AACH – A small town in the circle of Constance, Baden, Germany, at one time belonging to the landgraviate of Nellenburg. The first mention of Jews in Aach is found in a document of the year 1518, in which the Jews of Geisingen are...
AACHEN – See Aix-la-Chapelle.
AARGAU – A canton in northern Switzerland, formerly the only one in which Jews were permitted to live. The two townships Endingen and Lengnau, situated in the district of Baden and about three miles apart, formed for several centuries...
AARON – Biblical Data: One of two brothers who play a unique part in the history of the Hebrew people. He was the elder son of Amram and Jochebed of the tribe of Levi; Moses, the other son, being three years younger, and Miriam, their...
AARON'S ROD – Biblical Data: A rod which, in the hands of Aaron, the high priest, was endowed with miraculous power during the several plagues that preceded the Exodus. In this function the rod of Moses was equally potent. Upon two occasions,...
AARON'S TOMB – The burial-place of Aaron, which, according to Num. xx. 23-28, was Mount Hor, on the edge of the land of Edom. A later tradition, evidently of Mohammedan origin, refers to this hill as the one near Petra, called the Hill of...
AARON – An amora mentioned twice in the Babylonian Talmud (B. Ḳ. 109b, Men. 74b). In both places he is represented as furnishing Rabina, head of the rabbinical academy at Sura from 488 to 499 and one of the editors of the Babylonian...
AARON ABAYOB – See Abiob, Aaron.
AARON ABBA HA-LEVI BEN JOHANAN – A prominent rabbi; born about the close of the sixteenth century; died in Lemberg, June 18, 1643. He was president of a rabbinical college in Lemberg. His decisions are found in the responsa of Abraham Rapoport, Joel Särkes, and...
AARON ABRAHAM BEN BARUCH SIMEON HA-LEVI – A cabalist, born in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. He published a small cabalistic work, "Iggeret ha-Ṭe'amim" (Letter on the Accents), about the middle of the century, in which each accent and its specific name are...
AARON BEN ABRAHAM IBN ḤAYYIM – See Ibn Ḥayyim, Aaron ben Abraham.
AARON BEN ABRAHAM BEN SAMUEL SCHLETTSTADT – See Schlettstadt, Aaron, ben Abraham ben Samuel.
AARON BEN ABRAHAM BEN VIDAL ẒARFATI – See Ẓarfati, Aaron ben Abraham ben Vidal.
AARON ALFANDARI – See Alfandari, Aaron.
AARON BEN ASHER OF KARLIN (Rabbi Aaron II. of Karlin) – One of the most famous rabbis of the Ḥasidim in northwestern Russia; born in 1802; died June 23, 1872. He had an immense number of followers, and many thousands of them used to visit him annually, about the time of the Jewish...
AARON THE BABYLONIAN – See Aaron ben Samuel ha-Nasi.
AARON, BARNEY – English pugilist, nicknamed "The Star of the East"; born in London, November 21, 1800, at Duke's Place, Aldgate; died in Whitechapel, 1850. His career as a pugilist extended over fifteen years. When but nineteen years old he met...
AARON BEN BENJAMIN PORGES – See Porges, Aaron ben Benjamin.
AARON BEN BENJAMIN WOLF – Rabbi at Berlin and also at Frankfort-on-the-Oder; born about 1670; died in Frankfort-on-the-Oder, July 25, 1721. His father, Isaac Benjamin Wolf ben Eliezer Liebman, author of "Naḥlat Binyamin" (Amsterdam, 1682), rabbi in the...
AARON BERECHIAH BEN MOSES BEN NEHEMIAH OF MODENA – Italian cabalist, who died in 1639. He was a pupil of Rabbi Hillel of Modena (surnamed Ḥasid we-Ḳaddosh, that is, "The Pious and Holy") and of Rabbi Menahem Azariah of Fano. At the request of the Ḥebrah Ḳaddisha (Burial Society)...
AARON THE BOOKSELLER – Italian dealer in Hebrew and other ancient manuscripts; flourished at the beginning of the fourteenth century. He spent seven years in Toledo, searching successfully for Arabic and Hebrew books, and was able to circulate among...
AARON OF CANTERBURY – English exegete, mentioned in "Minḥat Yehudah" (The Offering of Judah) by Judah ben Eliezer on Deut. xxvi. 2, in association with Rashi and R. Jacob of Orleans, and thus, seemingly, of the twelfth century. But a passage in the...
AARON OF CARDENA – A cabalist, about whose life little is known. He wrote a book containing "profound secrets" under the title of "Ḳarnayim" (Rays)—see Hab. iii. 4. The work was erroneously ascribed to Isaac b. Abraham b. David, surnamed "the...
AARON CHORIN – See Chorin, Aaron.
AARON CUPINO – Talmudist and head of a yeshibah at Constantinople; flourished about the close of the seventeenth century. He was a pupil of Ḥayyim Shabbethai at Salonica, whence he afterward moved to Constantinople. Here he founded a Talmudic...