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426 — Allon Bacbuth

THE JEWISH ENX'YCLOPEDIA

Almanac

pt-rliaps the same as Anion of Xeli. vii. ofl. Ami of (While K. V. lias "AUou," tlio Greek Ezra. ii. 57. ami A. V. Imvc "Allom") G. U. L.

ALLON BACHTJTH Biblical

Data:

.Vii

wliieli Dilionih, llir

("Oak of Weeping").—

oak near Bethel, at the foot of nurse of Hebekah. was buried

(Geu. x..v. S). In.Iuilj.'es. iv. .'ia tree is referred to a.s the "palm-tree of Deborah." whieli has been ideutiG. B. L. lied by some with the "oak of weeping."

In Rabbinical Literature According to the Haggadah, the word "allon" is the Greek S/>oi' (another): and it explains the designation of the

burial place of D<'bor!di as "another weeping." bjstating th;il before .laeob had eonipleted his mourning for Deborah, he received the news of the death of Scripture does not mention the jilace of his mother. IJebekah's interment, because her burial took i)lace privately. Isaac was blind; Jacob was away from home; and Esjiu woidd have been the oidy one to mourn and his public appearance as sole mourner would not have b(!en to Rebekah's honor (Fesik. Zakor. pp. 'i3b et xer/.; Geu. K. Ix.x.xi.. end; Tan. Wayishlah. xxvi.). L. G.

ALLORatn, JOSHTJA BEN JOSEPH IBN VIVES.

Sie

1i:n

'ii:s Ai.i.oKiji

i.

Josih a liKN

JusKl'll.

RESH KALLAH)

ALLITF (or In the Babylonian colleges, title of the cliief judge, third in rank below the gaon. As a special distinction it

426

found. From Ptolemy, too, were derived the conceptions of the spheres and the 7>n'mw Hi iinMle. which had so much intluence upon the Cabala. The Almagest was translated into Hebrew from the Arabic, with both Averroes' and Al-Fergani's compendiums of it, by Jacob Anatoli about I'i'M), the latter from the Latin version of Johannes llispalensis. Commentaries on |>arts of it were written by David ibn Nahmias of Toledo, Elijah Mi/.ndii, anil Samuel ben Judahof Slarseilles(1331): only the latter's commentary is extant. From the Almagest the Jews received their concepticm of the number of the fixed stars as 1,02"2: the comparison of the universe to an onion with its successive skins, corresponding to the spheres: and their idea of the size of the earth 24.000 miles in circumference which indirectly led to the si-areh forthe New World, by inducing Columbus to think that the way westward to India was not so far as to be beyond his reach.

—

BiBi.iooRAPiiv: Stelnsclinelder, Jcir. Lit. pp. 184, 188; tdebi, Hchr. rchcrK.pp.say-Seo; Keubauer, Cot. Bod]. Hebr. JifSS. Nos. soio-aoi;).

J.

ALMALIA, JOSEPH:

Italian

rabbi,

beginningof the nineteenth century, whose responsa "Tokfo shel Yosef " (The Strength of Joseph) were liublished in two parts at Livorno. in 1823 and 1855. Ilis name is wrongly given as Almagia, by Mortara ("

Indicc Alfabetico,"

Bibliography



n.t.).

Benjacob, Ofar ha-Scfarim, p. 872.

was granted

to prominent non-Babylonian scholars, particularly to those of Palestine. There were, however, others who bore this distinctive title, for " Eliezer Alluf," or"Resli there is record of a certain Kallah." of Spain iu the luuth century. This title bears no direct relation to the Ili'brew Cjpx (duke),

but is closely connected with 1J'D17X {our herds) (Ps. cxliv. 14). which, according to the Talnuid (Ber. 17a), is a tigurative appellation for pious ami learned men in Israel. See Ac.di2mies in B.bvloni.v. Bibi.ioorapht: Zunz. Rif ii-«, p. 190 Harkavy. .Stiiifif ii and MitthcUnnoi^n^ til. 4^. iv. 377: Halevy. Dorot ha-Iiiithonim,

of the

ALMALIH, JOSEPH jiatrons uieutioned by ace to his responsii.

B,

AARON



W. M. One of the

Abraham AnUawa in the pref" Kerem Ilemed " (Leghorn,

1S9-71). Kaufmann regards him as the grandson of Jacob b. Joseph Almalih. whose date may be fixed by an elegy composed by him on the persecution of the Jewish cimimunity at Morocco (1790). The persecution in (piestion was. no doubt, due to the disturbed state of the country that ensued upon the death of Sultan Mulei Sidi Mohanmied.



pp. 217 it

BiBLioGRAPnY Kaufmann. ZudfM Manikkaniichcn I'iutim, In Z. D. M. G. 1. SI') (( ncq. Iter. £l. Julves, xxxvll. 121;

Iti'q.

L. G.

ALLXTFE HA-^EHILLAH A

general name for prominent members of any congregation, and typically used in regard to the leaders of the community in the old hi/ial.i (governing boards) of the Jews of Poland and Lithuania. The number of these leaders varied from live to ten according to the



Stelnsclinelder.

Jew. Quart. Rev. xU.

size of th(^

community. Candidates were chosen from

among them

to replace absent members of the four elders (D'C'XI). or any of the three to live honorary members of the board (D'31U). They were the socalled "reserve " of the kahal. n. R.

ALMAGEST

The Arabic title of the astronomof Claudius Ptolemy (llourished 1")0). entitled by liim fuidi/uariKf/ nrrrnfif. in order to distinguish it from another avvmiic of Ptolemj's, devoted to astrology. The Almagest contains a full account of the Ptolemaic theory of astronomy, by which the retrograde movement of the inner planets was exjilained by a system of cycles and epicycles. It also gives, in the eighth and ninth books. a list of the fixed stars, with their positions, still of use to the astronomer. It contiiuied to be the classical text-book of astronomy u]! to the time of Copernicus, and even of Newton, and was the foiindation of tlie astronomical knowledge of the Jews (who

ical

work

became acquainted with

it through Arabic translaMiddle Ages. One of the earliest Arabic translations is said to have been bv an Oriental Jew, Sahl Al-Tabari (about 800), but no trace of it can be

tions) in the

196.

H. G. E.



ALMANAC comprising

An annual

table, book, or the like, a calendar of days, week.s, and months.

Among

the Jews it was the holy prerogative of the patriarch or president of the Great Sanhedrin to fix the calendar and according to it proclaim the new moon. Witnesses who reported their having perceived the new moon were heard, their statements carefully examined, and jierhaps compared with the result of some esoteric calculation. Hence the phrase "si>d ha 'Mrir" (thf mystery of the calculation), though it may perhaps apply altogether to the intercalation. These observations and researches gradually crystallized into a science, the oral traditions having been reduced to a literature on the C.i.i:ni).m{ (^see CiiRoxoi.ociY). LiKtIf, the Hebrew eiiuivalent for Almanac, means Most of the works on literally a table or tablet. chronology naturally contained such a calendar. It included the proper designation of every day as part of the week as well as part of the month; the designation of the;«nv(,s7ir//;(the weekly Sabbath portion of the Pentateuch): the dates of feasts and general and local fasts; furthermore, the exact date of the molad (new moon) and the te/ctifat (the quarter-days of the year), as w ell as the beginning and end of the xliealah (tlie time when a short prayer for rain is added to the eighteen benedictions).

Quite another appearance

is

borne by calendars