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316 Alabaster Alatino

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

are known by name: 1. Lvsimaciius. 2. Jruis Alexanher Lysimachts, son of the preceding. Tlie name .lulius was also borne by liis brotlier TiuKim:s (Julius) Ai.i;xani)eu( who afterward became prefect of Eirypt). probably in honor of the imperial family The llrnuliaus belonged also to the of the Julii. pens Julia: and Derenice. daughter of Agrippa I,, who bore the cognomen Julia, was married to MarThis Marcus cus, son of the Alabarch Alexander. appears to have died early ("Ant." xix. 5, § 1), for Berenice immediately after married another. 3. Demetrius (• Ant." XX. 7. t; 3). Philo relates that after the death of one of tlie Alabarchs.lhe Emperor Augustus appointed a Council of Elders fpmwfa for the Jewish community of Alexandria: but in an edict of Claudius it is stated that, after the death of one of the Alabarchs, he permitted the appointment of a successor. Pliilo was himself descended from the .Vlabarch family ("Ant." xviii. 8, 55 D.and was either the brother or the nephew of Alexander Lysimaehus. It is impos,sible to tix the date of either the beginning or the end of the line of Alabarchs. It may have ceased during the disturbances imder Trajan. The brothers Julianus and Pai)pus, the leaders of the Jews during this revolt, were indeed natives of Alexandria, but were not Alabarchs. Tanuaites of the second centur)woidd appear to allude to the Alabarchs (see Sifre. Dcut. 1. end Yalk. Deut. § 792). In the Talmud there is no mention of them. Griltz has made it probable that the Nikauor after whom certain gates of the Temple often mentioned in the Mishnah, Talmud, and Midrash were named, and who was. therefore, a public benefactor and undoubtedly a wealthy man, belonged to the family of the Alabarchs.

The foUowinjr alaburchs

Alexander

)



—

Bibliography

—

Haecljermann, tn Jahn's A'ctio Jahrhlirher fllr Kla.'iiiwche l*}iUnbmi< 1H4!*, xv. suppl.. pp. 4.tO-oC6: Griltz, rHe Jlldvru-i(Uun{i. 1. a*9; Berliner, 3/<i)/a2i», xx. IW; Willrich, Juikn iimi /jricchen, p. 141; Siegfried, Philo von Alcxandricn^ p. 5, note 3; Tb. Reinach, in Rir. £t.Juivai, 1893, xxvll. M.

S.

ALABASTEK was the



Kr.

The Alabaster of the ancients

stalagmitie variety of carbonate of lime,

and differed from what now is commonly known as Alabaster, which is sulphate of lime. From this material vases were made to hold unguents (see Matt. XX vi. 7: Mark, xiv. 3; Luke, vii. 37). Gradually the vases themselves were called Alabasters; and this is the explanation of the Septuagint transII(IV) Kings, xxi. 13. Alabaster is still obtained from mines in the province of Oran in Algeria it was found also in Thebes and on the western side of the Tigris. In Assyria it was used lation, rt?«i(M<TOH. in



and was called p/hi. though this term was a general one applied to various kinds of hard stones. Its employment can be traced back beyond the ninth century B.C. and it may be assumed that even at an earlier period there was trade in Alabaster in bas-relief

316

A Solomon

ibn Aish is cited in a manuscript which once belonged to Carmoly, as well as in Samuel " Mekor Hayyiin " (fol. 54). Zarza's He is probably identical with the physician Solomon ibu Gais ben Barueli, who dii-d in Seville, Si wan, .'ilO.") (= 1345) (" Ilebr. Bilil." xix. 93). Joseph ibn Alaish was rabbi in Aleala ("Algaish" of Wiener and Kayserling). Menal.iem ben Aaron ben Zeiiih tells us in his " Zedah la-Derek " that he "studieil with Joseph particularly the To.safotof R. Pere/.. which were greatly in vogue in his day " (Gro.ss, " Gallia Judaica." pp. 566 et srg.). According to the text in Neubauer ("Medieval Jewish Chronicles." ii. 244), .loseph died in the year 1349, and not 1301 (Wiener," 'Emek ha-Baka," p. 185; Kayserling, " Juden in Navarni." p. 84). An Abolays is the supposed translator into Arabic of a Chaldean book on the magic powers of various stones (Steinsehneider. " Hebr. Uebers. " p. 238 " Z. D. M. G. " xlix. 268). The modern form of the name is Belais or

Balaiss.

Bini.ioORAPnT: Stelnscbnelder, Hchr. Bihl. xvl. 81; Jew. Quart. Rev. xl. 4^1. On a somewbat similar name, Yaez, see Hcbr. Bibl. xix. 93.

G.

AXAMAN, ASHKENAZI,

or

DEUTSCH:

and wide-spread Jewish Turkish em|)ire,whose ancestor, Joseph, ben Solomon of Ofen (Buda), Hungary, is said to have been at the head of a deputation to hand over the keysof the citadel of Ofen tothe sultan Snlyman I., who was then advancing against it with his army Joseph, who afterward settled in Constan(1.529). Naini'

(if

family

a iiiany-liiaii(h<(l

in the

tinople, received for himself, his sons Satina and Joseph, and their posterity, the privilege of exemption from all taxes and duties, and from compulsory service for all time to come. The privilege was confirmed by a firman, and has been successively ratified by all Ottoman rulers up to the present time Descendants of the Alamans, numbering (1901). about four hundred and fifty, still live in Constantinople, Adrianople, Brusa, Damascus, Grallipoli, Cairo, and several places in Bulgaria.

BiBLIOGRAPnY

YoKcf Da'al nr El Progreso. a Spanlati-Hehrew Journal, publlsbcd by Abrabam Uanon, Comitantinuple, 1.

No.

1



cl srq.

AXiAMETH Benjamin

1

1

(



.Son of

M. K. Becher and grandson of G. B. L.

luiiii. vii. 8).

ALAMI, SOLOMON: An

ethical writer who lived in Portugal in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: contemporary of Simon ben Zemah Duran lie is known through his ethical treatise (}• 3Cn). " Iggerct Musar," which he addressed, in the form of a letter, to one of his disciples in 1415. He was an eye-witness of the persecutions of the Jews of Catalonia, Castile, ami Aragon in 1391. Alami considers these and other severe trials intiicted upon the Spanish Jews as the effect of, and a puni.shment for, the moral and religious decadence into which his coreligionists had fallen; and he holds before his brethren a mirror of the moral degeneration extending



in Babylonia, since the mineral isnot found in southern Jlesopotamia. It was usually grayish and striated in appearance. G. B. L.

ATjATSH



The name of a Spanish-Jewish fam-

which occurs

in various forms: usually preceded Abu-al-'aish mejins in Arabic "Father of Life or "Father of Bread." In the form Bolaix (compare the Arabic Bclcasem for Abu al-Kasim) it oceure in the list of Barcelona Jews of the year 1391 ("Rev. fet. Juives," iv. 70). (Jag Abenayx (Lsaac ibn al-Aish) was almojariff of Queen Maria {ib.). ily,

by "abu. " "

A

all circles of Jewish society. " Let us sejirch," he says in his lx>olf, " for the source of all these trials and sufferings, and we shall And that a state of dissolution prevails in the midst of us that an evil spirit pen'ades our camp, which has split us into two parties. There are those of our lirethren who expend all their energies in solving Talmudic problems and in writing numberless commentaries and novella? dealing in minute distinctions and int^Tiin-tations, full

through



of useless subtleties as thin a-s cobwetis. They dilTuse diirbness instead of light, and lower respect for the Law. in tiers, again, clothe theTorah in sti*anpe gannents, de<'k it with (irriian and other anti-Jewish ornaraent-^. and endeavor to harmonize it with philosophy, which can only be detrimental to n_'Ilgion and lead ultimately Ui its decay. Worse than these, however, are the frivolous persons who liave not acquired substantial knowledge, but, relying upon the smattering of Greek that they posse&s, venture to ridicule tradition and to contemn the commandments