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534 Bari

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Bai-it

Special interest attaches to the fact that his Arabic knowledge was placed at the service of Hebrew literature. In collaboration with Beer Goldberg, who had transcribed Arabic texts in Hebrew characters, in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, he published the following work: "R. Judah b. Korcish, ad Synagogam Judceorum Civitatis Fez Epistola de Studii Targum Utilitate et de Lingua? Chaldaicoe Vo.

.

cabulorum item Nonnullorum Barbaricorum Convenientia cum Hebrsea," 1857. His other works in chronological order are: "Le Li vie de Ruth, Expar

plique

Deux Traductions

Francaises," 1854:

"Les Samaritains de Naplouse," 1855 "Libri Psalmorum David, Versio a R. Japheth b. Heli Bassorensi Karaite, " 1861 (he had given a specimen of this work as early as 1846; and Munk, on presenting the work to the Academy, pointed out its interesting character ["Revue Orientale et Americaine," 1861, vii. 1-12 see M. Sell wab, " Vie et CEu vres de Munk, Hebron et le Tombeau du Patriarche Abrap. 190] ham, Traditions et Legendes Musulmanes Rapportees par les Auteurs Arabes," 1863; "Notice sur Deux Fragments d'un Pentateuque Hebreu-Samaritain Rapportes dc la Palestine par F. de Saulcy,"



"'



"Sefer Tagliin, Liber Coronularum," Latin introduction, Hebrew text, with a Hebrew preface by Senior Sachs, 1866 (this publication is omitted by bibliographers, even by Isidore Loeb in his article on Barges in the " Grande Encyclopedie ") " Inscrijjtion Hebraique de la Chaire de St. -Marc a, Venise " (" Annales de Philosophie Chretienne," 1880, ii. 222) the Song of Songs by Japheth b. Ali (1884); six monographs on Phenician inscriptions, published at different times (1847-88); a study of the Arabic inscriptions which once existed at Marseilles (1889) and various other works. Bibliography: A. de Gubernatis, Dictimutaire International des Ecrivains du Jour, i. K;ii-167: Arrhives Israelites, lvii. 143; I. Loeb, in Grande Encyclnyjahe, s.v. 1865





M.

t.

BABI town

or

BABI DELLA PUGLIE



S.

Seaport

on the Adriatic capital of the district of the same name. As the center of an extended trade with Triest, Corfu, Messina, and the Orient, Bari was at all times a place of importance information, however, concerning the history of the Jews there is very scant. According to tradition, in Apulia, Italy,



the settlement of the Jews in southern Italy is connected with the captives brought there by Titus after the sack of Jerusalem (Jerahmeel, in Neubauer, " Medieval Jewish Chron. " i. 190 Ahimaaz, " Chronicle," lb. ii. 112, line 4; "Jewish Quart. Rev." iv. If there is any truth in this tradition, then 623). together with Naples, Venosa, Otranto, Taranto, and Oria, Bari must at an early date have become a seat of Jewish influence. similar tradition seems, also, to have found its

A

way into Yalkut on Psalm exxx vii.

Babylon by Nebuchad-

of the Jews deported to nezzar, it adds: "

,_

After speaking

of Bari

(

1N3.)

'

1

thou garments upon the fsraelites. And what was the reward of the people of Bari ? God Almighty endowed them with more grace than that possessed by all the land of Israel and [therefore] they are more beautiful. The saying was current, No one who enters the city [Bari] leaves it without having committed a sin [referring to the beauty of its womenj." 1



'

'

The same account is found in Midrash Tehillim; and with a few additions in the Pesikta Rabbati (28 ed. Friedmann, p. 1356), a work composed about the year 845. The historical background of the legend not quite apparent. Israel Levi supposes that the reference is to some intervention on the part of the Jews of Bari in favor of their brethren captured either by the Byzantines or the Arabs but Bacher, with perhaps more reason, sees in Nebuchadnezzar is



a typical reference to Titus, in agreement with the tradition referred to above, even if the expression in the Ahimaaz " Chronicle " (p. 112, line 4), nWa 1BV3 ("crowned with beauty "), has no connection with the traditional beauty of the women of Bari. The reference, however, of the Yalkut and Pesikta to Bari can hardly be questioned though Friedmann (ib. commentary) connects the name with Beri (I Chron. vii. 36) of the tribe of Asher; Harkavy with the Iberians or Caucasians Jastrow (" A Dictionary of the Talmudim,"p. 136) with in Galilee; while Krauss elaborately argues in favor of an identification with Berytus (Beirut). According to the Ahimaaz " Chronicle, " Aaron ben Samuel, the wonder-worker (870), came from Oria to Bari on his way back to Babylonia.



nu

Under

The Arabic invasion of southern Italy had by this time spread over Apulia and Calabria. Bari fell into Mohammedan hands, and became the seat of the governor Sandan; though the Arabic chroniclers (as, for example, Ibn al-Athir, viii. 117) know nothing either of him or of Sandan. For six months Aaron remained here, so highly honored by the governor that he had to have recourse

Various Governments.

to a miracle in order to be able to leave the city (Ahimaaz, "Chronicle," 118, 8; 119, 4). Bari fell again into the hands of the Byzantines, when Basil and the German emperor Ludwig II. broke the Arab power. It was still a place of importance for Ahimaaz tells us that the news of the death of Basil

by way of Bari (ib. 124, 10). Oria was taken in 962 by Al-Muizz Ma'add, many of its inhabitants Jews being no doubt among them— fled to Bari. little later an uncle of Paltiel, the vizier of Al-Muizz and Abd al-Mansur by name Hananeel ben Paltiel made use of his nephew's influence to regain some of the family property, and came hither with a bull from the Byzantine court. The rabbis were at first unwilling to accede to his request but finally gave way to the power of the was

sent to Italy

When

—

A

'

—

to

—



state

(ib.

127, 11-21).

That a rabbinical school ers of the

or, at least, famous teachexisted here at this time is attested by the old saying cited by Rabbenu

Law

Jewish

came out

meet them, together with the people of the other cities [perhaps Taranto and Otranto, "Revue Etudes Juives," xxxiii. 40]. They saw that the Jews were naked. What did the people of Legends. Bari do ? They unclothed their male and female slaves, and brought them an a present to Nehuchadnezzar. saying, Perhaps thou art a king that He answered, 'Go, and put taketh delight in the naked?

Tbe inhabitants

534

Tarn ("Sefer ha-Yashar," p. 74a, No. Vienna) in the twelfth cenBari. tury: "From Bari shall the Law go forth, and the word of the Lord from Otranto" a paraphrase of Isa. ii. 3 (Gratz, "Gesch. der Juden," vi. 280; Gudemann, "Erziehungswesen der Juden in Italien," p. 17). Another tradition, re-

Scholars at

—

620, ed.