that it is necessary to bear this constantly in mind when considering the peculiar contribution of...
ARABIC LANGUAGE AMONG JEWS, USE OF – The precise period of the first settlement of Jews in Arabia is unknown, and it is therefore impossible to say when the Arabic language was first employed by them. Historical data concerning the Jews of Arabia do not reach...
ARABIC LITERATURE OF THE JEWS – From the time that the Arabs commenced to develop a culture of their own, Jews lived among them and spoke their language. Gradually they also employed the latter in the pursuit of their studies, so that Jewish literature in...
ARABIC PHILOSOPHY—ITS INFLUENCE ON JUDAISM – Arabic philosophy dates from the appearance of dissenting sects in Islam. A century had hardly elapsed after Mohammed revealed the Koran, when numerous germs of religious schism began to arise. Independent minds sought to...
ARABIC POETRY – Pre-Islamic Poetry. The poetic literature of the Arab Jews, to judge from the specimens handed down, must be about as old as Arabic Poetry in general, and in the main is of the same form and stamp. Two epochs may be...
ARABIC SCRIPT – See Arabic Language.
ARABIC VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE – See Bible Translations.
ARAD – 1. Son of Beriah in the genealogical list of Benjamin (I Chron. viii. 15).2. A Canaanite city in the wilderness of Judah (Judges i. 16), against which the Jews fought successfully (Num. xxi. 1, xxxiii. 40). Later it was...
ARAD (ALT-ARAD) – Early History. Interior of the Synagogue at Arad.(From a photograph.) A royal free city and market town of Hungary, on the Maros, 145 miles southeast of Budapest. Among the Jewish communities of Hungary that of Arad holds a...
ARADUS – A Phenician city on the island now called Ruad, eighty miles north of Sidon. It is the Arvad of Ezek. xxvii. 8, 11, the Armad of Tiglath-pileser III., and is also mentioned on the Egyptian monuments. Jews had migrated thither in...
ARAG (ARAK) – Village in the district of Kyurin, Daghestan, Transcaucasia, Russia. When the traveler Judah Chorny visited the place in 1868, he found eighty Jewish families there, who lived in a separate part of the village. Their chief...
ARAGON – Position Under Jaime I. An independent medieval kingdom, later a province of Spain, in the northeastern part of the Iberian peninsula. Its population included Jews as early as the ninth century. In Saragossa (which until 1118...
'ARAKIN – A treatise of the Mishnah, the Tosefta, and the Babylonian Talmud in the order Ḳodashim.Analysis of the Mishnah. In the Mishnah the treatise 'Arakin consists of nine chapters (peraḳim), forming in all fifty paragraphs...
ARAM – Location. —Biblical Data: The name of a group of kindred tribes scattered over portions of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Arabia. It is not the name of a country or of a politically independent people; for the Aramaic peoples were...
ARAM-GESHUR – An Aramean district and a small kingdom near Maachah (II Sam. xv. 8) (see Aram-Maachah), and associated with it in Josh. xiii. 13. David married the daughter of its king (II Sam. iii. 3). She became the mother of Absalom, who...
ARAM-MAACHAH – I Chron. xix. 6): A district south of Damascus, bordering on the trans-Jordanic territory of Manasseh. Maachah is said in Gen. xxii. 24 to have been a descendant of Nahor, Abraham's brother, and the territory called after him is...