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229 THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

229

recognition of his services he was decorated l>y WillI. in 1819 with the Order of the Netherlands Lion, being the first Jewish recipient of such a dis-

iam

tinction.

Asser was the founder of the Felix Libertate a society having for its object the emancipation of the Jews and the author of the memorial addressed to the States General, March 26, 1796, urging the removal of Jewish disabilities. leader of the opposition which resulted in the splitting up of the Jewish community of Amsterdam, Asser's name was the first mentioned at the election of wardens by the members of the new community, Adat Jesurun. He took an active part in the progressive movement, at the head of which stood his son Carel (see Asser,

—

A

Cakel). Bibliography: Dis Kursen

(in Yiddish), relative to the struggle between the two communities Roest's Letterbode, i., ii. Notices from a family chronicle Winkler Prins, Oelllustreerde Encyhlopudie. 1884, s.v. s. A. S. C.





ASSER, Dutch

TOBIAS

MICHAEL CAREL:

born at Amsterdam April 28, 1838. His father was Carel Daniel Asser (1813-85). His mother was a sister of Godefroi, Dutch minister of jurist;

Justice.

Asser studied jurisprudence at the Athenaeum at Amsterdam, and as early as 1857 was awarded the gold medal offered as a prize by the university at Leyden for a competitive thesis on " Over het Staathuishoud kundig begrip van Waarde " (On the Economic Conception of Value). In 1860 he received a doctor's degree, after defending his dissertation on "Het Bestur der Buitenlandsch betrek kingen volgens het Nederlandsche Staatsrecht. " In the same year the government appointed him a member of the international commission to negotiate concerning the abolition of tolls on the Rhine. He wrote on the subject the following two pamphlets: "lets over denRyntol" and "De Kluisters van denRijn," in"De Gids," 1861. In May, 1862, he was called to the chair of jurisprudence at the Athenaeum, and delivered ari inaugural address on " Handelsrecht en PlanAppointed delsbedrijf." When the Athenaeum Professor became a university (1876), Asser conof Juristinued his teaching there though, in prudence, order to retain his practise as attorney to a number of trade companies, he remained only in the capacity of extraordinary professor of the department of international and commercial law. Prom 1862 Asser took an active part in conferences on international law, and, together with Rolin Jacquemyns, afterward Belgian minister of the interior, and the English jurist, JohnWestlake, he founded, in 1869, the "Revue de Droit International," which he edited. In 1875 he became assistant secretary of state, and performed the duties of the office, along with those of his professorship, until May 5, 1893, when he was appointed Member of member of the Council of State, the Council highest body in the Dutch administration. The high estimate of Asser's of State, authority in the domain of international law is attested by the fact that he is permanent chairman of the diplomatic congress on inter;

national civil law, established chiefly through his

Asser

Asshur

Asser was delegate to the Peace Conference held at The Hague in 1899, in consequence of the appeal made by Czar Delegate Nicholas II., and presided over the to Peace second division of the second section. Conference. He has been the recipient of the following decorations, viz. Cross of a Commander of the Order of the Netherlands Lion of the Order of Orange-Nassau and of the Baden Order of the Lion of Zahringen; Order of the Crown of Italy; and the Luxemburg Order of the Oak Crown. He is also officer of the Belgian Order of Leopold, and Knight of the Legion of Honor. His wife is the daughter of Louis Asser, only son instrumentality.





of the elder Carel Asser, and sister of Prof. Carel Asser of Leyden. Besides the works already mentioned, Asser has

Uniforme sur la Lettre de Handelsrechtelyke Aanteekeningen," "Remarks on Commercial Law," 1868-69; and has contributed many articles to legal journals. But his two principal works are "Schets van het Internationaal Privaatrecht," 1879; and "Schets van het Nederlandsch Handelsrecht," 1873. The first of these has been translated into nearly every European language, and the last reached its seventh edition written

"Legislation

Change," 1864; and

"

in 1897.

Bibliography



Winkler Prlns, Ge'illustreerde Encyklopddie,

1884.

Vk.

J.

S.

ASSESSMENT OF TAXES. Revenue

Finta,

See

op.

ASSHUR.— Biblical

Data: Name of a city once the capital of Assyria. Asshur was apparently the first important town built by the early colonists of the country, who probably came from Babylonia. One

of the earliest

known

rulers of Assyria,

Sham-

shi-Adad I. (about 1820 B.C.), erected in the city of Asshur a temple dedicated to Anu and Adad and Asshur may be regarded as having been, even at that early date, the capital of the newly founded

About 1300 B.C. the capital was removed by Shalmaneser I. to Calah, and two centuries later the supremacy of Asshur had vanished so completely that the city had to be rebuilt when When Tiglath-pileser I. again made it the capital. the capital was finally removed to Nineveh, the city principality of Assyria.

fell into an honorable decay, revered as the ancient metropolis, and dignified as the site where the na-

tional

god Asshur had his famous temple E-Kharsag-

Kurkurra.

known

as

The city is now buried beneath a mound Kalah Shergat on the

divides into three arms.

The

Tigris,

which here

ruins of its ancient

temple rise high above the remaining mound, and have been slightly pierced by excavations undertaken especially by Rassam and Ainsworth but the See site has never been systematically explored. Assyria and the bibliography there given.

j.

R-

jr.

W.

R.

In Rabbinical Literature Asshur was one of the few pious men of the generation of the Tower

In order to avoid participation in that of Babel. sinful project, he left the land of his fathers and settled in the neighborhood of Nineveh, in reward for

which action he received the

cities

mentioned

in