JewishEncyclopedia.com

MENORAH – See Periodicals.
MENSTRUATION – The first appearance of the menses is known to depend on various factors—climate, occupation, residence in towns, etc.—of which racial affinities are the most important. Climate is of unquestionable influence, the earliest age...
MENZ, ABRAHAM JOSEPH BEN SIMON WOLF – Rabbi at Frankfort-on-the-Main at the beginning of the eighteenth century. He wrote an elementary text-book on mathematics entitled "Reshit Limmudim," in three parts: (1) "Kelale Handasah," the general rules of algebra; (2)...
MEPHIBOSHETH – Only son of Jonathan, son of Saul, first king of Israel. The chronicler gives him the name of Merib-baal (I Chron. viii. 34), meaning, perhaps, "Ba'al contends." The relation of the two names is similar to that existing between...
MEQUINEZ – Town in the interior of Morocco, about 35 miles west-southwest of Fez. It contains about 6,000 Jews in a total population of 50,000. But very little is known concerning the Jews there. The town was founded about 940 C.E. As was...
MERAB – The elder of Saul's two daughters (I Sam. xiv. 49; xviii. 17, 19). Saul formally offered Merab's hand to David with the condition that the latter should distinguish himself in the warwith the Philistines. David did so, but Saul...
MERARI, MOSES MENAHEM – Poet and chief rabbi of Venice in the seventeenth century. He was one of the rabbis who signed the decision in regard to the stores in Ferrara. A Hebrew poem ("Shir") of his is found in the "Ḥanukkat ha-Bayit" of Moses Ḥefeẓ...
MERCANTILE LAW – See Commercial Law.
MERCY – See Compassion.
MERECH – Russian town in the government of Wilna. The earliest mention of Jews there is dated 1539, when a dispute was adjudicated (July 8) between a Jew named Konyuk and a Christian in regard to a debt of the former. In 1551 the Jews of...
MERIBAH – 1. A place in Rephidim in the wilderness; called also "Massah and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord" (Ex. xvii. 7). It is certainly this Meribah which is alluded to in...
MERIDIAN, DATE- – Imaginary line fixed upon as the one along which the reckoning of the calendar day changes. East of this line the day is dated one day earlier than the west of it. The date-meridian involves many Jewish questions, such as fixing...
MERKABAH – The Heavenly Throne; hence "Ma'aseh Merkabah," the lore concerning the heavenly Throne-Chariot, with especial reference to Ezek. i. and x. The conception of Yhwh riding upon cherubim, or fiery cloud-birds, upon the heavens or...
MERNEPTAḤ – Egyptian king, the fourth of the 19th dynasty; a prominent figure in the discussions concerning the historicalness and chronology of Israel's exodus from Egypt. He was the son and successor of the famous Rameses II. (Sesostris),...
MERODACH-BALADAN – King of Babylon (712 B.C.), who sent letters and a present to Hezekiah, King of Judah, when the latter had recovered from his sickness. Hezekiah, delighted with the courtesy, shows the messengers all his treasures, withholding...
MEROM – The waters of Merom" is given in Josh. xi. 5 as the name of the place at which the hosts of the peoples of northern Palestine assembled to meet the invader Joshua and his army. Merom is now commonly identified with the modern...
MERON – City of Galilee, situated on a mountain, three miles northwest of Safed and four miles south of Giscala, with which city it is almost always mentioned in the Talmud. One of the passages is: "One may eat olives [the product of...
MERV – District town in Russian Central Asia, on the River Murgab. The town sprang up when the district was annexed to Russia in 1884. It has a total population of 8,727, including 486 Jews (1899). The old historic Merv is now utterly...
MERWAN HA-LEVI – French philanthropist of the second half of the eleventh century; one of the most prominent Jews of Narbonne, who devoted his time and fortune to that community. It seems that he was also in favor with the government, being thus...
MERZBACHER, ABRAHAM – German banker; born 1812 at Baiersdorf near Erlangen; died June 4, 1885, at Munich. He at first intended to follow a rabbinical career; but after an unsuccessful application for the office of rabbi in Ansbach, he settled as a...
MESERITZ – See Miedzyrzecz.
MESHA – King of Moab, tributary to Ahab, King of Israel. He was a sheepmaster, and paid the King of Israel an annual tax consisting of the wool of 100,000 lambs and of 100,000 rams (II Kings iii. 4). He rebelled against Israel and...
MESHA (Me'asha) – Palestinian amora; lived in the third century at Lydda, in Judea. He seems to have lost his parents when a child, for he was brought up by his grandfather, the eminent haggadist Joshua b. Levi. At an early age he displayed fine...
MESHERSHAYA BAR PAḲOD – Babylonian amora of the sixth and last generation; lived in Sura. In the persecution of Jews by Perozes (Firuz), King of Persia, Meshershaya was imprisoned and executed together with Amemar bar Mar Yanḳaï and the exilarch Huna...
MESHULLAM BEN DAVID – German tosafist of the twelfth or of the first half of the thirteenth century. He was the son of the tosafist and liturgist David ben Kalonymus of Münzenburg, and he corresponded with R. Baruch ("Mordekai," Ket.ii. 149), with...

MENORAH – See Periodicals.

MENSTRUATION – The first appearance of the menses is known to depend on various factors—climate, occupation, residence in towns, etc.—of which racial affinities are the most important. Climate is of unquestionable influence, the earliest age...

MENZ, ABRAHAM JOSEPH BEN SIMON WOLF – Rabbi at Frankfort-on-the-Main at the beginning of the eighteenth century. He wrote an elementary text-book on mathematics entitled "Reshit Limmudim," in three parts: (1) "Kelale Handasah," the general rules of algebra; (2)...

MEPHIBOSHETH – Only son of Jonathan, son of Saul, first king of Israel. The chronicler gives him the name of Merib-baal (I Chron. viii. 34), meaning, perhaps, "Ba'al contends." The relation of the two names is similar to that existing between...

MEQUINEZ – Town in the interior of Morocco, about 35 miles west-southwest of Fez. It contains about 6,000 Jews in a total population of 50,000. But very little is known concerning the Jews there. The town was founded about 940 C.E. As was...

MERAB – The elder of Saul's two daughters (I Sam. xiv. 49; xviii. 17, 19). Saul formally offered Merab's hand to David with the condition that the latter should distinguish himself in the warwith the Philistines. David did so, but Saul...

MERARI, MOSES MENAHEM – Poet and chief rabbi of Venice in the seventeenth century. He was one of the rabbis who signed the decision in regard to the stores in Ferrara. A Hebrew poem ("Shir") of his is found in the "Ḥanukkat ha-Bayit" of Moses Ḥefeẓ...

MERCANTILE LAW – See Commercial Law.

MERCY – See Compassion.

MERECH – Russian town in the government of Wilna. The earliest mention of Jews there is dated 1539, when a dispute was adjudicated (July 8) between a Jew named Konyuk and a Christian in regard to a debt of the former. In 1551 the Jews of...

MERIBAH – 1. A place in Rephidim in the wilderness; called also "Massah and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord" (Ex. xvii. 7). It is certainly this Meribah which is alluded to in...

MERIDIAN, DATE- – Imaginary line fixed upon as the one along which the reckoning of the calendar day changes. East of this line the day is dated one day earlier than the west of it. The date-meridian involves many Jewish questions, such as fixing...

MERKABAH – The Heavenly Throne; hence "Ma'aseh Merkabah," the lore concerning the heavenly Throne-Chariot, with especial reference to Ezek. i. and x. The conception of Yhwh riding upon cherubim, or fiery cloud-birds, upon the heavens or...

MERNEPTAḤ – Egyptian king, the fourth of the 19th dynasty; a prominent figure in the discussions concerning the historicalness and chronology of Israel's exodus from Egypt. He was the son and successor of the famous Rameses II. (Sesostris),...

MERODACH-BALADAN – King of Babylon (712 B.C.), who sent letters and a present to Hezekiah, King of Judah, when the latter had recovered from his sickness. Hezekiah, delighted with the courtesy, shows the messengers all his treasures, withholding...

MEROM – The waters of Merom" is given in Josh. xi. 5 as the name of the place at which the hosts of the peoples of northern Palestine assembled to meet the invader Joshua and his army. Merom is now commonly identified with the modern...

MERON – City of Galilee, situated on a mountain, three miles northwest of Safed and four miles south of Giscala, with which city it is almost always mentioned in the Talmud. One of the passages is: "One may eat olives [the product of...

MERV – District town in Russian Central Asia, on the River Murgab. The town sprang up when the district was annexed to Russia in 1884. It has a total population of 8,727, including 486 Jews (1899). The old historic Merv is now utterly...

MERWAN HA-LEVI – French philanthropist of the second half of the eleventh century; one of the most prominent Jews of Narbonne, who devoted his time and fortune to that community. It seems that he was also in favor with the government, being thus...

MERZBACHER, ABRAHAM – German banker; born 1812 at Baiersdorf near Erlangen; died June 4, 1885, at Munich. He at first intended to follow a rabbinical career; but after an unsuccessful application for the office of rabbi in Ansbach, he settled as a...

MESERITZ – See Miedzyrzecz.

MESHA – King of Moab, tributary to Ahab, King of Israel. He was a sheepmaster, and paid the King of Israel an annual tax consisting of the wool of 100,000 lambs and of 100,000 rams (II Kings iii. 4). He rebelled against Israel and...

MESHA (Me'asha) – Palestinian amora; lived in the third century at Lydda, in Judea. He seems to have lost his parents when a child, for he was brought up by his grandfather, the eminent haggadist Joshua b. Levi. At an early age he displayed fine...

MESHERSHAYA BAR PAḲOD – Babylonian amora of the sixth and last generation; lived in Sura. In the persecution of Jews by Perozes (Firuz), King of Persia, Meshershaya was imprisoned and executed together with Amemar bar Mar Yanḳaï and the exilarch Huna...

MESHULLAM BEN DAVID – German tosafist of the twelfth or of the first half of the thirteenth century. He was the son of the tosafist and liturgist David ben Kalonymus of Münzenburg, and he corresponded with R. Baruch ("Mordekai," Ket.ii. 149), with...