Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Sanhedrin sănhĕdˈrĭn [key], ancient Jewish legal and religious institution in Jerusalem that appears to have exercised the functions of a court between c.63 b.c. and c.a.d. 68. The accounts of it ...

(Encyclopedia) Esau ēˈsô [key] [Heb.,=hairy], in the Bible, son of Isaac, who sold his birthright to his younger twin, Jacob, for lentil stew and who was tricked by Jacob out of his father's blessing. Also known ...

(Encyclopedia) excommunication, formal expulsion from a religious body, the most grave of all ecclesiastical censures. Where religious and social communities are nearly identical it is attended by social ostracism, ...

(Encyclopedia) Isserles, Moses ben Israel ĭsˈərlĕs [key], c.1525–1572, Polish rabbi, annotator, and philosopher, b. Kraków, known as Remah. He is best known for his glosses on the code of Jewish law of Joseph...

(Encyclopedia) Noah, Mordecai Manuel , nōˈə [key], 1785–1851, American journalist and politician, b. Philadelphia. He became a journalist in Charleston, S.C., and gave ardent support to the War of 1812. As a sp...

(Encyclopedia) Pale. 1 In Irish and English history, that district of indefinite and varying limits around Dublin, in which English law prevailed. The term was first used in the 14th cent. to designate what had prev...

(Encyclopedia) Pinsk pĭnsk, Rus. pēnsk [key], city (1989 pop. 118,636), S Belarus, in the Pripyat Marshes and at the confluence of the Pina and Pripyat rivers. A port on the Pina River (part of the Dnieper-Buh wat...

(Encyclopedia) Demetrius II (Demetrius Nicator) nīkāˈtər [key], d. c.125 b.c., king of ancient Syria, son of Demetrius I. He was aided against the usurper, Alexander Balas, by Ptolemy VI (Ptolemy Philometer). He...

(Encyclopedia) Allah ălˈə, äˈlə [key], [Arab.,=the God]. Derived from an old Semitic root refering to the Divine and used in the Canaanite El, the Mesopotamian ilu, and the biblical Elohim, the word Allah is u...

(Encyclopedia) Duran, Durand düräNtˈ [key], Jewish family of scholars. Profiat Isaac ben Moshe ha-Levi Duran, 1350–1414, called Efodi, was born probably in Perpignan, France, but he moved to Catalonia. In 1391...