MOROCCO – Traditions of Early Settlement. Sultanate in northwestern Africa. In antiquity it formed a considerable part of Mauritania. The latter was originally an independent kingdom, but in the year 42 of the common era it was made a...
MOROSINI, GIULIO (SAMUEL BEN NAḤMIAS B. DAVID B. ISAAC B. DAVID BA'AL TESHUBAH) – Italian convert from Judaism to Christianity; born at Venice 1612; died in 1687. He was descended from a wealthy family which traced its ancestry back to Nehemiah. His great-grandfather left Spain on the expulsion of the Jews by...
MORPURGO – Austro-Italian family, originally from Marburg, Styria.Carlo Morpurgo: Italian writer; born June 20, 1841, at Cairo, Egypt. He has published the following works: "Mosaico Poetico"; "Caio Marzio Coriolano"; "Scene Romane"; "Un...
MORPURGO, SAMSON BEN JOSHUA MOSES – Italian rabbi, physician, and liturgist; born at Gradiska, Austria, in 1681; died at Ancona April 12, 1740. When a boy of seven he was taken by his father to Venice, where he received his elementary education. He then studied in...
MORRISON, LEWIS – American actor, born at Jamaica, W. I., 1845. Morrison removed to the United States before his twentieth year and on the outbreak of the Civil War enlisted in the Federal Army. He served four years as an officer and after being...
MORSE, GODFREY – American lawyer; brother of Leopold Morse; born at Wachenheim, in Rhenish Bavaria, May 19, 1846; he removed to America in Sept., 1854, and went to Boston, where he attended the Brimmer Grammar School, the English High School,...
MORSE, LEOPOLD – American congressman; merchant; born at Wachenheim, Rhenish Bavaria, Aug. 15, 1831; died in Boston, Mass., Dec. 15, 1892. He attended the school of his native town until he was thirteen years old. Five years later he emigrated...
MORTALITY – Mortality of Children. Death-rate. The bulk of the Jews are known to live in the most overcrowded and unsanitary sections of cities in Europe and America, and would, a priori, be expected to show a higher rate of mortality than...
MORTARA CASE – A case of forcible abduction in which a child named Edgar Mortara was violently removed from the custody of his parents by papal guards in Bologna on June 23, 1858. The details of the case, which created a sensation in both...
MORTARA, EDGAR – See Mortara Case.
MORTARA, MARCO – Marco Mortara.Italian rabbi and scholar; born at Viadana May 7, 1815; died at Mantua Feb. 2, 1894. Having graduated from the rabbinical college of Padua in 1836, he was called as rabbi to Mantua in 1842, and occupied this...
MORTEIRA (MORTERA), SAUL LEVI – Dutch rabbi of Portuguese descent; born about 1596 at Venice; died at Amsterdam Feb. 10, 1660. In a Spanish poem Daniel Levi de Barrios speaks of him as being a native of Germany ("de Alemania natural"). When in 1616 Morteira...
MORTGAGE – Written document for securing a debt upon property, possession of which is not necessarily delivered to the creditor. The Greek word ὑποθήκη (hypothec) passed into the language of the Mishnah in the form , which afterward, with...
MORTON, EDWARD – English journalist and playwright; born 1858. For many years he was dramatic critic on the "Referee" and other London papers. He is the author of: "Travellers' Tales" (1892); "Man and Beast" (with preface by I. Zangwill; 1893);...
MORTON, MARTHA – American playwright; born Oct. 10, 1865, in New York city; educated in the public schools and at the Normal College. Among her contributions to the drama may be mentioned: "Helene," played by Clara Morris; "The Refugee's...
MORWITZ, EDWARD – American physician and journalist; born at Danzig, Prussia, June 11, 1815; settled in Philadelphia 1850; died there Dec. 13, 1893. He was given a thorough Jewish education in Danzig, then studied Oriental languages at Halle, but...
MOSCAT, JOSEPH – See Milhau, Joseph ben Moses.
MOSCATO, JUDAH ARYEH (LEONE) – Italian rabbi, poet, and philosopher of the sixteenth century; born at Osimo, near Ancona; died at Mantua before 1594. After the expulsion of the Jews from the Pontifical States by Paul IV. in 1554, Judah went to the home of his...
MOSCHELES, FELIX – English artist; born in London Feb. 8, 1833; studied painting in Paris and Antwerp, and exhibited his first pictures in those cities. Later he was an exhibitor at the London Academy, Grosvenor, and New galleries. He has been...
MOSCHELES, IGNAZ – Austrian pianist; born at Prague May 30, 1794; died at Leipsic March 10, 1870. After a short course with Zadrahka and Horzelsky, his talent in 1804 attracted the attention of Dionys Weber, director of the Prague Conservatorium,...
MOSCHIDES, TOBIAS – See Cohn, Tobias.
MOSCONI, JUDAH LEON BEN MOSES – Bulgarian scholar and Talmudist; born at Ocrida 1328. Owing to the wars which agitated Bulgaria in the fourteenth century, Mosconi left his native country about 1360. He traveled in all the three continents of the Old World. He...
MOSCOW – Russian city; capital of the government of the same name. Jews began to appear in Moscow in early times, but only as individuals; for instance, as farmers of the taxes which the Russian princes paid to the Tatars. A Jew named...
MOSE – See Periodicals.
MOSELY, ALFRED – English financier; born at Clifton 1855. He was educated at the Bristol Grammar School, and afterward went to South Africa, where he became one of the earliest settlers in Kimberley. He equipped at his own expense the Princess...