GABBAI – Tax-collector; in modern usage, treasurer of a synagogue. In Talmudic times the alms of the congregation appear to have been collected by two persons (B. B. 8b), but the term "gabbai" seems to have been restricted to publicans...
GABBAI – A family the members of which were found in Spain in the fifteenth century, and in Italy and the Levant from the seventeenth onward.Abraham Gabbai (Ysidro): Ḥakam in Amsterdam, later in Surinam; died before 1757. He wrote a...
GABBATHA – 1. Town corresponding to the Biblical "Gibeah," mentioned in the Septuagint (I Chron. xii. 3), in Josephus ("Ant." v. 1, § 29; vi. 4, § 2, 6), and in the "Onomastica Sacra" of Eusebius and of Jerome. In the last-named it answers...
GABES TUNISIA – See Tunis.
GABIROL, SOLOMON IBN – See Ibn Gabirol, Solomon.
GABISHON, ABRAHAM BEN JACOB – Algerian physician and scholar; descended from a Granada family; died at Tlemçen in 1605. He established himself as a physician in 1574 at Algiers, where he acquired a large practise. Gabishon was the author of a commentary on...
GABRIEL – With Michael, Gabriel is mentioned by name in the Book of Daniel, where he explains to Daniel his visions (Dan. viii. 16-26, ix. 21-27). He appears to Zacharias, and announces to Mary that she is about to have a son whose name...
GABRIEL B. JUDAH LÖW – See Eskeles Gabriel ben Judah Löw.
GABRIEL BEN JUDAH OF VITRY – Italian physician; flourished in the sixteenth century. His name seems to indicate that he was a native of Vitry, France, but Gross ("Gallia Judaica," p. 197) thinks that "Vitry" here stands for "Vittoria" in Italy. In 1530 he...
GABRIEL OF MILHAUD – French physician and translator; flourished in the second half of the sixteenth century. He translated, in 1583, under the title "Mebo Arnabat," Arnauld of Villanova's dissertation on Hippocrates' maxim "Ars longa, vita brevis"...
GABRIEL B. REUBEN ISRAEL HA-KOHEN – See Kohn, Gabriel.
GABRILOVITCH, OSSIP – Russian pianist; born in St. Petersburg Feb. 7, 1878. When only four years old he evinced a remarkable talent for music, and before he had reached the age of ten he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatorium, his first master...
GAD – 1. The seventh of Jacob's sons, the first-born of Zilpah, himself the father of seven sons (Gen. xxx. 10, 11; xlvi. 16; Num. xxvi. 15 et seq.). The name means "[good] fortune."2. Biblical Data: Tribe descended from Gad, the...
GADARA – Biblical Data: A Hellenistic city, situated southeast of the Sea of Gennesaret. It was rebuilt by Pompey, and afterward given to Herod the Great. After his death it became a free city under Roman sovereignty (Josephus, "Ant."...
GADARENES – Inhabitants of Gadara, known from an alleged miracle of Jesus (Matt. viii.; Mark v.; Luke viii.) in which he transferred the demons afflicting a man to a number of swine, that thereupon rushed down a steep hill and perished....
GADEN, STEPHAN (DANIEL) VON – Russian physician at the court of Moscow under the czars Alexis Mikhailovich and Feodor Alekseyevich; born in Poland, of Jewish parents, in the first quarter of the seventeenth century; killed at Moscow during the first uprising...
GADFLY – Marginal rendering in the Revised Version of the Hebrew "ḳereẓ" (Jer. xlvi. 20), where "destruction" is given in the texts of both English versions. For arguments in favor of the former rendering, now generally adopted, see the...
GAFFAREL (GAFFARELLUS), JACOB – French Christian rabbinical scholar; born at Mannes, Provence, 1601; died at Sigonce 1681. He devoted himself to the study of mysticism, especially of Hebrew cabalistic works, though his own in that field are unreliable. He...
GAGIN – Rabbinical family of Castilian origin which emigrated to Morocco in 1492, and in the eight eenth century to Palestine. The oldest known member of this family is Ḥayyim Gagin, who about 1492 left Castile and settled in Morocco....
GAGNIER, JOHN – French Christian Orientalist; born at Paris about 1670; died at Oxford March 2, 1740. Gagnier devoted himself early to the study of Oriental languages, particularly of Hebrew and Arabic. For a short time a priest of the Roman...
GAI, SOLOMON – Italian scholar and Hebraist; born at Mantua 1600; died there Aug., 1638. Gai is chiefly known as the correspondent and friendof Johannes Buxtorf the Younger. In a letter which he wrote to Buxtorf from Mantua (Nov. 6, 1637), Gai...
GAILLAC – Small town in the department of Tarn, France; mentioned as in the Responsa (No. 47) of Nissim ben Reuben Gerundi. Jews were living there as early as the thirteenth century, being under the jurisdiction both of Count Alphonse of...
GAJO, MAESTRO (ISAAC BEN MORDECAI) – Physician to Pope Nicholas IV. or Boniface VIII. at the end of the thirteenth century. For him Nathan of Cento translated into Hebrew an Arabic work by 'Ammar ibn Ali al-Mauṣili on the cure of diseases of the eye. Gajo was held...
GALANTE – Jewish family which flourished at the beginning of the sixteenth century in Rome, and the head of which, Mordecai, was a Spanish exile of the Angel family. His courteous manners won for him from the Roman nobles the surname...
GALATIA – An inland district of Asia Minor, and, after 25 B.C., a province of the Roman empire. There was a Jewish settlement there, which may have been founded by Antiochus the Great, who sent many Jewish families to Asia Minor as...