Ambergr
THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
Ambrose
AMBERG
A
town in the district of the Upper Hejrcuslnirjr (Hiilisboii), Hiivarisi; iiiliy Jews from the tliirteeiith century, lu 1298 hahitcil the town autliorities or(iere(i that the rijriits of the I'iUutiiiiiti-
ami
Jews l)e respected; but in the sjiine year Ilie Jewish community sulTered from persecutions instigated by The Niiremthe h'aderiif the peasjints. l{inilll<iseh. -Marlyrolojiriiiin " ^ives the names of the folbersj h)win'r
who (lied
I
here for the failh
Slmbbelhai and his wife
Kalonymiis ben
Jiidlin, his wife,
(iwtliii;
two children; Uanich ben Jeliiel ha-Kohen, his wife Minna, and two children Lemliu ben Harnch. a young teacher; Gerslion ben Solomon In 18()4 permission was ha-Levi; Mo.ses ben Israel. friven to yussmann, " Ilochmeister " of the Jews in Hegensbursr. to keep a school in . ibertr: and in 13()(> step daujrhler, and
the Jews of that town obtained the sjime rights as their Imlhren in Heidelberg. In VM'.t one Heiidil and liis son Noel were received into the community for The three years without the payment of any la.. " sjime privik-ge was extended to the " Ilochmeister Hlo.sse of Wene (Wien ?), who also received p<Minission All who attended his .school to establish a school. were to be amenable only to Jewish law as interpreted by the "Ilochmeister." Count Palatine Rupert promised full protection to all Jews settling in Amberg. In 1389 a Jew of Amberg, named Ebcrl, sold his house, which was situated near the synagogue. In 1300 another Jew. Noah. negotiatc<l with the town council of Amberg. Toward the end of the fourteenth century. Jews w-erc expelled from Amberg. and their synagogue was annexed to the church of the town, the Frauenkirche. They removed to the neighboring towns, Sulzbach. Sclmaittach. and Sulzbiirg, which, from that time, contained larger Jewish connnunities; but eventually the Jews returned to Amberg in small numbers. In 19(10 there were 9-t members in the congregation which now belongs to the rabbinate of Sulzbiirg. The building in which the synagogue is situated
was purchased BiBLioGR.iPiiv:
in 1896.
Salfi'lii,
Dns
^r<lIi||r<>li)aium cleg
Nnmherger
Meinin-hiii)ii^. ix'.v:. p. 1S2 l,iivensteln, JBeitrilue zur Gcwh. (i.Jti<ltn ill I ii nlsr)ihttiil, ISii^, i. 5,6; A.Eckstein, Gesch. d. Jwit It tin hitiiiltt:rth p. -i.
A. F.
AMBRON, AMBRAN, An
..r
EMBRON (poy)
prominent since 1492, at which emigrated from Spain ("Rev. £t.
Italian family,
period they Juives," ix. 70, 74). Of this family the following are known to have lived in Rome: Shera-Tob(l.')39): Zcrahiah (l.WG); Judah ben Shem-Tob (Ifv^jd); Jacob, •vho in 1018 was president of a charitable institution; Gabriel and Barucli. at the beginning of the seventeenth century; Gabriel (1720); Alexander (1737); Hezekiah ben Gabriel. The last-named paid the printing expenses of the prayer-book "Sha'are ha-Teshubah" (Venice, 1775).
Bibliography
Hnm, l;ir,.
li.
278
Vogelstein and Rieprer, Ge^ch. d. Judrtr in Berliner, Gesch. d. Juden iti Rom, 11. 5", 90,
191, 192.
yi.
AMBRON, SHABBETHAI
A
B.
philosophical writer; lived in Rome in the first half of the eighteenth century. His life-work was a book on the universe, with the somewhat ambitious title "Pancosmosophia. " It was first mentioned in the Venice " Giomale de' Letterati " (1710), and soon after in the Leipsic "Neuer Bilcher-Saal der Gelehrtcn Welt." According to these sources, the author made a systematic attempt to refute the astronomical view-s of Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Tycho Brahe, and to .set up a cosmogony, the underl3ing principle of which was that the earth was flat. He attempted to sup:
488
port his views by an appeal to .lewish tradition.
The author had already prepared some hundred copperplates to illustrate his theories, when the
Roman
Inquisition prohibited the printing of the
Anibron sent his manuscripts to Venice, but here also his ellorts were frustnited by the im])al work.
On
nuncio, Mottei.
learning that
work, he sent
German
scholars
with the ])lales to the publisher of the "Neuer BiUher Sa.dder (Jelehrten-Welt," who promiseil to print it. The work, however, has not been published, and all truce is lost of the manuscript. Ambron also devoted considerable work to a projected Bibliotheca Rabbinica, with the intention of
were interested
in his
it
correcting Bartolocci's errors and misconceptions. This manuscript shared the fate of the foregoing. In 1721 he is known to have been a member of the Roman (/iir/rir/if. In a pasi|uil written against Lor-
enzo Ganganclli (later Pope Clemens XIV.) it is said: " Denam e Anibrun amo coino fratelli I'lio inglese, uno ebreo, die fi il signore " (He loved Denam and Ambrun like brothers one was an Englishman, the other a Jew who played the rOle of a lord). Considering the great difference in age between Shabbcthai .Vmbron and Lorenzo Ganganclli (became
—
—
jiope in 1709). it is doulitfnl if the Ambrun of the pasquil is identical with the subject of this notice.
GinrnaU
BiBLiOGR.iPIIV:
de' Letterati d'Jtatia.
II,
,521^'i24,
Venice, 1T1I>; Xi iier HDelier-Stud der Gdehrten-n'ell ITIO, 1712, !7i:i, 11. isn, iv. 328 et hi-ii.. xxv. iKi, x.vi. 14:); Jtmrual ties Siirani!'. November. 1712; Wolf, liihl. lleltr. I. Htii; .'epl-(;iilronill, Tiilediit Gednle J'i.vrriW, p. :t» ; Fiirst, «iW. Jud, iii. IKJ; Benjaeob, Oz<tr hii-Sefarim, p. l.'»9; Slolnsciinekler, Litleraturlilatt des ItrieiilK, VH3. p. 22:!; Vopelstein
and Rleger, Gcich.
d. Jiulen in
Rom,
II.
278-2S1.
M. B.
AMBROSE:
Church father and author;
bom
Treves; died 397 in Milan. This audacious prelate who as bishop of Milan dared to say of his emperor, "The Emperor is in the Church, but not over the Church" is more renowned perhaps for His athis energy and zeal than for his learning.
about 340
at
—
—
titude toward
Jews and Judaism was uncompro-
misingly hostile. An address of his to Christian young people warns them against intermarriage with Jews ("De Abrahanio." ix. 84, xiv. 4,")1). But his opposition assumed a more positive and active character in the matter of the bishop The Callin- of Callinicuni in .Mesopotamia. Itapicum Riot, jiears liat in 3H8 a mob, led by the locjd bishop and many monks, destroyed the I
synagogue at
Callinicuni.
The emperor Theodosius
the Great, who can scarcely be accused of lack of religious zeal, was nevertheless just enough to order the reereetion of the synagogue at the ex|Hnse of the rioters, including the bishop. Ambrose immediately issued a fiery |irotest to the emperor. He writes to Theodosius "(" EpistoUc," xl. xvi. 1101 el »f;.) that " the glory of God " is concerned in this matter, and that therefore he can not be silent. Shall the bishop be com|iellcd to reerect a syna.soguc'/ Can he religiously do this thing? If he obey the emperor, he will become a traitor to his faith if he disoliey him, What real wrong is there, after all, in a martyr. destroying a synagogue, a " home of jiertidy, a home of impiet.v," in which Christ is daily blasphemed? Indeed, he (Ambrose) must consider himself no less guilty than this poor bishop; at least to the extent that he made no concealment of his wish that all synagogues should be destroyed, that no such places He also of blasphemy be further allowed to exist. states, in extenuation, that in the time of .Julian, the .Tews destroyed the Christian basilicas in Gaza, Ascalon, Alexandria, and elsewhere. It is hard to .say just what foundation there is for this charge against
