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evealing fortifications (represented by a tower), an area of
dwellings, a theater that had been repaired in the fifth century
C.E. (based on the evidence of an inscription which speaks of
a new floor made for the “old theater”), and a Byzantine period
church, one of the largest known in the Negev Desert.
Additional, smaller, churches are known at Elusa. A Nabatean
cemetery was also discerned near the settlement. New excavations
were conducted at the site in 1997 by H. Goldfuss and
P. Fabian in the area of the Roman theater, the construction
of which can now be shown to date from the late second or
early third century C.E., with its abandonment taking place in
the sixth century C.E. Additional work was done in an area of
pottery workshops on the edge of the settlement.
Bibliography: C.L. Woolley and T.E. Lawrence, The Wilderness
of Zin (1915), 113, 145; A. Musil, Arabia Petraea, 2 (Ger., 1907),
67–77; M. Schwabe, in: Zion, 2 (1937), 106–20; idem, in: BJPES, 4
(1936/37), 61–66; C.J. Kraemer, Excavations at Nessana, 3 (1958), geographical
index, S.V. Elousa. Add. Bibliography: Y. Tsafrir, L. Di
Segni, and J. Green, Tabula Imperii Romani. Iudaea – Palaestina. Maps
and Gazetteer (1994), 119; H. Goldfuss and P. Fabian, “Haluza (Elusa),”
in: Excavations and Surveys in Israel, 111 (2000), 93–94; A. Negev and
S. Gibson (eds.), Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land (2001),
156–58; P. Fabian and Y. Goren, “A New Type of Late Roman Storage
Jar from the Negev,” in: J.H. Humphrey (ed.), The Roman and Byzantine
Near East; JRA Supplement No. 49 (2002), 145–55; R. Rosenthal-
Heginbottom (ed.), The Nabateans in the Negev (2003).
[Michael Avi-Yonah / Shimon Gibson (2nd ed.)]
ELVIRA (Eliberis, Illiberis), town in Andalusia, Spain, near
Granada. The church council convened in Elvira in 300–303
(or 309) issued canons forbidding marriage between Christian
women and Jews unless the Jew first adopted Christianity
(§16); prohibiting Jews from keeping Christian concubines
(§78); from entertaining at their tables Christian clergy or laymen
(§50); and from blessing fields belonging to Christians
(§49): Christians who turned to Jews for such blessings were
to be excommunicated. These were the earliest canons of any
church council directed against the Jews. A Jewish community
still existed in Elvira at the time of the Muslim conquest. Its
scholars corresponded with Saadiah Gaon in the tenth century,
as attested by Abraham *Ibn Daud in Sefer ha-Kabbalah
(ed., G.D. Cohen (1967), 79). In the course of time the Elvira
community became merged in that of Granada.
Bibliography: J. Parkes, Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue
(1930), 174ff.; C.G. Goldaraz, El Códice Lucense (1954), 377–93;
J. Vives, Concilios Visigóticos e Hispano-Romanos (1963), 1–15.
[Haim Beinart]
EL-YAM, Israeli merchant shipping company. Cargo Ships El-
Yam Ltd. was founded in 1949 by a subsidiary of the Israel Discount
Bank and started operations in 1953 with three 10,800ton
vessels. It developed rapidly and in 1977 its fleet (owned
through affiliated and subsidiary companies), consisting of
bulk carriers and refrigerated vessels for the transport of fruit,
meat, and dairy products, exceeded 1.75 million tons deadweight,
representing an investment of $200,000,000.
elyashar, jacob saul ben eliezer jeroham
ELYAN, SIR ISADORE VICTOR (1909– ), chief justice of
Swaziland. Born in Dublin, Ireland, Elyan qualified as a lawyer
and from 1946 was a magistrate in the British Colony of Gold
Coast (Ghana) until his appointment as judge of the Basutoland
Court of Appeal in 1955. From 1965 to 1970 he was chief
justice of Swaziland and from 1966 also served as judge of the
Court of Appeal for newly independent Botswana.
ELYASHAR, JACOB BEN ḤAYYIM JOSEPH (after 1720–
1788), rabbi and communal leader in Ereẓ Israel. Elyashar
was born in Hebron. He was a grandson, through his mother,
of Jacob Vilna, a member of the group of *Judah he-Ḥasid.
He acted as an emissary of the Hebron community to various
countries, visiting Italy, Germany, and Poland after 1751,
Baghdad in 1763, and Sofia and other Turkish towns in 1768,
returning in about 1770 to Hebron, where he became one of
its notables. He was included there among the pupils of Ḥ.J.D.
*Azulai and the two became very close friends. He helped
Azulai in his literary activities, copying on his behalf various
manuscripts. In 1773 Elyashar again visited Baghdad as an emissary
of the Hebron community, and in 1774 went to Basra
where he stayed until 1781. During that time the Persian army
in 1775 captured the town, ruling over it until 1779.
Elyashar, who was a composer of piyyutim and poems,
commemorated the day the Persians left Basra by composing
a poem, “Megillat Paras,” in which he described events in
Basra during the siege and its capture by the Persians. It was
first published by his grandson, Jacob Saul *Elyashar, at the
beginning of the latter’s Ish Emunim (1888). A critical version
with a commentary was published by M. *Benayahu in
his book Rabbi Ya’akov Elyashar (1960). Jacob also composed
poems in honor of that day, which the Jews of Basra continued
to recite annually amid great celebrations for about 100
years after the event. In 1781, through the influence of the wellknown
Farḥi family, he reached Safed. There he served as av
bet din and one of the leaders of the community. He devoted
himself to the rebuilding of *Safed, whose Jewish settlement
began to develop anew in the years 1778–79. He wrote several
books which were lost as a result of his wanderings and the
persecutions he suffered.
Bibliography: M. Benayahu, Rabbi Ya’akov Elyashar (Heb.
1960); idem, Rabbi Ḥayyim Yosef David Azulai (Heb. 1959), index,
s.v.; Yaari, Sheluḥei, 591f. and index, s.v.; A. Ben-Jacob, Yehudei Bavel
(1965), 123, 139, 282, 335f.
[A’hron Oppenheimer]
ELYASHAR, JACOB SAUL BEN ELIEZER JEROHAM
(1817–1906), Sephardi chief rabbi of Ereẓ Israel (rishon le-
Ẓion). A grandson of Jacob ben Ḥayyim *Elyashar, he was
born in Safed. His father, a dayyan, shoḥet, and cantor there,
was arrested by the Turkish authorities, but succeeded in escaping
and settled with his family in Jerusalem. When Jacob
Saul was seven, he lost his father, and his mother remarried
in 1828. His stepfather, Benjamin Mordecai *Navon, became
his teacher and supported him for many years. Elyashar mar-
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