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Mapu, Abraham

(Encyclopedia)Mapu, Abraham mäˈpo͞o [key], 1808–67, Lithuanian novelist who wrote in Hebrew. For many years an impoverished, itinerant schoolmaster, Mapu gained financial security when he was appointed teacher...

Yeshiva University

(Encyclopedia)Yeshiva University, in New York City; mainly coeducational; begun 1886 as Yeshiva Eitz Chaim, a Jewish theological seminary, chartered 1928 as Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and Yeshiva Col...

Silver, Abba Hillel

(Encyclopedia)Silver, Abba Hillel, 1893–1963, American rabbi and Zionist leader, b. Lithuania. He was taken to the United States in 1902. Educated at the Univ. of Cincinnati (B.A., 1915) and Hebrew Union College,...

Singer, Israel Joshua

(Encyclopedia)Singer, Israel Joshua, 1893–1944, Polish-American novelist and playwright who wrote in Yiddish, older brother of Isaac Bashevis Singer. Living variously in Poland and Russia, he earned a literary re...

Shammai, in Judaism

(Encyclopedia)Shammai shäˈmī [key], c.50 b.c.–c.a.d. 30, Jewish sage known for his opposition to the liberal teachings of Hillel. He and his school interpreted the Law extremely rigorously, emphasizing deed ra...

Shavuot

(Encyclopedia)Shavuot shəvo͝oˈət [key] [Heb.,=weeks], Jewish feast celebrated on the 6th of the month of Sivan (usually some time in May) in Israel and on the sixth and seventh days in the Diaspora. Originally ...

Gombrich, E. H.

(Encyclopedia)Gombrich, E. H. (Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich), 1909–2001, British art historian and scholar, b. Vienna, grad. Univ. of Vienna (1933). From a culturally prominent Austrian-Jewish family, he fled German...

Stern, Fritz Richard

(Encyclopedia)Stern, Fritz Richard, 1926–2016, American historian and educator, b. Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), grad. Columbia (B.A., 1946; M.A., 1948; Ph.D., 1953). Although his family had converted ...

Grade, Chaim

(Encyclopedia)Grade, Chaim khīəm grädˈə [key], 1910–82, Lithuanian novelist and poet. Grade, who wrote in Yiddish, became one of the prominant members of an experimental writers' group during the 1930s. Afte...

apocalypse

(Encyclopedia)apocalypse əpŏkˈəlĭps [key] [Gr.,=uncovering], genre represented in early Jewish and in Christian literature in which the secrets of the heavenly world or of the world to come are revealed by ang...