JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

emery, richard wilder
D. Kogan, Toledot ha-Mekubalim ha-Shabbeta’im ve-ha-Ḥasidim, 2
(1913), 27–64; A.R. Malakhi, in: Hadoar, 18 (1938–39), 155–6; M. Grunwald,
Hamburgs deutsche Juden (1904), 89–124.
[Moshe Shraga Samet]
°EMERY, RICHARD WILDER (1912–1989), U.S. historian.
Emery was professor of history at Queens College, New York.
A non-Jew interested in medieval French history, Emery began
detailed research on the rich notarial records of Perpignan
in southern France. The amount of material of Jewish interest
was so great that he devoted a separate volume to this subject,
The Jews of Perpignan in the Thirteenth Century: An Economic
Study Based on Notarial Records (1959), which was followed by
other monographs. This is the most detailed study of certain
aspects of the history of a medieval Jewish community that
has ever appeared, and it reveals the existence of vast untapped
sources of information. In addition, his studies have thrown
much light on the real extent and consequences of the forced
conversions that began in 1391 and on eminent personalities,
such as Menahem *Meiri and Profiat *Duran. He also wrote
The Friars in Medieval France: A Catalogue of French Mendicant
Convents 1200–1550 (1962) and Heresy and Inquisition in
Narbonne (1967).
[Cecil Roth]
EMESA (now Homs), city in Syria. It was ruled by a dynasty
which enjoyed friendly political relations in the first century
C.E. with Agrippa I (Jos., Ant., 18:135; 19:338) and with
Agrippa II (ibid., 20:139). The marriages contracted between
members of the two royal families were apparently dictated by
political expedience. It is likely, although evidence is lacking,
that at this period Jews were living in Emesa. Azizus king of
Emesa consented to be circumcised in order to marry Drusilla
the sister of Agrippa II, and it may be that he was not the only
proselyte in his kingdom at this time. There is reference to
other proselytes in Emesa at a later period, in about the third
century (TJ, Yev. 11:2, 11d, et. al.). Several Palestinian amoraim
visited Emesa: Ḥiyya b. Abba received money for orphans and
widows from the local Jews (TJ, Meg. 3:1, 74a). R. Yose was
asked there about the laws concerning a levirate marriage
and proselytes (TJ, Yev. 11:2, 11d), and R. Haggai about those
concerning the tithe from fields rented to non-Jews (TJ, Dem.
6:1, 25b; TJ, Av. Zar. 1:9, 40b). Still in existence at the time of
the Arab conquest (635–40), members of the community assisted
the conquerors. With the fall of the *Umayyad caliphate
and the Byzantine invasions of the region, the town was impoverished
and the Jews abandoned it. *Benjamin of Tudela,
the 12th century traveler, found about 20 families there. After
a short period of prosperity during the 13th century, there is
no further information on Jews in the town.
Bibliography: Neubauer, Géogr, 299–300; Domaszewski,
in: ARW, 11 (1908), 223–42; R. Dussaud, Topographie historique de la
Syrie … (1927), index; Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ al-Buldān (Cairo, 1932),
143; M.N. Adler, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela (1907), 31. Add.
Bibliography: “Ḥimṣ,” in: EIS2, 3, 397–402 (incl. bibl.)
[Lea Roth / Aryeh Shmuelevitz]
EMIN PASHA (Eduard Schnitzer; 1840–1892), Austrian
traveler and explorer. Born of Jewish parents in Silesia, he was
baptized as a child. He served as a quarantine doctor in Albania,
and from 1870–74 as private physician to the governor of
Albania. He adopted a Turkish name, Emin Effendi, and entered
the services of General Gordon, who was then governor
of the Equatorial Province of Egypt. When Gordon was made
governor general of the Sudan in 1878, he appointed Emin to
succeed him. They were both determined to stamp out the
slave trade, and Emin traveled the length and breadth of his
province continuously on the watch. When the Mahdi revolution
broke out in 1881, Emin Pasha (as he now called himself)
held his province although he was completely surrounded and
isolated. The Germans and the British made various plans to
relieve him but the British explorer H.M. Stanley was the first
to reach him and with great difficulty persuaded him to leave
the province. In 1880 Emin entered the service of the Germans
and led an expedition along the coast of Lake Victoria to Lake
Albert. The aim was to acquire certain lands for the German
government but while he was traveling, the Anglo-German
agreement was signed excluding these territories. He was ordered
to return but quarreled with the Germans and refused.
Disease now broke out among the men of his expedition and
Emin went into the Congo, sending the able members to the
coast while he stayed inland with the stricken. In 1892 Emin
was murdered by slave traders against whom he had never
stopped fighting. Emin was a good governor, a great linguist,
and his contributions to the ornithology, ethnography, and
meteorology of Central Africa were important. He published
a number of treatises and diaries. Emin Pasha Gulf, the Southern
Bay of Lake Victoria, was named after him.
Bibliography: F. Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz
von Afrika (1894), contains bibliography p. 59–60; G. Schweinfurt et
al. (eds.), Emin Pasha in Central Africa (1888); B. Schweitzer, Emin
Pasha, his Life and Work (1898); A.F.A. Symons, Emin, Governor of
Equatoria (1950). Add. Bibliography: C. Edel and J.P. Sicre,
Vers les montagnes de la lune – Sur les traces d’Emin Pasha (1993);
I.R. Smith, The Emin Pasha Relief Expedition 1886–1890 (1972); S.
White, The Lost Empire on the Nile – H.M. Stanley, Emin Pasha and
the Imperialists (1969).
EMIOT, ISRAEL (pseudonym of I. Goldwasser; 1909–1978),
Yiddish poet. Influenced by the Warsaw Jewish Writers’ Club,
Emiot moved in the years 1932–36 from ḥasidic to worldly
themes and published several collections containing ballads
on Jewish history, pastoral lyrics, and innovative triolets that
reflect the somber interwar mood (Mit Zikh Aleyn, “Alone
with Self ”; Tropen in Yam, “Drops in the Ocean”; Bay Zayt,
“Beside Me”; Iber Makhitses, “Over Partitions”). In 1939 he fled
to Russia, where Lider (“Songs,” 1940) contained lamentations
about family, homeland, and war. While he was a correspondent
in Birobidzhan (1944–8), he published Oyfgang (“Rising,”
1947), with Sovietized content. When the Jewish *Anti-Fascist
Committee was liquidated (1948), he was arrested and imprisoned
for seven years in Siberia. Repatriated to Poland, he published
Benkshaft (“Yearning,” 1957), before immigrating to the
394 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6