Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Babylonian captivity, in the history of Israel, the period from the fall of Jerusalem (586 b.c.) to the reconstruction in Palestine of a new Jewish state (after 538 b.c.). After the capture of the cit...

(Encyclopedia) Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States, in Washington, D.C. on the National Mall, memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. Designed by architect James Ingo Freed, it opened in 1993. Using a stark, ...

(Encyclopedia) pharaoh fârˈō [key] [Heb., from Egyptian,=the great house], title of the kings of ancient Egypt. Of the pharaohs in the Bible, Shishak is Sheshonk I, Neco or Necoh is Necho, and Hophra is Apries. M...

(Encyclopedia) Bronfman, Edgar Miles, Sr. 1929–2013, Canadian-American business executive and philanthropist, b. Montreal, grad. McGill Univ. (1951). He was the eldest son of Samuel Bronfman, 1889–1971, an East ...

(Encyclopedia) Husseini, Amin al- ämēnˈ äl ho͝osāˈnē [key], 1896?–1974, Arab political and religious leader. He was inveterately opposed to the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, and, suspected of co...

(Encyclopedia) Jamnia jăbˈnə, –nē [key] [Heb.,=God causes to build], ancient city, central Israel. Its modern name is Yavne. A central city of Philistia, the Bible refers to its walls being destroyed by Uzziah...

(Encyclopedia) Heydrich, Reinhard rīnˈhärt hīˈdrĭkh [key], 1904–42, German police official under the Nazi regime. Forced to resign (1931) from the navy for misconduct, Heydrich joined the SS (see National So...

(Encyclopedia) Purim po͞oˈrĭm [key] [Heb.,=lots], Jewish festival celebrated on the 14th of Adar, the twelfth month in the Jewish calendar (Feb.–March). During leap years it is celebrated in Adar II. According ...

(Encyclopedia) Roth, Joseph or Józef yōˈzĕf rōt [key], 1894–1939, Austrian novelist, essayist, journalist, and publisherb. Brody, Galicia. An outspoken critic of Hitler and militarism, he moved to Paris in 19...

(Encyclopedia) catacombs katˈəkōmz [key], cemeteries of the early Christians and contemporary Jews, arranged in extensive subterranean vaults and galleries. Besides serving as places of burial, the catacombs were...