Encyclopaedia Judaica, v. 16 (Pes-Qu)

789 Pages·2008·18.93 MB·English

ENCYCLOPAEDIA
JUDAICA
ENCYCLOPAEDIA
JUDAICA
S E C O N D E D I T I O N
VOLUME 16
Pes–Qu
Fred Skolnik, Editor in Chief
Michael Berenbaum, Executive Editor
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
KETER PUBLISHING HOUSE LtD., JERUSALEM
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition
Fred Skolnik, Editor in Chief
Michael Berenbaum, Executive Editor
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Entries Pes–Qu
5
•
Abbreviations
General Abbreviations
779
Abbreviations used in Rabbinical Literature
780
Bibliographical Abbreviations
786
•
Transliteration Rules
799
Glossary
802
Initial letter “P” of the word Prin-
cipio in a Latin manuscript of The
Antiquities of the Jews by Jose-
phus Flavius, France, 12th century.
The figure in the illuminated let-
ter is wearing the medieval Jewish
pointed hat. Paris, Bibliothèque
Nationale, Cod. Lat. 5047, fol. 2,
column 2. Photo Bildarchiv Foto Pes-Py
Marburg, Marburg-Lahn.
PESAḤIM (Heb. םיחִסָפְּ; “paschal lambs”), third tractate in The following are the contents of the chapters. Chapter 1
the Mishnah, Tosefta, and two Talmuds, of the order Mo’ed. deals with the “search” for leaven (bedikat ḥameẓ) and its re-
Pesaḥim deals, in ten chapters, with the laws concerning the moval. Chapter 2 continues the subject and then goes on to dis-
*Passover festival. cuss certain aspects of the making of the matzah and questions
Pesaḥ refers primarily to the paschal sacrifice, but was relating to *maror and *ḥaroset. Chapter 3 opens with a list of
applied also to the festival itself. This tractate deals with both various foods containing ḥameẓ (e.g., beer made from barley),
subjects, the sacrificial service (chaps. 5–9), leavened and then reverts again to problems of the search for leaven and its
unleavened bread (chaps. 1–4), and the seder (chap. 10). In ge- removal, especially in the event of the eve of Passover falling
onic times the tractate was still divided correspondingly into on a Sabbath. Chapter 4 opens with the ruling that abstention
two parts called Pesaḥ Rishon and Pesaḥ Sheni. The two parts from work on the eve of Passover depends on local customs.
were afterwards combined and given the name Pesaḥim (in It then lists various halakhot which depend on local customs.
the plural). In the Munich manuscript, the tenth chapter ap- Chapter 5 is mainly concerned with determining the time for
pears as the fourth, so that the “practical” chapters follow one slaughtering the paschal lamb and other aspects of the sacri-
another consecutively. There is clear evidence that the two ficial service. Chapter 6 deals with the sacrificial arrangement
parts of this tractate were not redacted in the same school, when the festival falls on a Sabbath, and with related problems.
and there are definite differences between them. They con- Chapter 7 deals with the roasting of the paschal lamb, and
tain conflicting topics and even those which are similar dif- discusses problems touching on ritual impurity affecting the
fer in details and even halakhically. The redaction of the trac- persons participating in the sacrifices. Chapter 8 considers the
tate Pesaḥim took place relatively later than that of the other question of a person slaughtering the paschal lamb on behalf of
tractates and its Talmud already utilized the edited Talmud another person, and the qualifications of the persons involved.
of many other tractates. The mishnayot of the second part Chapter 9 touches first on the question of Second Passover (cf.
are very old and refer to events from the time of the Second Num. 9:10–11), but then discusses a variety of other problems,
Temple and the early authorities. The Mishnah of the first such as the interchange of a paschal lamb. Chapter 10 consid-
part, though it is of later redaction, contains halakhot which ers the arrangement of the seder night.
were a subject of dispute between the latest of the *zugot and In the Tosefta, this tractate is also divided into ten chap-
the first of the tannaim, as can be proved from the parallel ters. An aggadic point of particular interest is how King
passages. Agrippa took the census of the people assembled in Jeru-
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 16 5
pesaḤson, isaac mordecai
salem on the occasion of a Passover pilgrimage (4:3; also 63b). Pesante was the author of Ner Mitzvah, a commentary on
There is Gemara in the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds. the azharot of Solomon ibn *Gabirol (Constantinople, 1567;
The Gemara of the Babylonian Talmud contains a consider- second edition with additions, Salonika, 1569); Yesha Elohim
able amount of aggadah. The following are worthy of note: the (Constantinople, 1567), including an exposition of the Hosha-
insistence on refined language (3b); expressions of extreme not and their relevant customs together with the laws of lulav,
antagonism between scholars and ignoramuses (49a–b); ar- and the piyyutim for the Rejoicing of the Law; and Ḥukkat ha-
rogance and anger make a scholar lose wisdom and a prophet Pesaḥ, a commentary on the Passover Haggadah (Salonika,
his prophecy (66b); there is an advantage in the existence of 1569). Among his unpublished works are a commentary on
a Diaspora, insofar as it makes a concentrated attack on Isra- the order of Zera’im of the Jerusalem Talmud and novellae to
el’s existence impossible (87b, also 118b on the causes of Dias- the tractate of Kiddushin.
pora); and finally mention should be made of the story of the Bibliography: Yaari, Sheluḥei, 236.
appointment of Hillel as nasi (66a). The English translation [Samuel Abba Horodezky]
in the Soncino Talmud is by H. Friedman (1938).
Bibliography: Epstein; Tanna’im, 323–36; Ḥ. Albeck, Shi- PESARO, city in north-central Italy on the Adriatic Sea. A
shah Sidrei Mishnah, 2 (1958), 137–42. rabbinical responsum attests to the existence of a Jewish com-
[Arnost Zvi Ehrman] munity there in 1214. We can assume that Jews had settled in
the city even earlier, attracted by its commercial importance.
PESAḤSON, ISAAC MORDECAI (1876–1943), a pioneer of Pesaro’s Jewish residents were engaged in crafts, moneylend-
the *Bund in Russia and Poland. Pesaḥson was born in Shklov ing, and local and regional trade.
but his family settled in Warsaw, where his father, a descendant The establishment of a public loan bank (*Monte di Pi-
of the founder of the *Ḥabad ḥasidic movement, officiated età) in 1468 caused only minimal harm to local Jewish enter-
as rabbi. As a youth Pesaḥson belonged to a group of Jewish prises. Moneylending to the poor was the most conspicuous
Populist and Marxist intelligentsia. In 1893 he assisted in the but by no means the most important, of the manifold activi-
publication of the first Yiddish May Day manifesto. During ties of Jewish bankers. In fact, Jews supplied floating capital to
the 1890s, in contact with I.L. *Peretz, he instructed circles of local artisans and merchants and provided financial support
workers in socialist studies. In 1897 he was active in bringing to farmers in anticipation of the crops. Jews also lent large
about the merger of Polish-born Jewish members of the Pol- amounts of money at low rates of interest to local municipal-
ish Socialist Party (*PPS) and the Union of Jewish Workers in ities, eminent personalities, and noblemen. These loans were
Warsaw led by J. *Mill, whose members came from Lithuania. generally granted solely on the basis of written receipts, and
After the establishment of the Bund, he worked for it in Lodz, without a pegno (guarantee). In the second quarter of the 16t
utilizing his familiarity with Polish ḥasidic life. Subsequently, century, a few Levantine and Portuguese merchants settled in
he was alternately imprisoned on various occasions or active Pesaro and engaged in international and regional commerce
for brief periods in Warsaw and Lodz. He escaped from Si- in wool textiles and leather.
beria and worked with the Bund “committee abroad.” Dur- When the Jews were expelled from the Kingdom of
ing the 1905 Revolution, he worked again in Lodz, and was a Naples in 1541, a branch of the Sarfati family, related to
Bund delegate at the Fifth Convention of the Russian Social the *Abrabanels, settled in Pesaro and engaged in local com-
Democratic Labor Party (London, 1907). From 1909 until his merce and financial activities. They described themselves
death he lived in Bedzin, western Poland. From 1917 he was as Neapolitan Jews and joined the local “Italian” congrega-
a member of the central committee of the Bund in Poland. tion.
He was employed as secretary of the Jewish community in In or around 1549, Leone (Yehudah), son of Samuel Abra-
his town and pursued his activities for the Bund until he was banel, moved to Pesaro from Ferrara, after a bitter quarrel with
murdered during the Nazi occupation. Under the pen name, his mother, Benvenida, who opposed his relations with Luna,
An Alter Bakante, he published reminiscences on the begin- a Portuguese Jewess of exceptional beauty whom he later mar-
nings of the Jewish workers’ movement in Warsaw and Lodz ried. Amatus Lusitanus called her the “divina.”
in Der Yidisher Arbeter, 10 (1900), 27–36; 25 Yor (1922), 35–36; In 1548, Manoel Lopes Bichacho, formerly a leader of
and Royter Pinkos, 2 (1924), 159–64. the Portuguese Nation in Antwerp, settled in Pesaro, where
Bibliography: A. Brandes, Keẓ ha-Yehudim be-Ma’arav Polin he obtained a condotta (banking license) from Guidobaldo,
(1945); I.S. Hertz (ed.), Doyres Bundistn, 1 (1956), 262–9; I.S. Hertz et duke of Urbino.
al. (eds.), Geshikhte fun Bund, 3 vols. (1960–66), index. According to Samuel Usque, in 1549, when the duke of
[Moshe Mishkinsky] Ferrara expelled from his city all the recent arrivals, Manoel
Bichacho persuaded Duke Guidobaldo to allow some of them
PESANTE, MOSES BEN ḤAYYIM BEN SHEM TOV to settle in his lands.
(d. 1573), author and self-appointed emissary of Safed who In 1550, Manoel was allowed to include up to 35 mer-
traveled in Turkey and the Balkans between 1565 and 1573. He chants in his condotta. This was the rather unusual beginning
was murdered in Greece. of the Portuguese Nation in Pesaro.
6 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 16
Pesaro
In 1556, in the wake of the persecutions against the for- tained, for a price, special licenses enabling them to establish
mer *Marranos of *Ancona, several of them fled to Pesaro. This commercial offices and their residences in the center of the
group included the famous physician Amatus Lusitanus; the city, outside the ghetto. Prominent among the new entrepre-
poet Diogo *Pires (alias Isaiah Cohen); Yom Tov Atias (alias neurial class was Salvatore della Ripa, merchant, banker, and
Alvaro de Vargas) and his son Jeronimo, editors of the famous communal leader.
Biblia Española de Ferrara, and Rabbi Yuda Ibn Faraj who later In 1797 when French forces occupied Pesaro, the gates
acted as ambassador of the Portuguese Nation of Pesaro to the of the ghetto were opened. The Jews were declared full
Jewish communities in the Levant. citizens and replaced the yellow badge with the tricolor
After the death of the 26 martyrs of Ancona, Gracia cockade. When the French army withdrew from the city, a
and Joseph *Nasi conceived a famous plan to engage in an mob attacked the Jewish quarter and ransacked the syna-
open commercial war against the Church, boycott the An- gogues.
cona entrepôt, and develop the city of Pesaro as a new cen- When the rule of Church was fully reinstated, the old
ter for maritime trade between Italy and the Levant. Unfor- restrictions were renewed, at least nominally. Nonetheless,
tunately, the port of Pesaro did not have adequate facilities several Jews where permitted to engage in various commer-
and was not deep enough for big merchant ships to berth cial and industrial activities. According to the 1824 National
in it. Furthermore, there were bitter differences among the Industrial Statistics, Bonaiuto d’Ancona employed 60 women
Jewish merchants in the Levant, some of whom did not par- in his spinning factory with a yearly production of 1,400
ticipate in the boycott of Ancona. Consequently, the daring pounds of extra-fine silk, most of which was exported to
program failed. England. Alessandro Bolaffi and Iacob Foligno were engaged
The duke of Urbino was embittered and disappointed by in the silk industry and grain trade. Other merchants dealt
the unfulfilled attempts at developing the port of his city. In in wool garments, leather, and skins, and a variety of other
March 1558, Guidobaldo, overwhelmed by diplomatic pres- goods. However, alongside a few rich families, many others
sure from the Church, decreed the expulsion of all the for- were impoverished and received financial help from the Jew-
mer Marranos, including those who had already been living ish community.
in Pesaro before the Ancona affair. The duke took revenge After his ascent to power, Pope Leone XII (1823–29) rein-
against Manoel Bichacho and seized all the properties and forced the oppressive rules with great obstinacy. All previous
goods belonging to him and his family. The punitive provi- concessions were revoked. Jews were compelled to sell any real
sions were carefully enforced. Italian Jews, however, were not estate they had acquired. Many rich families left the States of
persecuted and enjoyed a period of prosperity. Angelo, son of the Church and moved to more hospitable places. The sons
Zaccaria di Volterra, obtained the license of the bank which of Zaccaria della Ripa settled in Florence, where they had al-
had formerly belonged to his family and later to Emanuel ready established the headquarters of their banking activities.
Bichacho. He also received the job of ducal cashier. Duke However, they kept their house and their offices in Pesaro and
Guidobaldo was so pleased with Angelo’s performance that he continued to support the local Jewish community, which faced
praised him publicly and granted him a “perpetual” exemp- serious economic problems as it had been deprived of most
tion from local taxes. of its wealthiest members.
Sephardi Jews were later readmitted and continued to In 1860 Pesaro was annexed to the kingdom of Italy and
engage, as before, in trade with the Levant. They built a richly the Jews were emancipated. Many families moved to the cen-
decorated synagogue officially designated as “Spanish and Le- ter of the city. In 1869 there were only 160 Jews in the area of
vantine,” but commonly called “Portuguese.” the former ghetto. At the beginning of the 20t century the
After the expulsion of Jews from the Papal States in 1569, Jewish population of Pesaro numbered only 60. By 1940 there
several refugees found shelter in Pesaro. In 1631, when the were only a few individuals. The building of the Italian Syn-
Duchy of Urbino fell under papal rule, the oppressive legis- agogue was severely damaged by an earthquake in 1930 and
lation that applied in the States of the Church was extended was later demolished.
to Pesaro. In 1634, Jews were segregated in a ghetto and com- During World War II no Jews were deported from the
pelled to wear a yellow badge. The new regulations forbade the city of Pesaro. A few Jews joined the Italian partisans and
Jews to own real estate, and drastically reduced their permit- fought in the war of liberation against the occupying German
ted commercial activities to the arte strazzaria (i.e., trade in army. Small groups of foreign Jews lived scattered throughout
secondhand clothes). Jews were not allowed to employ Chris- the large province of Pesaro. Some of them had succeeded in
tians. Jewish physicians were no longer licensed to practice reaching Italy from far-away localities in Germany and Po-
medicine among Christians. As a consequence, many Jews land. Others had handed themselves over to the Italian army
left the city. Their number shrank from 630 in 1628 to barely in Croatia in order to find shelter from the Ustasha militias
500 in 1656. The Jewish population continued to decrease in and German troops. They were arrested by the Italian military
the following century and totaled only 406 persons in 1747. police, who did not hand them over to the SS but confined
However, in the 18t century, the enforcement of the oppres- them to “internment camps” in Italy. However, such camps did
sive legislation was somewhat relaxed. Several bankers ob- not exist in the district of Pesaro. Jewish refugees lived in pri-
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 16 7
pesaro, abramo
vate homes or hotels. They were nominally obliged to appear PESARO, ABRAMO (1818–1882), Italian revolutionary and
every day before the local police but, in truth, they enjoyed communal leader. Pesaro was born in Ferrara where as a
almost complete liberty with the tacit consent of the Italian young man he established a cultural and vocational training
police headquarters in Pesaro. When the German army re- center. In 1846 he belonged to the local committee which or-
treated from the region, the SS arrested a group of Jews hid- ganized a rising against the papal government and was a mem-
den in the hospital of Urbino. These prisoners were executed ber of the National Assembly of Mazzini’s short-lived Roman
at the airport of Forli. republic of 1849. After the failure of the 1848 Revolution he
In 1944 Pesaro was liberated by the Allied forces. The 7t lived in Venice until the establishment of the kingdom of It-
British Army included an all-Jewish unit: the *Jewish (“Pal- aly in 1861. Afterward he returned to Ferrara where he was
estinian”) Brigade, which fought the Germans under the blue active in both Jewish and general public life. He published
and white Zionist flag. There were indescribable scenes of various monographs on Italian Jewish history, in particular a
emotion in Pesaro, as everywhere else, when the surviving work which is still the only history of the Jews of Ferrara (2
Jews met the soldiers displaying the Magen David and the pts., 1878, 1880).
word “Palestine” on their shoulder straps. The Jewish soldiers Bibliography: Milano, Italia, index; Milano, Bibliotheca,
reopened the Sephardi Synagogue and celebrated religious ser- nos. 1255–60.
vices – the last ones to be held in a city with almost no Jewish [Menachem E. Artom]
population left. This synagogue is owned by the Jewish com-
munity of Ancona, which donated the magnificent wooden PESHAT (Heb. טשָ ׁפְּ), word which came to mean the plain,
Aron ha-Kodesh to the Jewish community of Leghorn. Part literal meaning of a text, as opposed mainly to *derash, the
of the bimah was moved to the Levantine Synagogue of An- homiletical interpretation, but also to any other method than
cona. The remains of the prayer hall are considered a national the literal. According to W. Bacher (Die exegetische Terminol-
monument. Complex restoration works have been executed ogie der juedischen Traditionsliteratur, 2 (1905), 112ff.) it was
by the local municipality, and the stucco ornaments of the *Abbaye, in the first half of the fourth century, who first made
vaulted ceiling were restored to their original splendor. Two a distinction between peshat and derash as separate methods of
ancient wall paintings depicting the city of Jerusalem and exegesis, while Dobschuetz regards the word as the innovation
the encampment of the Jews at the foot of Mount Sinai were of the academy of Pumbedita as a whole, including Abbaye,
also restored. Joseph, and Rava. An examination of the one clear instance
The abandoned cemetery on the steep slopes of Mount in which Abbaye advances two interpretations, one of peshat
S. Bartolo was cleared from rampant vegetation, its terraces and one of derash (Sanh. 100b), however, does not bear out
rebuilt and reinforced, the sepulchral stones dug up. the assumption that the word indicates the literal meaning
[Aron Leoni (2nd ed.)] (cf. Loewe in bibliography, p. 163–4). Similarly, the frequently
quoted statement, ein mikra yoẓe middei peshuto, “a text can-
Hebrew Printing
not be taken from the meaning of its peshat” – Shab. 63a; Yev.
Pesaro occupies an important position in the history of He-
11b, 24a – does not necessarily imply that peshat means the
brew publishing. *Abraham b. Ḥayyim “the Dyer” worked in
literal exegesis. In point of fact in parallel passages where one
Pesaro before moving to Ferrara in 1477. In 1507 Gershom
uses the verbal form peshat, the others use darash, or shanah,
Soncino opened a printing house in Pesaro and worked there
or matne (Heb. and Aramaic respectively for “studied,” or “re-
with some interruptions until 1520. He produced, besides
peated”; Num. R. 18:22; Gen. R. 10:7 ed. Theodor Albeck p. 81,
books in Italian and Latin, an impressive range of classical
and notes), while in two interpretations given by R. Dimi to a
Hebrew texts: some 20 Talmud treatises, a complete Bible
biblical passage (Gen. 49:11–12) that which is called “the peshat
(1511–17), Pentateuch or Bible commentaries by Baḥya (re-
of the verse” (peshta de-kera) is much further removed from
printed three times), by Moses b. Naḥman (Naḥmanides),
the literal meaning than the other interpretation given (Ket.
Levi b. Gershom, David Kimḥi, Isaac Abrabanel as well as an
111b; cf. also Kid. 80b; Er. 23b; Ar. 8b). Actually the rabbis had
edition of Nathan b. Jehiel’s Sefer Arukh (1517). Some of these
only two major methods of biblical exegesis, that of halakhah
works appear as issued by the “Sons of Soncino.”
and that of aggadah, neither of which depended upon literal
[Ariel Toaff] exegesis and in most instances deviated from it.
Bibliography: Roth, Italy, index; Idem. The House of Naci, The basic meaning of the root of the word peshat in bib-
Doña Gracia, index; Kaufman, in REJ, 16 (1888), 231–39; idem, in: JQR, lical Hebrew is “to flatten out,” with the secondary meaning
4 (1892), 509–12; Adler, in: REJ, 89 (1930), 98–103; D.W. Amram, Mak- “to extend” or “to stretch out” (hence the meaning “to make
ers of Hebrew Books in Italy (1909), 104 ff.; H.D. Friedberg, Ha-De-
a raid” – Job. 1:17), and from this was derived the talmudic
fus ha-Ivri be-Italyah (19562); A.M. Haberman, Ha-Madpisim Benei
meaning of “to expatiate upon,” or “to propound.” In context,
Soncino (1933), 37–39, 50–60. Add. Bibliography: A. Leoni, in:
peshat in talmudic literature seems to mean not the plain
Sefarad, 59 (1999), 77–100; M.L. Moscati Benigni, in: Itinerary ebraici
meaning but “the teaching recognized by the public as obvi-
(1999), 118–31; A. Leoni, “La Nazione Portoghese ad Ancona e Pesaro,”
in: I. Zorattini (ed.), Identità dissimulata (2000), 27–98; R.P. Uguc- ously authoritative, since familiar and traditional” (Loewe)
cioni, (ed.), Studi sulla Comunità Ebraica di Pesaro (2003). or “the usual accepted traditional meaning as it was generally
8 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 16