MILMAN, HENRY HART – Historian; born in London Feb. 10, 1791; died there Sept. 24, 1868. His career at Oxford was a brilliant one. He first became known through his dramatic poems "Fazio" (1815), "Fall of Jerusalem," "Martyr of Antioch," and others....
MILSAHAGI, ELIAKIM – See Samiler, A. G.
MILWAUKEE – Metropolis of the state of Wisconsin. The oldest congregation of Milwaukee, Bene Jeshurun, was organized in 1855 by Löbl Rindskopf, Leopold Newbauer, Solomon Adler, Emanuel Silverman, and others of the first Jewish settlers in...
MI-MIZRAḤ UMI-MA'ARAB – See Periodicals.
MIN – Various Applications of the Term. Term used in the Talmud and Midrash for a Jewish heretic or sectarian. Its etymology is obscure, the most plausible among numerous explanations being that given by Bacher, namely, that it is...
MINDEN, JUDAH (LöB) B. JOEL – German lexicographer; lived at Berlin in the sixth decade of the eighteenth century. In 1760 he published there, with the approbation of the rabbinates of Berlin and Halberstadt, the first Hebrew dictionary produced by a Jew and...
MINDEN, LÖB B. MOSES – Cantor and poet; born at Selichow (from which he is called also Judah b. Moses Selichower), in Lesser Poland, in the seventeenth century; died at an advanced age at Altona or Hamburg May 26, 1751. He acted as ḥazzan at...
MINERBI, HIRSCHEL DE – Count of Oscarre; Italian diplomat; descendant of a wealthy and illustrious Jewish family of Triest; born April 25, 1838; educated at the University of Padua, where he received his degree in law in 1864. He then went to Italy,...
MINES AND MINING – Mines did not exist in the land inhabited by the Israelites. In the description of Palestine in Deut. viii. 9, it is true, the words "whose stones are iron and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass" seem to refer to mining;...
MINHAG – See Custom.
MINḤAH PRAYER – The afternoon devotional service of the Jewish liturgy. The term is probably derived from Elijah's prayer at "the time of the offering of the evening ["minḥah"] sacrifice" (I Kings xviii. 36). Minḥah is one of the three daily...
MINIR – Family of scholars of Tudela, members of which are met with in the East and in Italy.Abraham ben Joseph Minir (probably a brother of Isaac ben Joseph Minir); Acah (Isaac) ben Ḥayyim and his son Abraham Minir; and Shem-Ṭob ben...
MINIS – American family especially prominent in the South. Its founder, Abraham Minis, went from England to America in 1733. The family tree is as follows:Pedigree of the Minis Family. Abraham Minis: One of the earliest settlers in the...
MINKOVSKY, PHINEHAS – Russian cantor; born at Byelaya Tzerkov April, 1859. His father, Mordecai, a descendant of Yom-Ṭob Lipmann Heller, was cantor in the great synagogue of Byelaya Tzerkov, and he himself was a singer in his father's choir. After...
MINKOWSKI, OSCAR – German physician; born at Alexoten, near Kovno, Russia, Jan. 13, 1858; educated at the universities of Freiburg, Strasburg, and Königsberg (M.D. 1881). He became assistant at the medical clinic of Königsberg University in 1882...
MINNEAPOLIS – Chief commercial city of the state of Minnesota. In 1900 it had in a total population of 202,718 a Jewish community of about 6,000 souls. The first Jewish settlers were Germans, Bohemians, and Russians, who went there between...
MINNESOTA – One of the northwestern states of the American Union. It has a Jewish population of about 13,000, distributed in the following cities: Minneapolis, the largest city of the state, 6,000; St. Paul, the capital city, 5,000; Duluth,...
MINOR, SOLOMON ZALKIND – Russian rabbi and author; born at Wilna 1827; died there Jan. 21, 1900. He received his elementary education from his father, R. Jekuthiel, a well-known Talmudist. At the age of twelve Minor took up the study of Biblical and...
MINORCA – See Balearic Isles.
MINORITY – See Majority.
MINSK – Russian city; capital of the government of the same name. Of the history of its Jewish community very little is known. In 1576 King Stephen Bathori granted the Jews of Minsk the privilege of engaging in trade or commerce of any...
MINSKI, NIKOLAI MAKSIMOVICH – Russian poet and writer; born at Glubokoye, government of Wilna, in 1855. At the age of twelve Nikolai removed to Minsk and entered the local classical gymnasium (graduated in 1875). The town of his gymnasium course supplied him...
MINTERS – Persons authorized to strike coinage on behalf of a government. As early as 555 a certain Priscus struck coins at Châlons ("R. E. J." x. 237). One Gideon was minter at Milan in the tenth century. In 1181 three Jews at Winchester...
MINYAN – Literally, "count"; the quorum necessary for public worship. The smallest congregation which is permitted to hold public worship is one made up of ten men, boys over thirteen years being for this, as for other religious...
MINZ – Family of rabbis and scholars, deriving its name from the town of Mayence and founded in the fifteenth century. The family tree is as follows: Judah b. Eliezer ha-Levi Minz (Minzi), the progenitor of the most prominent branch of...