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THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

remain in their adopted homes to stay there directed Jewish soldiers in European armies to remain in such

further " orders " ordained certain religious reforms; made provision for the election every four years of a "judge of Israel," with deputies

service

till



each country; commanded the Jews throughout the world to cooperate with him, and appointed as his commissioners a number of distinguished Euroin

pean Jews.

Nothing came of the plan. The proposed city was never built, and it is even doubtful if Noah himself ever set foot on Grand Island. The letters of some of those nominated as European commissioners, declining the proffered appointments, have been handed

down through

the

medium of

the press of that day,

which freely ridiculed the whole project. In the course of one of these letters, the grand rabbi of Paris said "

God alone knows He alone will make

according to our dogmas,

the epoch of the Israelitish restoration ; that known to the whole universe by signs entirely unequivocal and that every attempt on our part to reassemble with any political national design is forbidden as an act of high treason against the Divine Majesty. Mr. Noah has doubtless forgotten that the Israelites, faithful to the principles of their belief, are too much attached to the countries where they dwell, and devoted to the governments under which they enjoy liberty and protection, not to treat as a mere jest the chimerical consulate of a pseudorestorer." it

To-day, the only tangible relic of the entire projis the foundation-stone of the proposed city, preserved in the rooms of the Buffalo Historical Society, with the inscription of 1825 still legible

ect

its face.

It

is

but

fair to

Noah

to state that

plan was to establish "Ararat" as a merely temporary city of refuge for the Jews, until in the fulness of time a Palestinian restoration could be effected and that he developed plans and projects for such Palestinian restoration both a few years before and twenty years after the year 1825, in which year this "Ararat" project began and ended. his



Lewis F. Allen, Founding of the City nf Ararat on Grand Island by Mordeeai M. Noah, in Buffalo Historical Society Publications, vol. i., reprinted as an appendix to Some Early American Zionist Projects, by Max J. Kohler (Am. Jew. Hist. Soc. Publications, No. 8); Daly, Settlement of the Jews in North America, 1893; Simon Wolf, Mordeeai Manuel Noah, Biographical Sketch, 1897;

Bibliography



A

Neuere Qeschichte der Juden, ii. 227-235, Berlin, 18i7. interesting account of the project, in the guise of Action, is furnished by Israel Zangwill in They that Walk in Darkness (1899), in Noah's Ark. Jost,

An

M.

A.

ARAUN AH A Jebusite whose

J.

K.

threshing-floor

Jerusalem was pointed out to David by the prophet Gad as a fitting place for the erection of an altar of burnt offering to Jehovah after the great plague had been stayed, since it was there that the destroying angel was standing when the pestilence was checked (II Sam. xxiv. 16 et seg. I Chron. xxi. 15 etseq. ). David then went to Araunah, and for fifty pieces of silver bought the property and erected the altar. It is remarkable that Chronicles give the form Oman for the Jebusite's name. A conjecture by Cheyne, founded on the slight emendation of "i to 1, makes the true form of the name to be Adonijah. According to I Chron. xxi. 31, Hebr. xxii. 1, A.V., the threshing-floor must have been Mt. Moriah.

j.

jb.

J.

F.

McC.



Lived

good mathematician, and aroused the admiration of by his clever solution of riddles G M. K.

his associates -

ARATJXO, Physician. Lived in the seventeenth century in the city of Amsterdam. In the year 1655 he composed an elegy on the martyr

DANIEL

Isaac de

G

Almeyda



Bernal.

M.

-

ARBA

K

The hero of the Anakim, who lived at Kirjath-arba, a city named in his honor (Josh. xiv.

In Josh. xv. 13 and xxi. 11 he is called the 15). father of Anak, which evidently means that he was regarded as the ancestor of the Anakim. JE.

G. B. L.

ARBA' ARAZOT.

See Council op

the Foub

Lands.

ARBA' (" four corners ") The " fourcornered garment"; a rectangular piece of cloth, usually of wool, about three feet long and one foot wide, with an aperture in the center sufficient to let it pass over the head, so that part falls in front and part behind. To its four corners are fastened the fringes (Zizit) in the same manner as to the Tali.it. It is therefore also called the " small tallit " (tallit

KANFOT



katon).

The Arba' Kanfot, like the tallit, is worn by male persons in pursuance of the commandment, as recorded in Num. xv. 37-41 and Deut. xxii. The Arba' 12, to wear a garment with fringes. But Kanfot and while the tallit is thrown over the upthe Tallit. per garments only in the morning service, the Arba' Kanfot is worn under the upper garments during the whole day. In putting on the tallit the benediction to be pronounced reads: "Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, King of the universe, who hath commanded us to wrap ourselves in fringes " (TWXa f)Dj;nn^). The conclusion of the benediction on the Arba' Kanfot reads: "... and hath commanded us the commandment of fringes " (Shulhan 'Aruk, Orah Hayyim, 8, 12). Among the Ashkenazim the tallit is used by males over thirteen, while the Arba' Kanfot is provided also for children as soon as they are able to put on their clothes without assistance. There is no trace of the Arba' Kanfot among the Oriental Jews of the Middle Ages (compare Leopold

Low, "Gesammelte

in



ABRAHAM GOMEZ DE

in the seventeenth century. He was a member of a poetical academy in Amsterdam, Holland, in 1682, a

J-

We declare that,

upon

ARATJXO,

Ararat Arba' Kanfot

Origin of the Arba' Kanfot.

Schriften,"ii. 320,

Israel 1890; Abrahams, "Jewish Life in the Middle Ages," p. 287, Philadelphia, 1897). It may be assumed that it was adopted by the European Jews in the times of persecution, when they had to refrain from exhibiting the garment with The wearing of such a garment as an outer fringes.

Szegedin,

robe was therefore limited to the synagogue, while the precept to wear fringes at all times was fulfilled Some superin the wearing of the Arba' Kanfot. stitions have gathered round the wearing of the Arba' Kanfot in Eastern districts; the placing of a piece of "atikomen" in one of the corners of the Arba' Kanfot was supposed to avert the evil eye