ALBA IULIA
(in the Roman period Apulum; Hung. Gyulafe-hervar; medieval Latin Alba Carolina; Ger. Karlsburg, also Weyssenburg; referred to in Yiddish and Hebrew sources by the German name Karlsburg; in Ladino sources Carlosburg), city in Transylvania. Alba Iulia was the seat of residence of the princes of Transylvania in the 16th and 17th centuries; for several centuries it was administered by Hungary but was incorporated into Romania after World War i. The Jews there, originally Sephardim, benefited from the patronage of the princes of Transylvania. A Hebrew document of 1591 mentions a bet din there. In 1623 Prince Bethlen Gabor granted the Jews of Alba Iulia a liberal charter of residential and commercial privileges, framed at the insistence of Abraham Szasza, a Jewish physician from Constantinople, who had been invited to settle there. The privileges were endorsed by the National Assembly in 1627. However in the code Approbatae Constitutiones passed by the National Assembly in 1653, Jewish residence in Transylvania remained restricted to Alba Iulia. Prince Apaffi Mihnly I reaffirmed Jewish privileges in 1673 after anti-Jewish outbreaks had occurred. The charter was renewed a number of times. The Christian Hebraist, Janos Apaczai Csere (1625-1659), was active in Alba Iulia and recommended the inclusion of Hebrew in the senior school curriculum. Data in a census of 1735 show that the Jews then living in Alba Iulia originated from Poland, Turkey, Moldavia, Wallachia, Hungary, Moravia, and Belgrade. But during the 18th century the number of Jews living there decreased very sharply as a result of Rakoczi’s rebellion; only after the return of the region to peaceful conditions did the number of Jews begin to increase again. From that period the Ashkenazi element became increasingly predominant. Alba Iulia was regarded as the Jewish "capital" of Transylvania. The shofet (judge) of the community was styled the "head of the Jewish people of the region." Between 1754 and 1868 the rabbi of the congregation held the title "rabbi of Karlsburg and chief rabbi of the state." The first known chief rabbi was the Sephardi hakham Abraham Isaac Russo (d. 1738). Best known was Ezekiel *Panet, who officiated in Alba Iulia between 1823 and 1845. The last chief rabbi to officiate was Abraham Friedman (1879). Until the emancipation of the Jews in Austria-Hungary in 1867 their entire religious life developed under the strict control and censorship of the Roman-Catholic bishop of the region. After the religious schism in Hungarian Jewry in 1867 the Alba Iulia congregation remained within the *status quo ante faction. An Orthodox congregation was formed in 1908, and in 1932 it was joined by the original congregation of Alba Iulia, which had until then adhered to its status quo position. The pinkas (minute book) of the community for the period 1736-1835, written in a mixture of Hebrew, Yiddish, Ju-deo-Spanish, German, Hungarian, and Romanian, has been preserved. The *Neolog rite of the Hungarian Jews was almost entirely absent in this city. A Jewish newspaper, the Sieben-buerger Israelit, was published in 1883 for a short time. In the 17th century there were about 100 Jews living in Alba Iulia; in 1754, 54 taxpayers; in 1891, 1,357 persons; in 1910, 1,586 (out of a total population of 11,616); in 1920, 1,770 (out of 9,645); and in 1930, 1,558 (out of 12,282). As the area became a hotbed of the antisemitic *Iron Guard, conditions for Jews became difficult. In 1938 a bomb exploded in one of the synagogues. All the property of the community was confiscated in 1941, and the men were seized for forced labor. The Jewish population of Alba Iulia increased during World War 11, however, as Jews were sent there from the surrounding areas by the authorities. Heavy fighting in 1944 caused an additional influx. The maximum figure was 2,070 in 1947. This was considerably diminished by emigration in the 1960s. At the outset of the 21st century the number of Jews living in Alba Iulia was very small, as it was in all of Transylvania and Romania.
ALBALA, DAVID
(1886-1942), Jewish and Zionist leader in Serbia and Yugoslavia. Albala was born in Belgrade, studied medicine at the University of Vienna, and practiced in Belgrade. In 1903 he founded Gideon, the first Zionist youth association in Belgrade. In 1917 he served on the Serbian delegation to the U.S. that attempted to gain support for the country, which had been conquered by the armies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. While in the U.S. he advocated enlistment of Jews into the *Jewish Legion, and obtained an official letter of sympathy and support for the political aims of Zionism from the Serbian foreign minister in the U.S. (Dec. 27, 1917). After World War 1 he was a leading figure of Yugoslav Jewry and its Zionist movement. In 1935 he visited Palestine and established a forest in memory of King Alexander of Yugoslavia. At the outbreak of World War 11 he was sent to Washington on behalf of the Yugoslav government.
ALBALAG, ISAAC
(13th century), translator and philosopher. Albalag probably lived in Catalonia. In 1292, Albalag composed the only work of his which has come down, a Hebrew version of al-*Ghazali’s Magasidal-Falasifa (Hebrew, Kavvanot or De’ot ha-Filosofim), with a prologue and 75 more or less elaborate notes to which he gave the special title Tik-kun ha-Deot. In this independent addition to his translation, Albalag sought not so much to elucidate the basic text as to subject it to a critical evaluation, for the real purpose of his annotated translation was to determine the respective roles of revelation and philosophy in the speculations of the intellectual Jew.
According to Albalag, philosophy is identical with Aristotle’s teachings as interpreted by *Averroes. This affirmation necessarily placed him in direct opposition to *Avicenna and to *Maimonides, an opposition to which he often gives expression. Yet, although he is closely dependent upon Averroes, he does not follow him blindly, or in all matters. According to Albalag, four fundamental beliefs are common to revelation (Torah) and to philosophy: the existence of God, reward and punishment, the soul’s survival of physical death, and Providence. (It should be noted that rejection of the eternity of the universe is not listed among these beliefs.) Revelation addresses itself to the mass of believers in terms which are within their power of comprehension. An appropriate allegorical exegesis can always extract philosophical truths from the Torah; thus, Albalag interprets the first two topics of Genesis (Maaseh Bereshit) in the sense of eternal *creation, though he does say that such exegesis does not yield absolute certitude. Albalag does not deny that the Torah, which is above all a "political" book, a guide for life designed to ensure good order in human society, contains truths inaccessible to human reason. However, those truths, described as "prophetic," are of as little interest to the common man, whose welfare is assured by obedience to the letter of the Law, as to the intellectual who is capable of attaining through philosophy the truths necessary for the beatitude of his immortal soul. Albalag seems to acknowledge some sort of individual immortality (see Immortality of *Soul); at any rate, he does not follow Averroes in the latter’s radical doctrine of the total fusion of the disembodied rational souls with the Active *Intellect. As for the vaunted "tradition" of the esoterics, it has, according to Albalag, no serious claims to authenticity. Even though he speaks in respectful terms of three contemporary kabbalists (*Isaac b. Jacob ha-Kohen, To-dros b. Joseph *Abulafia, and *Moses b. Solomon b. Simeon of Burgos), it is precisely the demonology which was so dear to them that he discards. In those cases where allegorical exegesis fails to resolve the contradiction between the indisputable facts of scriptural faith and the results of philosophic speculation, there is no alternative but to acknowledge each in its own sphere, namely, the truth laid down by the revealed text and the contrary truth irrefutably established by rational demonstration. Albalag’s line of thought and his vocabulary (truth imposed by way of nature, truth believed by way of miracle) indicate with great plausibility the influence of contemporary Latin Averroists who were accused of professing the theory of the "double truth." In the final analysis it is, however, doubtful whether Albalag would have granted full validity to a truth which was not exclusively rational, at least in the case of any man who was not a prophet. One of Albalag’s notes on the part of al-Ghazali Magasid devoted to logic, which is in some of the manuscripts, was borrowed from a certain Abner, who could only have been *Abner of Burgos.
Although later Jewish philosophers and theologians made frequent use of Albalag’s translation of al-Ghazali, Tikkun ha-Deot brought him, except for the praises of his younger contemporary Isaac b. Joseph ibn Pollegar, nothing but censure and abuse on the part of the kabbalists, such as Shem Tov *Ibn Shem Tov, and the fideist opponents of Aristotelian philosophy in the 15th century, such as Abraham *Shalom and Isaac *Abrabanel. Nevertheless, his work was eagerly copied and undoubtedly read with interest in the Jewish intellectual circles of southern Italy and Greece during the same century. Beginning with the 16th century, however, his name and work were almost forgotten. They owe their emergence in the history of Jewish thought to the researches of J.H. *Schorr who published extracts of the Tikkun ha-De’ot.
ALBALIA, BARUCH BEN ISAAC
(1077-1126), Spanish judge and head of a yeshivah in Cordoba; son of Isaac *Albalia. Born in Seville, he went to Lucena after his father’s death (when he was 17 years old) in fulfillment of his father’s express wish, in order to get R. Isaac *Alfasi to drop the hostility he had long harbored toward his father, and to be accepted as a student in Alfasi’s academy. He studied there nine years, together with Joseph *Ibn Migash. After the death of Alfasi, Albalia became judge and head of the yeshivah in Cordoba. Among his many disciples was his nephew Abraham *Ibn Daud. Albalia was well versed in Greco-Arabic philosophy. Among his friends, he counted *Judah Halevi, and Moses Ibn Ezra. There is a play on words in one of Halevi’s poems (Divan, ed. by H. Brody, 1 (1935), 120): "His name is ‘Baruch’ [blessed], and he, like his name, is blessed, and all who bless themselves with his name, are, in turn, blessed," apparently alluding to Albalia and testifying to his influence on Spanish Jewish intellectuals. On his death Moses Ibn Ezra eulogized him in a poem beginning with the verse: "Einot Tehom Hem-mah ve-lo-Einayim" (Shirei ha-Elol., ed. by H. Brody (1935), 92) and Judah Halevi did the same in a poem beginning "Mar la-Am Yikre’u Azarah" (Selected Poems, ed. Brody (1946), with English translation, 82).
ALBALIA, ISAAC BEN BARUCH
(1035-1094), Spanish astronomer and talmudist. Isaac was born in Cordoba. According to *Ibn Daud, in his youth he had a great Jewish scholar, R. Perigors from France, as a teacher. He was also close to R. Samuel ben Joseph ha-Nagid, and later to the latter’s son *Jehoseph ben Samuel ha-Nagid, to whom in 1065 he dedicated his calendrical work Mahberet Sod ha-Ibbur ("The Secret of Intercalation"). After the disastrous death of Jehoseph ha-Nagid (1066), R. Isaac spent great sums of money in reassembling the family library which had been scattered. In 1069 al-Mu tamid, king of Seville, appointed him to his retinue as court astrologer, and also as rabbi and *nasi over the Jews in his realm. R. Isaac used his influence at court to improve the status of the Jews of the kingdom. Isaac was renowned for his great erudition, both in general and in Jewish studies. At the age of 30, he began to write his Kuppat ha-Rokhelim ("Spice-Peddlers’ Basket"), a commentary on difficult passages in the Talmud, but did not complete it. R. Moses *Ibn Ezra refers to him as a "poet and grand stylist" (Shirat Yis-rael, ed. by B.Z. Halper (1924), 72). Two of Albalia’s responsa have been preserved: one on the laws of zizit in *Abraham b. David of Posquieres’Temim De’im, no. 224, and one in Arabic in Toratam shel Rishonim (ed. by Ch. M. Horowitz, 2 (1881), 36-38). He died in Granada.
ALBANIA
Balkan state (bordering Serbia and Montenegro (formerly Republic of Yugoslavia), Macedonia, and Greece) on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea; from 1478 to 1913 under the sovereignty of Turkey.
*Benjamin of Tudela heard of people living in the region, evidently Wallachians, toward the end of the 12th century: "They are not strong in the faith of the Nazarenes and call each other by Jewish names, and some say that they are Jews." Jewish settlements were founded at the beginning of the 16th century in the Albanian seaports by exiles from Spain, who were joined by refugees from other areas. There were sizeable trading communities at Berat, Durazzo, Elbassan, and Valona: here there were Castilian, Catalonian, Sicilian, Portuguese, and Apulian synagogues.
In 1673 Shabbetai Z evi was exiled by the sultan to Albania, dying in Dulcigno. In 1685, during the Turkish-Venetian War, members of the Valona community fled to Berat. Those who remained were taken prisoner, including Nehemiah *H ayon. Between 1788 and 1822 Jews suffered from the extortions of Ali Pasha. The Jewish minorities were accused of collaborating to suppress the rebels during the Albanian revolt in 1911.
After World War 1 only a small number of Jews were living in Albania, in Koritsa (1927). According to a 1930 census, there were 204 Jewish inhabitants in Albania. The Albanian community was granted official recognition on April 2, 1937. In 1939, some families from Austria and Germany took refuge in Tirana and Durazzo.
The Holocaust Period
In July 1940 all Jews were ordered to transfer to Berat, Lushnje, and Fier. Nine months later, during the battle between Greece and Italy in April 1941, when part of Yugoslavia was annexed to Albania, an additional 120 Jewish refugees from Serbia, Croatia, and Macedonia arrived there. In addition, 350 Jewish prisoners of war were brought in from Montenegro. Jewish refugees were well treated by the native population. The local community in Kavaje assisted 200 Jewish refugees. In 1942 refugees from Pristina were transferred to Berat and protected there.
In September 1943 after the change in the Italian government and the German domination of Italy, Albania came under German control and the situation of the Jews deteriorated dramatically. Some Jews fled to the partisans. Others obtained false papers. Albanian bureaucrats gave identity papers to many Jews of Kavaje so they could go to Tirana and hide there and in 1944 the governors of Albania refused to cooperate in submitting a list to the Germans of all the Jews.
Cities in Albania known to have had Jewish inhabitants.
In all, 600 Jews were saved from the Holocaust. Only six Jews from Shkoder were arrested and sent to a camp in Pristina. No Jews were turned over to the Germans.
Modern Period
After World War 11 until the collapse of Communism in 1990, the community, numbering 200-300, was completely cut off from the Jewish world. All religion was strictly outlawed and there was no communal life, no rabbi, and no Jewish educational facilities. In 1991 almost the entire community was airlifted to Israel. Relations between Albania and Israel were subsequently normalized, with an agricultural cooperation agreement signed in 1999 and Israeli aid accepted for the Ko-savar refugees there. Efforts were made by the Joint to revive community life among the few dozen remaining Jews, nearly all in the capital, Tirana. A synagogue still existed in Valona (Vlore) but was no longer in use.
ALBANY
Capital of the state of New York, 150 miles north of New York City; population, 95,000 (2004); estimated Jewish population, 12,000-13,000 with half living in suburbs but members of Albany congregations. Public records indicate the presence of Jews as early as 1658. Asser Levy owned property, obtained burgher’s rights, and lived in Albany in the 1650s. Other early Jewish merchants and traders who resided in Albany included Jacob Lucena, Hayman Levy, Jonas Phillips, Asher Levy, Levi Solomons and Levi Solomons (11). The second Solomons, who lived with his family in Albany in the early 19th century, started a chocolate and snuff business and belonged to New York’s Shearith Israel.
A Jewish community emerged in the 1830s as immigrants from Bavaria and Posen arrived in Albany. German-speaking Jews organized Congregation Beth El in 1838. By 1841, the congregation had bought a burial ground and purchased its first synagogue building. Divisions over language and ritual led to the founding of Beth El Jacob in 1841 by Jews of Polish origin. After acquiring property for a synagogue and separate burial grounds, the congregation built a new synagogue in 1847. Prominent Gentiles including Mayor William Parmalee attended the dedication of Beth El Jacob on April 28, 1848. Isaac Mayer *Wise arrived in the United States from Bohemia and became Albany’s first rabbi when he took over leadership of Beth El in 1846. He was the teacher at the congregation’s Hebrew school, then one of only four in the United States. Wise’s advocacy of changes in ritual split the congregation with the famous confrontation at the Rosh Ha-Shanah service on September 7, 1850. Synagogue officers prevented him from taking out the Torah scrolls, a fight ensued, and Wise and members of the congregation were arrested. By October 11, 1850, Wise and 77 supporters had organized Anshe Emeth, the fourth Reform congregation in the United States. Members of all three congregations were poor and worked as peddlers, tinsmiths, tailors, or middlemen. About 800 Jews lived in Albany in 1860.
By the 1880s, the arrival of Jews from the Russian Empire expanded the Jewish population to 3,000. Further immigration of Russian- and Polish-speaking Jews increased the community to 4,000 in 1900 and 10,000 in the 1920s. Assimilation and Americanization led to the merger of Beth El and Anshe Emeth in 1885 to form Beth Emeth, the only Reform congregation in Albany. Rabbi Wise returned to Albany in 1889 to dedicate the synagogue for the combined congregation. Recent immigrants, while Orthodox, did not feel comfortable in Beth El Jacob and formed a separate congregation, Sons of Abraham, in 1882. In 1902 another group of Russian Jews split off and established the United Brethren Society, as a separate congregation that followed a h asidic prayer book, and the congregation incorporated in 1905.
From the 1830s to about 1950, the South End, especially the area around South Pearl Street, remained a Jewish neighborhood with kosher meat markets, restaurants, Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues, and communal institutions. As Albany expanded in the early 1900s Jewish residents moved "up the hill" and started new congregations in the Pine Hills and Delaware neighborhoods. Ohav Shalom, the first Conservative congregation, began in 1911, and purchased property for a synagogue in 1922. Another group of Jews in Pine Hills began to meet at Schwartz’s Mansion and became Tifereth Israel in 1936. Sons of Israel, a third Conservative congregation, began in the 1930s, and constructed a synagogue in 1935.
The passing of the immigrant generation, Americanization, and suburbanization led to a relocation and reorganization of the synagogues. The Orthodox synagogues merged with the United Brethren Society, joining Beth El Jacob in 1959, and Beth El Jacob merged with Sons of Abraham in 1974 to form Beth Abraham-Jacob. The combined congregation dedicated a new synagogue in 1991. A small group of Orthodox Jews sought to create an informal religious community, and established a shtibl, a small house of prayer, Shomray Torah, in 1965. Reform Congregation Beth Emeth built a new synagogue in 1957. A split within the congregation created a new Reform congregation, Bnai Sholom, in 1971, and the new congregation dedicated its own synagogue in 1979. Two Conservative congregations merged in 1949 as Tifereth Israel, and Sons of Israel joined to build a new synagogue, dedicated as Temple Israel in 1956, which was led for a generation by Rabbi Herman Kieval and produced rabbis and scholars. A Hebrew-speaking day camp, Camp Givah, was perhaps the only one in the United States at the time. Ohav Shalom remained separate and dedicated a new building in 1964. Starting in November 1991 Jews seeking an informal and egalitarian community created the Havurah Minyan of the Capital District, following Conservative ritual. In 1995, Ohav Shalom voted to become equalitarian in worship and ritual life. While the Jewish community increasingly resides in the suburbs, synagogues and the Albany Jewish Community Center remain in the city. This led hasidic Jews to establish Chabad houses in Albany, Delmar, Guilderland, and, in December 2004, in Colonie.
Jewish residents organized social, fraternal, mutual aid, and self-defense institutions. In 1843 the Society for Brotherly Love became the first mutual aid and burial society. Congregations started burial societies and in 1855 merged their mutual aid groups into the Hebrew Benevolent Society. Merger with the Jewish Home Society led to the Albany Jewish Social Service in 1931, now Jewish Family Services. It aided Jewish refugees in the 1930s, Holocaust survivors in the 1940s and 1950s, and from 1988 it resettled 1,300 Soviet Jews, the latest Jewish immigrants to the Albany area. State government workers and scholars working at the local universities including State University of New York at Albany are a distinct component of the current Jewish community.
B’nai B’rith opened a German-speaking topic in 1853, but an English-language topic, the Gideon Lodge, began in 1870 and replaced the German language branch by 1910. A women’s organization, United Order of True Sisters, started a topic in 1857, and is still active. Concern for the elderly poor led to the Jewish Home Society in 1875, which merged with Daughters of Sarah in 1941, and in the 1970s they built a new facility in Albany. Gideon Lodge joined with the Albany
Jewish Community Council to build senior citizen housing, Bnai Brith Parkview Apartments, which opened in 1973, and Congregation Ohav Shalom built senior citizen housing next to their synagogue in 1974.
In the early 2000s Jewish educational institutions included the Orthodox Maimonides Hebrew Day School. Combining Jewish and secular education is Bet Shraga Hebrew Academy, which is named after a Jewish educator and not a prominent donor – the brilliant and dynamic Jewish educator Philip "Shraga" Arian, who served as the educational director at Temple Israel, opened in 1963. Responding to the anti-semitism of the 1930s and activities of the German-American Bund, local veterans formed the Jewish War Veterans in 1935, and it remains a local veterans organization concerned with patriotism, education, and antisemitism. Starting in 1938 local Jewish groups created the Albany Jewish Community Council, now the Jewish Federation of Northeastern New York, to combat antisemitism, coordinate among Jewish organizations, and represent the community. The Holocaust Survivors and Friends Education Center raises public awareness of the Holocaust, especially in public schools. Starting out in the Hebrew Institute in 1915, the ymha and ywha merged into the Jewish Community Center in 1925. Formally incorporated in 1926, the jcc gradually replaced the Hebrew Institute as a meeting place for Jewish groups and as a center for recreational activities. The jcc built its current headquarters and recreational center in 1960. The variety of Jewish institutions peaked in about 1915, when there were anarchist, socialist, Zionist, and Yiddish-language benevolent societies in Albany. Today’s synagogues and organizations reflect the ongoing tensions between assimilation and retention of Jewish identity and religious practice. While probably half of Albany’s Jewish community actually resides in suburbs, synagogues have not followed the pattern in other Jewish communities and relocated to the suburbs. All the congregations have relocated but remain within the city of Albany. Finally, the resettlement of 1,300 Soviet Jews in the Capital District since 1988 represents the most significant Jewish immigration into the Albany area since the early 1920s.
ALBARADANI, JOSEPH
(tenth century), liturgical poet and chief hazzan in the Great Synagogue of Baghdad. The surname is derived from a suburb of Baghdad called Baradan. The fact that his liturgical poems were composed to correspond with the annual Torah reading cycle (and not with the triennial one current at the time in Erez Israel) supports the view that he was of Babylonian origin. Many of Joseph’s poems are preserved in all the large genizah collections but only a few specimens have appeared in print. Beside the kerovot for the Torah readings, Joseph composed several short mas-dar poems (introductions, at a later period called reshuyyot). Strangely enough, some of these were included in the Sicilian liturgical collection, Hizzunim. He was succeeded as hazzan by his son Nahum ha-Hazzan, who was a friend of the geonim *Sherira, *Hai b. Sherira, and *Samuel b. Hophni. In 999 he went on an official mission to Kairouan from where he was to continue on his way to Spain. However, Hai Gaon ordered him back in 1006 in order to take over the post of his late father. He, too, was the author of liturgical poems. Nahum was in turn succeeded by his son Solomon al-Baradani as hazzan and paytan.
AL-BARGELONI
(i.e. "of Barcelona"), ISAAC BEN REUBEN (b. 1043), Spanish talmudist and liturgical poet. In a genizah fragment Al-Bargeloni is described as a pupil of *Hanokh b. Moses and must, therefore, have studied for some time in Cordoba. His permanent residence was the coastal city of Denia, where he was presumably active as a dayyan until his death. *Nahmanides was one of his descendants. Abraham *Ibn Daud extols his learning, including him among the four distinguished contemporaries of Isaac Alfasi, also called Isaac. Moses *Ibn Ezra and *Al-Harizi praise his poetical talent, especially his ingenuity in interpolating biblical verses into his poems. This skill is particularly manifest in Isaac’s azharot, in which all 145 strophes end with a biblical quotation. The azharot have been included in most North African rites published since 1655 and have been frequently published, both alone and together with those of Solomon ibn *Gabirol. Of Isaac’s other poems there are extant two introductions to the azharot, two tokhehot (one unpublished), two mi-khamokha, and an ahavah. His halakhic works consist of commentaries to single tractates of the Talmud (not preserved), and a translation from Arabic to Hebrew of *Hai Gaon’s Sefer ha-Mikkah ve-ha-Mimkar made in 1078. According to Simeon b. Zemah *Duran (Responsa 1:15), *Judah b. Barzillai al-Bargeloni was Isaac’s pupil.
ALBARRACIN
Spanish city near Teruel in Aragon. Jews were living there in the 12th century. The fuero (charter), granted to Albarracin by the local overlord about 1220, includes regulations governing the legal status and economic activities of the Jews. In 1391 the municipal council attempted to compel the Jews to submit to its legislation, but the king opposed this move. The Jews of Albarracin suffered in the anti-Jewish riots in *Spain that year; in 1392 the gate of the Jewish quarter was broken down and several of the inhabitants were massacred. There is evidence that the Jews in Albarracin maintained their communal organization, social identity, and economic activities until the expulsion. Albarracin was among the communities which requested of Juan 11 in 1458 to ratify new communal regulations. The community was permitted to levy a cisa tax on foodstuffs and was released from a series of other taxes; the procedure regarding oaths was changed. Between 1484 and 1486 an Inquisitional tribunal operated in Albarracin, but for the most part the trials of the local Con-versos took place in Teruel. The expulsion of the Jews from Albarracin, among other communities, was ordered in May 1486. The Jews were granted three months in which to comply; in July the king advised *Torquemada to grant them an additional six months. At the time of the general expulsion from Spain in 1492, however, some Jews were still apparently living in Albarracin and the aged rabbi Solomon urged his congregation to accept exile rather than conversion to Christianity.
ALBAZ, MOSES BEN MAIMON
(16th century), Moroccan kabbalist. Albaz, who lived in Tarrodant, was the author of Heikhal Kodesh, which he began writing in 1575. It is an interpretation of the prayers in the kabbalistic idiom, based mainly on the Zohar and Menahem *Recanati’s works. The manuscript was owned by R. Jacob *Sasportas, who published it with the annotations of R. Aaron ha-Sab’uni of Sale (1653). His work Sod Kaf-Bet Otiyyot is preserved in the copy by R. Joseph b. Solomon ibn Mussa (London, Jews’ College, Mon-tefiore Ms. 335).
AL-BAZAK, MAZ LI’AH BEN ELIJAH IBN
(11th century), dayyan in Sicily. Mazli’ah was a pupil of *Hai Gaon in Pum-bedita and later he apparently migrated to Sicily where he was appointed dayyan. *Nathan b. Jehiel, author of the Arukh, was his pupil and it is quite likely that the explanations of Arabic and Persian terms appearing in Nathan’s work were derived from his teacher. Mazli’ah wrote a letter in Arabic to Samuel ha-Nagid, concerning Hai Gaon, of which fragments only are extant. One fragment has a commentary by Hai Gaon to
Psalms 103:5, and in another it is stated that Hai Gaon, with a view to seeking a correct interpretation of Psalms 141:5, sent Mazli’ah to the Nestorian patriarch, who showed him the Syriac version. On a journey to Europe – or on some other occasion – Mazli’ah stopped over in Erez; Israel, when he acted as a judge in a civil dispute in Ramleh.
ALBECK
Family of talmudic scholars. shalom (1858-1920), talmudic and rabbinic scholar, born and educated in Warsaw. Though he earned his living in business, Albeck gained distinction as an astute scholar.Albeck also began to publish the Even ha-Ezer of *Eliezer b. Nathan, together with an introduction and commentary (pt. 1, 1904); and the Sefer ha-Eshkol of *Abraham b. Isaac of Narbonne, with an introduction and notes (pt. 1, 1910), completed by his son Hanokh (1935-8). Albeck’s questioning of the authenticity of the earlier edition of this work by Z.B. *Auerbach gave rise to a keen literary polemic. Albeck also planned to publish the Babylonian Talmud with variant readings on the basis of manuscripts and with a modern commentary, but only a specimen was published, Moda’ah Talmud Bavli (1913). A critical study of the writings of *Judah b. Barzil-lai al-Bargeloni appeared in Festschrift… IsraelLewy (1911).
His son hanokh (Chanokh; 1890-1972), talmudic scholar, studied at the Theological Seminary and the University of Vienna, became research scholar at the *Akademie fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin (1920) and lecturer in Talmud at the *Hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums (1926). In 1936 he immigrated to Erez Israel and was professor of Talmud at the Hebrew University, until 1956. Albeck’s work covers almost all areas of talmudic research. In his studies on tannaitic literature, he came to the conclusion that the editors (not only of tannaitic literature, but also of the Talmud) compiled their materials without adapting, abridging, or reworking them, as their only objective was to collect scattered materials. This first attempt to offer a comprehensive solution to the various problems arising out of the study of talmudic literature provoked a keen controversy, not yet settled. In Albeck’s opinion, as opposed to that of David *Hoffmann, the principal differences between the two types of halakhic Midrashim stem from divergent redactions. Al-beck even set out to prove that both the *Tosefta and the hal-akhic Midrashim, as they are known, were unknown to the two Talmuds. In his work on the halakhah in the Book of Jubilees Albeck argued that it does not stem from any of the three known sects (Pharisees, Sadducees, or Essenes), but that it originated in the circles of another sect, the "Circle of *Enoch," and shows affinity to the halakhah of the *Damas-cus Covenant. These conclusions have assumed special importance since the discovery of the *Dead Sea Scrolls. After the death of J. *Theodor, Albeck completed the publication of the latter’s monumental critical edition of Genesis Rabbah and he wrote the comprehensive introduction as well. This work is a striking example of an extremely accurate critical edition. Albeck also edited the Hebrew translation of Zunz’s Gottesdienstliche Vortraege, adding a great amount of new material. His major works are an edition of *Meiri’s Beit ha-Behirah on Yevamot (1922); Untersuchungen ueber die Redak-tion der Mischna (1923); Genesis Rabbah (1926-36); Untersuchungen ueber die halakischen Midrashim (1927); Das Buch der Jubilaeen und die Halacha (1930); Ha-Eshkol by Abraham b. Isaac, 1-2 (1935-38); Bereshit Rabbati (1940); Mehkarim bi-Veraita ve-Tosefta (1944); Ha-Derashot be-Yisrael, Zunz’s work (1947); The Mishnah (with introductions, commentary, and notes; 1952-59); Mavo la-Mishnah (1959); Mavo la-Talmudim, 1 (1969). Beside his major works, he also wrote many scholarly essays in Hebrew and German.
ALBELDA, MOSES BEN JACOB
(1500-before 1583), rabbi and philosopher. It is likely that Moses Albelda was born in Spain, and that he was the grandson of a Moses Albelda who settled in Salonika. He lived a life of hardship and wandering. He states that he acted as both dayyan and roshyeshivah. He was rabbi of Arta (Greece) in 1534, and later of Valona (Albania). His sons, Judah and Abraham, went to considerable trouble to publish their father’s works. These are characterized by a distinctive style and are eminently readable. His commentary and biblical expositions are mainly philosophical. His sermonic works are Reshit Daat (Venice, 1583), discourses on philosophical themes and rabbinical dicta; Shaarei Dimah (ibid., 1586), on such varied themes as Providence, the vicissitudes of the times, the death of the righteous, and the destruction of the Temple. His biblical works are in two parts, the first, Olat Tamid (ibid., 1601), exegetical, and the second, Darash Moshe (ibid., 1603) homiletical. These works mention a number of others that he wrote, including commentaries on Joshua, Esther, and Samuel, and on Maimonides’ Guide and Sefer ha-Mitzvot.
ALBERSTEIN, HAVA
(1946- ), Israeli singer and composer. Born in Stettin (Poland), Alberstein came to Israel with her parents in 1951. She started singing and accompanying herself on the guitar while still at school. During her military service she performed as soloist in army bases throughout the country. Upon completion of her military service she began performing in concerts and for several years played the guitar while singing, but in 1971 she started appearing with a small ensemble and without her guitar, thus demonstrating her dramatic ability on stage. She then began writing her own lyrics. The songs in her 1986 album The Immigrants incorporated autobiographic elements and a measure of criticism of Israeli society. She expressed her political views in such songs as "The Magician," "H ad Gadya," and others. In "H ad Gadya" she changed the words of the traditional song to liken Israeli soldiers to devouring animals during the Intifada, which led to a storm of protest and a radio ban on the song. In 1988 she began composing her own music as well and produced the album The Need for a Word, the Need for Silence. In 1992 she recorded her first album in English, The Man I Love, following it by a number of others, notably one with the Klezmatics Band in 1998. With over 50 albums to her credit, Alberstein frequently performed abroad and is considered a major Israeli singer. She is notable in the field of children’s songs and is considered one of the greatest singers of Yiddish songs, with some ten albums. She received the Kinnor David Prize several times as well as the Manger Prize.
ALBERT, MARV
(Marv Philip Aufrichtig; 1941- ), U.S. television and radio sportscaster, member of the Basketball Hall of Fame. Albert was born in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, New York, the son of a grocer, and grew up there with his brothers, Al and Steve, both of whom also became professional broadcasters. The three brothers started practicing in their youth, staging a "contest" between the two family hamsters and doing the play-by-play of the Hamster Olympics. Albert worked on Howard *Cosell’s national radio show as a teenager and then with Marty *Glickman at wcbs Radio when he was in college. Albert attended Syracuse University from 1960 to 1962 and graduated from New York University in 1965. Glick-man gave Albert his start in broadcasting, allowing him to broadcast his first New York Knicks basketball game on radio on January 27, 1963, at age 22. He broadcast the Knicks full time on radio from the 1967-68 season through the 1985-86 season. He also broadcast the Knicks on television, but was dismissed after he criticized the team’s poor play on-air in 2004.
Albert was the radio voice of the New York Rangers hockey team, beginning with his first game on March 13, 1963, and full time from 1965-66 to 1996-97. He later broadcast nba basketball, nfl football, college basketball, boxing, nhl all-star games, and baseball studio and pre-game shows for the nbc network from 1979 to 1998. He also broadcast basketball for the tnt network and was the voice of Monday Night Football on Westwood One Radio/cBS Radio Sports. Prior to joining nbc, Albert was the radio voice of the New York Giants football team from 1973 to 1976, and for 13 years was the sports anchor for Ch. 4/wnbc-tv.
Albert became the focus of a media frenzy in 1997 when he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge amid embarrassing allegations about his sex life. As a consequence he was forced to leave broadcasting, but was rehired by the msg and Turner networks in 1998 and nbc in 1999. He was hired in 2005 to handle play-by-play duties for the New Jersey Nets beginning in the 2005-6 season. Albert, whose iconic catchphrase is an emphatic "Yes!" punctuating a jump shot in basketball, has won six Cable Ace Awards for Outstanding Play-By-Play Announcer, three New York Emmy awards as Outstanding On-Camera Personality, and was named New York State Sportscaster of the Year an unprecedented 20 times. In 1997 he was awarded the Curt Gowdy Media Award by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Albert played himself in a number of films and is the author of Krazy about the Knicks (1971), Ranger Fever (1973), Marv Albert’s Sports Quiz Book (1976), Yesss!: Marv Albert On Sportscasting (1979), and I’d Love To But I Have a Game (1993).
ALBERT, MILDRED ELIZABETH LEVINE
(1905-1991), international fashion consultant, educator, lecturer, columnist, and radio and television personality. Albert was the youngest of four children of Thomas Levine and Elizabeth Sugarman. Born in Russia, she emigrated with her family, who settled in Roxbury, Massachusetts. While a student at the Sargent School of Physical Education (now part of Boston University), Mildred Levine met her future husband, James Albert. The couple married in 1928 and had three children. A teacher of art, dance, and literature at Florence Street Settlement House in the South End of Boston, Albert also taught posture at Massachusetts General Hospital and was sought out to give private lessons in good posture and proper etiquette to daughters of prominent Boston families. In the 1930s she established the Academie Moderne, a finishing school for young women that combined lessons on poise, grace, and good speaking skills with exposure to museums and cultural events. In 1944, Albert co-founded the Hart Model Agency and Promotions, Inc. with Muriel Williams Hart and her husband, Francis Hart; during those years she began covering major designer fashion shows as Boston’s "First Lady of Fashion." Albert sold the school and the agency in 1981, but remained dean emeritus to the school and consultant to the agency. From the 1930s through the 1970s, Albert hosted weekly radio programs on fashion and beauty. She continued fashion show coverage on the cbs Good Day Show into the 1980s, and late in life as a reporter for the Tab newspapers. Although not religiously observant, Albert identified strongly with Jewish history and culture. She shared her name and money as a generous philanthropist, co-coordinating fashion shows for various charities; she served on the board of the Hebrew Teachers College in Boston in the 1920s and 1930s. Albert was the recipient of numerous awards, including the State of Israel Bonds 35th
Anniversary Award in 1983; in 1990 Boston’s Mayor Flynn declared "Mildred Albert Day" to honor the city’s "official Grande Dame." Albert’s papers are located at the Schlesinger Library of Radcliffe College.
ALBERTA
Province in Western Canada. Alberta boasts Canada’s fourth largest provincial population, with over 3.2 million people (July 2004). Its two major cities are Edmonton, the provincial capital, with approximately 5,500 Jews, and Calgary, home of the Canadian oil industry, with 8,200 Jews.
Although the province’s nearly 15,400 Jews live primarily in the main cities of Edmonton and Calgary, the Jewish presence in Alberta was not always so overwhelmingly urban. Prior to the creation of Alberta in 1905, Jews were found in villages, towns, and on farms around the region. The earliest record of a Jew in Alberta was that of a gold prospector in Fort Edmund. The Hudson Bay factor’s journal reads: "September 15, 1869 – Mr. Silverman (a Jew) and a party of four Americans and a Negro started for Fort Benton today." Other Jewish traders and merchants also visited the region from Montana Territory.
Permanent settlement in the region did not take place until the 1880s when two significant historical developments coincided: the extension of the Canadian Pacific Railway into Western Canada (it reached Calgary in 1883) and the terrible pogroms against East European Jews following ^Alexander ill’s ascension to the throne in 1881. In 1882, around 150 Russian Jews worked on the cpr’s railway gang, laying 100 miles of track to Medicine Hat. It was reported that they kept the Sabbath, ate kosher food, had a Torah scroll for services, and were directed by a Yiddish-speaking foreman.
The first permanent Jewish residents, in what became Alberta, were brothers, Jacob Lyon Diamond and William Diamond. In 1888, Jacob Diamond moved to Calgary and worked as a pawnbroker and traded liquor and hides. Although historical sources differ slightly over the timetable of William’s arrival in Calgary and Edmonton, it seems that he opened a tailor shop in Calgary in 1892. The brothers initiated the first formal Jewish service for the High Holidays in 1894 and founded many of the Calgary community’s institutions, such as its cemetery in 1904. Jacob Diamond established Calgary’s first synagogue, Beth Jacob, in 1911. In Edmonton, Abe Cris-tall opened a liquor store soon after his arrival to the city in 1893. William Diamond was instrumental in establishing the first Jewish religious council in Alberta in 1906, a year after his move to Edmonton. Hyman Goldstick, the province’s first full-time Jewish religious leader, moved to Edmonton from Toronto in 1906 and served Calgary, Edmonton, and smaller surrounding Jewish communities.
Recognizing the need to populate the West, Canada’s high commissioner in London, Sir Alexander Galt, convinced the prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, that the Russian Jewish refugees could serve a useful purpose, colonizing the West as farmers. Alberta’s first Jewish farming settlements developed in 1893 at Pine Lake and near Fort Macleod. The Jewish community at Pine Lake, numbering 70, was the largest in the region at the time. By 1895, the difficult conditions, inexperience, and lack of Jewish communal institutions contributed to the decline of this settlement and a smaller settlement near Fort Macleod. In 1901, there were 242 Jews in the region.
A decade passed before there was another serious attempt made at Jewish agricultural settlement. Settlements were established at Trochu, Rumsey, and Sibbald in 1905, 1906, and 1911, respectively. Living conditions improved after the arrival of the Canadian Northern Railway in 1910 and families joined the male settlers and opened businesses in the railway villages. In Rumsey, Jews occupied important positions within the wider community as justices of the peace and school trustees. The *Jewish Colonization Association, an international organization supported by Jewish philanthropists like Moses *Montefiore, provided settlers with loans for reuniting farm families and financial support for communal essentials like kosher food, religious services, and education. The Canadian government provided little, if any, support to the Jewish settlers. During the heyday of Jewish farming in Alberta, up to 70 Jewish families were operating farms around Rumsey and Sibbald. In 1914, the 100-person Jewish community of the Montefiore colony near Sibbald built a synagogue and hired a rabbi. As was the case everywhere, the Depression in the 1930s had a devastating effect on the Jewish colonists and by World War 11 few Jewish farmers remained at Rumsey or Sibbald. By the war’s end, the Jewish presence in rural Alberta was virtually non-existent.
But for all the efforts at agricultural settlement, Jews tended to concentrate in urban areas where there were economic opportunities as merchants, traders, and peddlers. By 1911, there were 1,207 Jews in the province, with more than half of them in the two major cities (604 in Calgary and 171 in Edmonton). Aside from Edmonton and Calgary, larger Jewish communities were also established in Lethbridge (home to the third largest Jewish community in Alberta) and Medicine Hat. As it took many years for these communities to acquire a synagogue building, services were conducted for years in people’s homes. In the small town of Vegreville, Jews lived harmoniously with the town’s Ukrainian and French Canadian residents and were active in municipal life. The Jewish presence in small towns and cities in Alberta, however, gradually disappeared due to the richer Jewish communal life and better economic opportunities available in Edmonton and Calgary.
After World War 1, Canada briefly opened its doors to immigration. In 1921, the Canadian census found 3,186 Jews in Alberta. By 1930, however, the number of Jews admitted to the country was in decline as a result of growing immigration restriction. Nevertheless, the number of Jews in the province grew by almost 15 percent between 1921 and 1931, largely due to migration of Jews from Manitoba and Saskatchewan. In 1931, 92 percent of Alberta’s 3,700 Jews lived in urban settings.
Alberta’s Jewish population grew slowly through the war years and into the postwar era but prosperity in the 1970s led to a significant increase in the number of Jews in the province, primarily in Edmonton and Calgary. With that growth came the development of large Jewish community centers and Reform temples in both cities. Serving Calgary and Edmonton, the Jewish Star was published between 1980 and 1990. Since then, the Jewish Free Press serves the Calgary Jewish community and Edmonton Jewish Life and Edmonton Jewish News serve Edmonton. Jews in both cities also established community day schools.
Although the early Jewish community in Alberta faced antisemitism, and antisemitism was a fact of life in the Canadian government’s immigration policy until after World War 11, it has not been very pronounced in the major cities of Alberta. Jews in Alberta did not face enrollment quotas in professional schools as did Jews in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. Discrimination was not blatant and organized in Alberta but existed at an informal level, for instance with social clubs. There was the exception of the Social Credit Party which took power in 1935. The victory gave antisemitic politicians a platform from which to spout their views and appeal to their largely rural support base. Major Douglas, the party’s founder, blamed the Jews for Alberta’s hard times during the 1930s and while Premier William Aberhardt publicly spoke against an-tisemitism, his personal writings and social circle, including Henry Ford, belied an ambivalent, if not, negative attitude.
A case that received wide attention was that of James Keegstra, a high school teacher in the town of Eckville, Alberta. In 1984, Keegstra was charged with unlawfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group, in violation of the Canadian Criminal Code, through his anti-Jewish statements, e.g., calling Jews "barbaric," "manipulative," and "sadistic," and claiming that Jews "created the Holocaust to gain sympathy." His defense lawyer, known for defending neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers like Ernst Zundel, argued that the Criminal Code violated Keegstra’s Charter right to freedom of expression. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which in a 4-3 decision ruled against Keegstra and maintained that Criminal Code Section 319(2) constituted a reasonable limit on freedom of expression, noting "there is obviously a rational connection between restricting hate propaganda and fostering harmonious social relations between Canadians."
Despite the infamy of the Keegstra case in Alberta, Alberta’s Jewish population has found the province to be a secure and prosperous home. Jews in Alberta have risen to prominence in important and prestigious leadership roles in the larger community. Sheldon Chumir, a well-known Calgary lawyer, Rhodes scholar, and Liberal politician, was twice elected to the Alberta Legislature. Calgary was also home to Canada’s first female chief of police, Christine Sil-verberg. In September 2001 a Jew was appointed president and vice chancellor of the University of Calgary, and, in October 2004 Edmonton elected a Jewish mayor, Stephen Man-del. The Edmonton Symphony was founded by Abe Fratkin and the Canadian Football League’s Edmonton Eskimos was also founded by Jews. Jews have played a vital role in the arts in Alberta – Shoctor founding the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton and contributing significantly to Calgary’s Centre for the Performing Arts.
As with many other North American communities, in the final decades of the 20th century, two newer Jewish groups have joined the primarily Ashkenazi established Jewish community in Alberta, Israelis and Russians. Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and H abad denominations of Judaism all have a presence in Alberta, although the majority of Alberta’s Jews are non-Orthodox.
ALBERTI-IRSA
(also known as Albertirsa), twin cities in the Monor district of Pest-Pilis-Solt Kiskun county, Hungary. Jews first settled there in 1746. In 1770 there were 13 Jewish residents in Alberti and 95 in Irsa, mainly occupied as merchants, tailors, tavern owners, distillers, and bookbinders. The communal regulations (takkanot) date from 1772. The chevra kadisha was organized by Rabbi Abraham Pressburger in 1784. A synagogue was built in 1809, and a talmud torah in 1804; a Jewish elementary school was opened in 1851. The participation of the community in the Hungarian struggle for independence in 1848-49 cost it an indemnity of 1,200 gulden, levied by the Austrian authorities. Many of the Jewish residents left Alberti-Irsa after 1850, when Hungarian Jews were permitted freedom of movement. The community constituted itself as a Status Quo community in February 1881, although a number of Jews organized themselves as an Orthodox congregation. The two were consolidated in 1889 by Rabbi Zsigmond Buchler. In 1929 the congregation had 250 members, including those of the other communities in the district. The rabbis of Alberti-Irsa include Abraham Pressburger, author of Even ha-Ot (Prague, 1793); Amram Rosenbaum (1814-26); Hayyim Kittsee (1829-40), head of a large yeshivah and author of the responsa, Ozar Hayyim (1913); Jonas Bernfeld (1853-72); and Zsigmond Buchler (1886-1941).
According to the census of 1941, Irsa had a Jewish population of 124 (1.7% of the total), and Alberti of 21 (0.5%). In addition the twin towns had one and six converts, respectively, who were identified as Jews under the racial laws. The status quo congregation of the twin cities, led by Rabbi Imre Blau, had 92 members in 1941. After Blau was drafted into a forced labor service company in 1942, the community came under the leadership of Rabbi Istvan Szekely. After the German occupation of Hungary on March 19, 1944, Rabbi Szekely was appointed head of the local Jewish Council. The 149 Jews of the twin cities were first concentrated in a local ghetto that was established in the so-called Fodor lumber yard and in the "Singer building." They were later transferred to the ghetto of Monor from where they were deported to Auschwitz in early July 1944. The community numbered 14 in 1968, but ceased to exist a few years later.
°ALBERTUS MAGNUS
(about 1200-1280), German scholastic philosopher and theologian. He was a key figure at the rising University of Paris and in the schools of the Dominican Order, especially in Cologne. Among his students was Thomas *Aquinas. Although he belonged to the group of scholars that witnessed the condemnation of the Talmud in 1248, he was interested in Jewish literature and never attempted to hide his reliance on *Maimonides as a mediator between philosophy and Bible. Occasionally, he referred to Maimonides and Isaac *Israeli, the compiler of neo-Platonic doctrines, as men who frivolously adapted philosophy to Jewish law. However, "Rabbi Moyses’" ("Maimonides") discussions on the limits within which peripatetic cosmology may be accepted by a believer in divine creation as described in Genesis had a very positive meaning for a Dominican who was introducing the whole of Aristotle’s system into the orbit of ecclesiastical learning. For his own attempt at synthesis Albertus was inclined to combine Aristotelianism with neo-Platonic ideas; therefore Avencebrol’s (Ibn *Gabirol’s) Fons vitae was an important text for him. He did not know, however, that this author was a Jew of great renown.
During the latter half of the 13th century friars began using information from Maimonides’ Dux neutrorum (Guide of the Perplexed) for their exegetical work. Albertus shared this trend, following Maimonides in his interpretation of the Book of Job as a philosophical treatise on the relation of divine providence and human suffering. Parts of Albertus’ works were known to late medieval Jewish philosophers through Hebrew translations.
