KEMPNER, MAX – German author; born at Breslau March 5, 1863. He began his literary career when twenty-five, with a volume of poems, "Buch der Liebe," published in 1888. His next venture was "Warbeck," a tragedy, published in 1891. Then...
KEMPNER, STANISLAW ALEXANDER – Polish economist and publicist; born in 1857 at Kalisz, Poland; studied law in the University of Warsaw, and was graduated thence in 1882. While at the university he employed part of his time during 1879-81 in journalism. He...
KENAZ – 1. Son of Eliphaz, and grandson of Esau; one of the dukes of Edom (Gen. xxxvi. 11, 16, 42). His clan, called "the Kenizzite" ( ), is mentioned once only, after the Kenites (Gen. xv. 19). 2. A descendant of Judah, and father of...
KENEDEUS – See Adiabene.
KENESET HA-GEDOLAH – See Synagogue, Great.
KENEZITES – See Kenaz.
KENITES – Biblical Data: A tribe of Palestine, mentioned in the time of Abraham as possessing a part of the promised land (Gen. xv. 19). At the Exodus it inhabited the vicinity of Sinai and Horeb; and to it belonged Jethro, the...
KENNICOTT, BENJAMIN – English Christian Hebraist; born at Totness, England, April 4, 1718; died at Oxford Aug. 18, 1783. He was, at first, master of the "Blue Coat," or charity, school at Totness. Attracting the attention of the local gentry by some...
KENTUCKY – One of the south central states of the United States; admitted in 1792. Its most important Jewish community is at Louisville (population, in 1900, 204,731, of which about 7,000 are Jews). Two brothers named Heymann, or Hyman,...
KEPHAS – See Peter.
ḲERE AND KETIB – See Masorah.
KEREM – See Periodicals.
KEREM ḤEMED – Hebrew periodical, edited and published in Vienna in 1833 and 1836 (vols. i. and ii.) and in Prague from 1838 to 1843 (vols. iii. to vii.) by Samuel Löb Goldenberg. A continuation or new series was edited and published in Berlin...
KERMANSHAH – Capital of the Persian province of Ardilan, on the road between Bagdad and Hamadan. Benjamin II. found there forty Jewish families ("Eight Years in Asia and Africa," p. 205, Hanover, 1859). About the year 1894, through the...
ḲEROBOT – A term applied to the scheme of Piyyuṭim in the earlier part of the repetition of the morning 'Amidah on special Sabbaths, on the Three Festivals, and on New-Year, in the Ashkenazic liturgy. The Neo-Hebraic verses in the...
KERTCH – Russian seaport at the eastern extremity of the Crimean peninsula; the ancient Panticapæon. A Greek inscription on a marble slab found in Kertch and preserved in the Imperial "Ermitage" in St. Petersburg shows that a Jewish...
KESITAH – See Numismatics.
KETUBAH – Legal: A marriage contract, containing among other things the settlement on the wife of a certain amount payable at her husband's death or on her being divorced. This institution was established by the Rabbis in order to put a...
KETUBIM – See Hagiographa.
KETUBOT – Treatise in the Mishnah, the Tosefta, and in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. In the Mishnaic order of the Seder Nashim, Ketubot stands second. It is divided into thirteen chapters, containing in the aggregate 101...
KETURAH – Abraham's second wife, whom he married after the death of Sarah (Gen. xxv. 1; I Chron. i. 32). She was the ancestress of sixteen tribes, among which were Arabian and Midianite ones. In I Chron. i. 32 Keturah is called "the...
KEY – In Biblical times the key, as its Hebrew name indicates ("mafteaḥ" = "the opener"), was used chiefly to open the door which was locked by means of a bolt ("beriaḥ"). This bolt, like that used in the Orient to-day, had a number...
KEYSER, EPHRAIM – American sculptor; born at Baltimore, Md., Oct. 6, 1850; educated at the City College of Baltimore and at the art academies of Munich (where he won a silver medal for a bronze statue of a page) and Berlin. In 1880 he settled in...
KHAIBAR – Fortified town of Arabia in the district of Hejaz, and four days' journey northwest of the city of Medina. In the time of Mohammed, the name "Khaibar" was borne by a whole province, which was inhabited by various Jewish tribes;...
KHERSON – Russian city; capital of the government of the same name; situated on the right bank of the Dnieper, near its mouth. It was founded by Prince Potemkin in 1778. When permission was given the Jews to settle in New Russia by a...