OPPERT, ERNST JACOB – German merchant and traveler; born at Hamburg Dec. 5, 1832; died Sept. 19, 1903; brother of Jules Oppert. He chose a mercantile career, and went in 1851 to Hongkong; later he founded a business at Shanghai; in 1866 and 1868 he...
OPPERT, GUSTAV SOLOMON – German Orientalist; brother of Jules and Ernst Jacob Oppert; born at Hamburg July 30, 1836. He was educated at the universities of Bonn, Leipsic, Berlin, and Halle, where he devoted his attention especially to the history and...
OPPERT, JULES – French Orientalist; born at Hamburg, Germany, July 9, 1825; died in Paris, Aug. 19, 1905. He was educated at the "Johanneum" in his native city, and in 1844 studied law at Heidelberg. Becoming interested in Oriental studies, he...
OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM – Philosophical and theological systems according to which this world and human life are considered as essentially good or essentially evil. Plato, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, Nicolaus Cusanus, and especially Leibnitz, Wolf, and...
OR TORAH – See Periodicals.
ORABUENA – Spanish family; flourished in Navarre in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Many of its members were rabbis or tax-lessees. Another family, very likely related, has the similar name of Buenahora.Judah Orabuena: Son of D....
ORAḤ ḤAYYIM – See Caro, Joseph.
ORAL LAW – Meaning. Term used to denote the laws and statutes which, in addition to the Pentateuch, God gave to Moses. According to the rabbinical interpretation of Ex. xxxiv. 27, the words indicate that besides the written law— —God gave...
ORALES – See Badge.
ORAN – Capital of the department which forms the western part of the French colony of Algeria; situated at the head of a bay on the Mediterranean. There are no records concerning the date of settlement of Jews there, but since the city...
ORANGE – Chief town of the department of Vaucluse, France; until 1702 capital of the small independent principality of the same name. The earliest documents relating to the settlement of Jews in Orange date from the fourteenth century....
ORDEAL – A form of judicial trial wherein supernatural aid was invoked in place of evidence; an appeal to the immediate judgment of God. The ordeal (Anglo-Saxon, "ordel" = "judgment") was widely disseminated among the Aryan peoples. It...
ORDINANCE – See Taḳḳanah.
ORDINATION – Appointment and solemn public dedication to the office of judge and teacher of the Law and to all the functions associated therewith. The custom of ordination is a very ancient one; Joshua was ordained by Moses, who thereby...
OREGON – One of the Northwestern States of the United States of America; admitted into the Union in 1859.First Congregation. The first Jewish settlers—in the main immigrants from various parts of southern Germany—came to Oregon from New...