THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
387
years of Don Meir Alguadez. The accu.sations that lie poisoned the weakly and long-sulTering King Henry III., or that, intiiienced by Paul de Buigos, he caused the desecration of the host, and lieing brought to torture, confessed it and was barbarously executed, were long ago cliaracteiized by the Spanish histoiians themselves as mere fables. Don Meir probably died before 14i;i, the date of the disputation at Tortosa; had he been alive, lie would certainly have been present.
Fri-nch Republic on the rccContral Coiisislorv of Paris. There are. in addition, a eonsiileralile liiinilier of native ral)liisand of niinor ollieials, appointed l)y the consistory and paid by the conunnnily, and si. liononiry oflieials called (jizbiiriiii. Aljriers lias nineteen synajjjogues, of wliieli six arc official and thirteen jirivate. The oldest of the former was founded in b'^tlli; of the latter, nine existed before the coiupiest, the remainder beinj; of comparatively recent establishment. Anioiiu; the rabbis at Ali.'iers before the Concpiest, besides Harfat and Duran already referred .ludah Ayyas, .Moses ben to, may be mentioned Isajic Mesliili. Ibn JIayyim. Josejih Aznbib, and NehoraV Aznbib. Its native rabbis included Isaac
of
tlif
pnsiikiit
(iniiiK'ndiitioM
(if ilic
tlir
(if
ben Samuel, David Zais, Zemah Duran, Judah Amar; and amontr its j^rand rabl)is sent from France were Michel Weil. I.azare Cohen, Abraham Cahen, Isaac Blcicli,
Jloise Weil, anil
Abraham
Hloch.
Forpenenil lufnnnallon, see the liitilliipraptiy under .i.<;kki.. Special wurky are Nntfn sur ha lHvaiiiU:n di- l'Aliit'rU in litv. A't. Jaircv*, x. — V); rahen. t^rrcur ChrouolijyiifHe d Alijcr^ in Archicea Iifnuiitett^ xxvi. i:C
Bnii.rofjKAPnv
AV. M.V.
ALGUADEZ SOLOMON A
CnU^N),
(t'nSui'S,
MEIB
B.
court iihysician and chief ralilii of the iifteeiith centui'y e.act dates of birth and death unknown. He was presumably' I'elated to Don David Ali^uadez, a brother-in-law of the treasurer of I'ortui;al, Don Jiida. and to Salomon Aliruadez, who lived in Peialta, in Xavarie, in the
(
'aslilian
year 1114; perhaps also to resided in Vitoria in
Meir Ali^uadez
Abraham Alguadez, who
14(>1.
Ac<ordini: to Zaciito,
Talmud
Toledo under the direction of Judah b. Asher. and also devoted himself to the stu<ly of medicine, which he followed as a profession. He " wandered from town totown, from land to land," thoui;li his residence was at the court of the kins "f Castile. Because of liis skill, and of the successful cures he had effected, the king appointed him his body-physieian. He enjoyed such favor willi King Henry HI. that he was made chief rabbi of all the Jewish communities in Castile, lie ranked among the most inlluenlial men of his time. Salomon ha Levi of IJurgos. who, as I'aul de Santa JIaria, or Paul de IJurgos, became bisho]) of Cartagena about ll!'j;i, addressed to him a Hebrew satire on the festival of I'urim. and received in rejoinder studii'd the
the satirical letter entitled
"Be
at
not like thy fathers!
Juilaism.
Meir Alguadez was always on the alert to defend Judaism and Jews, and was so highly esteemed by the Jewish coninuinities of Castile that on his ileatli they exhibileil their gratitude by exiinpting from all communal taxation his widow, Bathsheba, and his daughter, Luna, who hail married Don Meir ibn Alfakar of Toledo. Though much occupied in other ways, Jleir Alguadez fniiiid lime for liteniry work. At the instance of his patron. Beiiveiiisle ibn Labi, of Saiagossa, he translated "Aristotle's Ethics" from the Latin of BoOlhius into Ilelirew. He intended in the sami' manner to make Aristotle's "(Kr'ononiica" accessible to his coreligionists, .bout IIHII he wrote a number of prescriptions for various diseases, to which his |)Upil, Joseph, added olliirs. and whiih the historian, Josei>h ha lohen((!iiioa. l.VtOt translated from .'Spanish into Hebrew under the title " Mekiz N'irdamim." " but did not publish. The translation cif the I'.thics was published by Isjuic Satanow tllerlin, 171KI). Nothing (letluitu is kuowu concerning the last '•
liiHi.iodH.vpiiv: M. KaywrlliKt, D(wC<w(aiaiifec/icOeme(mleSliilul, in Jalirliiich fUr <l. (IciKhicMe dcr Judcn u. dea jKilintlium", Iv. S!S1 et eeq.; StelDSCtinelUer, i/cbr. Uebers. pp. -*l(l ft mij., 77.").
M. K.
ALGUM
ALMTJG
or
A. tree, the identity of Jastrow, "Diet." s.r., suggests that it may be coral-wood; others, that it may be brazilwood (so Kimhi) or red sandal-wood. The name "Almug" (I Kings, x, 11) is said by some authorities to be a corrupted form or transposition of "Algum" (II Chron, ii.). According to I Kings, .x. 11 and II Chron. ix. 10, 11, the Alniiig was imported from Opiiir: while, according to II Chron. ii. S, algum trees were obtained from the Lebanon mountains. The latter state-
which
is
uiKcrtaiii.
ment
iiK-reascs the ditliculty of idenlilieation. Unless the words "out of Lebanon" be regarded as a gloss, the simplest solution seems to be that Al-
gum
and Almug were originally two different trees
— as already suggested by Celsius — which have been
confused with one another. Its wood was used by Solomon in his building operations, more particularly for terraces, stairs, and balustrades: it served also for making harps, psalteries, and other musical instruments (see the commentaries of Thenius, Keil, Kittel, and Benzinger on the Biblical pa.ssages in (jiiestiou and Talniudic and Jlidrashic references in Jastrow, I.e.). See Perles, in "^lonatssehrift," xxxviii. 135.
G. B. L.
ALHADIB
(Alchadib, mxn. rjnxn. 3nn. aiHK. ".leu. t^uart, Kev." x. .">;!0 ^ hunchback) Name of a family of which rejiresentatives ale known from the beginning of the fourteenth to the end of the seventeenth century. The following list includes the more important members:
"
("l"nUX3 Tin 55X1. which had been written by ruoFIAT Dl'li.vN, who had been forced to uialergo baptism in i;ii)l, but .soon after publicly returned to
Alg-iers
Alhadib
Abraham ben Solomon AU^adib Corfu
ill
Eliakim Albadib leenl h
Judge
in
l.">:ill.
rciitiii"
Lived
in
Lepanto, seven-
.
Ezra ben Solomon All^adib : Venice, 1007. Samuel .Uioah addiisM'd a letter lo him in ItWT. All;^adib In the seventi'enth century, who. according to Sambari's" Chronicle "(Neubaiier,
^ayyim
"Media'val Jewish Chronicles." i. 140), coinpos«d an index " Mekor Ilayyim" to the Scripture passages found in liomileiie works. Livi'd in the seventeenth cenIsaac Albadib tury, in Cairo; nicnlioned by Sainbari (/.c, p, ltl3, two lines from buttoni of page)
Isaac ben Solomon ben ^addilf All^adib astronomer of note,
in Caslile
(
litTiii,
in Sicilv (i:!!Hi-
140!) ?1. a pupil of Judah ben Asher and follower of .Samuel Zarza. lie composiil a work on chronologv calhd "Orah Selulah " (I'laiii Way I, in which he fol-
lows Al-l{iikkani. the iiulhorily for astronomers in He adds four tabli's taken from .M Battani and one from Al Kaniinad. According to a niaiiii script in private hands, he wrote also '^3 mJX Letter on Desirable Inslrunienlsl. in which he speaks of the instruments which he had invented in Sicily. According to iSteinschncider, this is not the same as Tunis.
mon
(
