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Bel and the Dragon

(Encyclopedia)Bel and the Dragon, customary name for chapter 14 of the Book of Daniel, a passage included in the Septuagint and the Apocrypha. It was written possibly in the 1st cent. b.c. as a response to Gentile ...

Soloveitchik, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Soloveitchik, Joseph sŏˌləvāˈchĭk [key], 1903–93, Jewish Talmudist and philosopher. Born into a rabbinic family in Poland, he was educated according to his grandfather's analytical method of T...

Bassani, Giorgio

(Encyclopedia)Bassani, Giorgio jôrˈjō bäsäˈnê [key], 1916–2000, Italian novelist. The recurrent background for his complex, analytic narratives about Jewish bourgeois life in Italy was the growth of fascis...

Tosefta

(Encyclopedia)Tosefta –tōth [key] [Aramaic,=additional], collection of ancient Jewish teachings supplementing the Mishna or Oral Law and closely allied to it in organization. Like the Mishna, it was compiled by ...

Acosta, Uriel

(Encyclopedia)Acosta, Uriel dä kōˈstä [key], c.1585–1640, Jewish rationalist, b. Oporto, Portugal. His original name was Gabriel da Costa, and his family had been converted to Roman Catholicism. When he reach...

Nestorian Church

(Encyclopedia)Nestorian Church, officially the Assyrian Church of the East, Christian community of Iraq, Iran, and SW India. It represents the ancient church of Persia and is sometimes also called the East Syrian C...

Celtic Church

(Encyclopedia)Celtic Church, name given to the Christian Church of the British Isles before the mission (597) of St. Augustine of Canterbury from Rome. Founded in the 2d or 3d cent. by missionaries from Rome or Gau...

Vulgate

(Encyclopedia)Vulgate vŭlˈgāt [key] [Lat. Vulgata editio=common edition], most ancient extant version of the whole Christian Bible. Its name derives from a 13th-century reference to it as the “editio vulgata.�...

Heine, Heinrich

(Encyclopedia)Heine, Heinrich hīnˈrĭkh hīˈnə [key], 1797–1856, German poet, b. Düsseldorf, of a Jewish family. One of the greatest of German lyric poets, he had a varied career. After failing in business h...

Rothschild

(Encyclopedia)Rothschild rŏthˈchīld, Ger. rōtˈshĭlt [key], prominent family of European bankers. The first important member was Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1743–1812), son of a money changer in the Jewish ghe...