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Essenes

(Encyclopedia)Essenes ĕsˈēnz [key], members of a small Jewish religious order, originating in the 2d cent. b.c. The chief sources of information about the Essenes are Pliny the Elder, Philo's Quod omnius probus ...

synagogue

(Encyclopedia)synagogue sĭnˈəgŏg [key] [Gr.,=assembly], in Judaism, a place of assembly for worship, education, and communal affairs. The origins of the institution are unclear. One tradition dates it to the Ba...

Westminster Abbey

(Encyclopedia)Westminster Abbey, originally the abbey church of a Benedictine monastery (closed in 1539) in London. One of England's most important Gothic structures, it is also a national shrine. The first church ...

Herod

(Encyclopedia)Herod, dynasty reigning in Palestine at the time of Jesus. As a dynasty the Herods depended largely on the power of Rome. They are usually blamed for the state of virtual anarchy in Palestine at the b...

Brooklyn

(Encyclopedia)Brooklyn bro͝okˈlĭn [key], borough of New York City (2020 pop. 2,736,074), 71 sq mi (184 sq ...

Israel, country, Asia

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Israel ĭzˈrēəl [key], officially State of Israel, republic (2015 est. pop. 8,065,000, including Israelis in occupied Arab territories), 7,992 sq mi (20,700 sq km), SW Asia, on the Mediterra...

Lent

(Encyclopedia)Lent [Old Eng. lencten,=spring], Latin Quadragesima (meaning 40; thus the 40 days of Lent). In Christianity, Lent is a time of penance, prayer, preparation for or recollection of baptism, and preparat...

Jeremiah, book of the Bible

(Encyclopedia)Jeremiah a book of the Bible, comprising a collection of prophetic oracles attributed to Jeremiah, a prophet who preached (c.628–586 b.c.) in Jerusalem under King Josiah and his successors. His mess...

Goebbels, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Goebbels, Joseph (Paul Joseph Goebbels) poul yōˈzĕf göbˈəls [key], 1897–1945, German National Socialist propagandist. He was kept out of the service in World War I by a clubfoot. After graduat...

Frank, Anne

(Encyclopedia)Frank, Anne, 1929–45, German diarist, b. Frankfurt as Anneliese Marie Frank. In order to escape Nazi persecution, her family emigrated (1933) to Amsterdam, where her father Otto became a business ow...