JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

worked at the Oxford Institute for Yiddish Studies, and taught
Yiddish language and culture at London University’s School
of Oriental and African Studies. In 2003 he was appointed
visiting professor of Yiddish studies at New York University.
He is a regular columnist for the New York weekly Forverts
(also under the pseudonyms G. Yakobi and Yakov London).
He has published numerous scholarly articles on 20th century
Yiddish culture in English and Yiddish. Other books include
Moskver Purim-Shpiln (“Moscow Purim Plays,” 1993), Intensive
Yiddish (1996), and In Harness: Yiddish Writers’ Romance
With Communism (2005).
[Mikhail Krutikov (2nd ed.)]
ESTROSA (or Istrumsa), DANIEL (1582?–1653), Salonikan
rabbi and halakhist. Estrosa was born in Salonika and studied
under Isaac Franco and Mordecai *Kalai. He was apparently
appointed as head of the famous yeshivah of the community
known as “Portugala Yaḥya” during the latter years of Kalai’s
life. Among his pupils were David *Conforte, Gershon b.
Abraham Motal, and Gabriel Esperanza. He died in Salonika
during a plague. The only one of Estrosa’s works published
under his own name is Magen Gibborim (Salonika, 1754),
responsa. It contains valuable glosses on the readings of
Maimonides’ Yad and of Jacob b. Asher’s Tur. Other known
works by him are included in the publications of others:
his Kunteres Shemot ha-Gittin in the Yerekh Avraham, pt.
1 (Salonika, 1815), 1a–4b, of his grandson, Ḥayyim Abraham
Estrosa, who also included his grandfather’s novellae on
chapter three of tractate Avodah Zarah in his Ben Avraham
(Salonika, 1826); glosses on the Tur, Ḥoshen Mishpat, in the
Doresh Mishpat (Salonika, 1655) of Solomon b. Samuel Florentin;
and his halakhic decisions in the works of his colleagues
and disciples.
Bibliography: Conforte, Kore, s.v.; Rosanes, Togarmah,
3 (1938), 178; I.S. Emmanuel, Gedolei Saloniki le-Dorotam, 1 (1936),
309–11, no. 467; idem, Maẓẓevot Saloniki, 1 (1963), 313f., no. 717.
ESZTERGOM (Ger. Gran), city in N. Hungary, on the Danube;
it had the oldest Jewish community in Hungary. This is
mentioned for the first time during the 11th century, when
Kalonymus b. Shabbetai lived in Esztergom; he is known
for the severe legal decision which he pronounced against
two merchants of Regensburg who arrived in Esztergom after
the beginning of the Sabbath (Zedekiah Anav, Shibbolei
ha-Leket, Hilkhot Shabbat, para. 60; see also Rashi to Beẓah
24b). The community lived in a closed Jewish quarter under
the protection of the archbishop, granted by him in 1294, and
the royal court, and had grown to 1,000 persons before the
expulsion of the Jews from Esztergom in 1526. Jews resettled
in Esztergom during the 18th century, and numbered 870 in
1850, 1,540 in 1910, 1,300 in 1930, and 450 in 1941, attached to
a labor camp in 1942 along with thousands of other Jews. On
June 13–16, 1944, they were deported to Auschwitz via Farkan.
Only 52 survivors returned and there were only ten Jews living
in Esztergom in 1970.
ethan
Bibliography: F. Knauz and L.C. Dedek, Monumenta Ecclesiae
Strigoniensis, 3 vols. (1874–1924); V.E. László, in: R.L. Braham
(ed.), Hungarian Jewish Studies, 2 (1969), 137–82.
[Encyclopaedia Hebraica]
ETAM (Heb. ם ָטיע). ֵ
(1) The cleft in the rock where 3,000 men of Judah came
to speak with Samson after he had slaughtered the Philistines
(Judg. 15:8, 11). Some scholars identify it with ʿIrāq Ismāʿīn,
2½ mi. (4 km.) southeast of Zorah.
(2) A village in the northern Negev, mentioned together
with En-Rimmon (I Chron. 4:32) and identified with the
prominent Tell Beit Mirsim, where remains of the Israelite
period, including walls, have been found.
(3) A city in the territory of Judah, located in the Bethlehem
district according to a Septuagint addition to Joshua
15:59. It was fortified by Rehoboam together with Bethlehem
and Tekoa (II Chron. 11:6). Josephus relates that it was one of
Solomon’s pleasure resorts and describes it as “delightful for,
and abounding in, parks and flowing streams” (Ant., 8:186).
It is most likely to be identified with Khirbat al-Ḥūḥ, a large
tell with Iron Age remains, near Ein-Atan in the vicinity of the
Pools of Solomon. According to the Talmud, the waters of its
spring were brought to the Temple (TJ, Yoma 3:8, 41a), probably
a reference to the aqueduct built by Pilate to catch the
waters of the spring of Etam (Jos., Wars, 2:175; Ant., 18:60). A
Kefar Etam is mentioned in the Mishnah (Yev. 12:6).
Bibliography: Kraus, in: ZDPV, 72 (1956), 152–62; Aharoni,
Land, index; Press, Ereẓ, 4 (19552), S.V.
[Michael Avi-Yonah]
ÉTAMPES (Heb. שפנטיא), town in the Seine et Oise department,
S. of Paris. At the time of the expulsion of 1182, King
Philip Augustus gave the synagogue to the canons of Étampes
to be converted into the collegiate church of Sainte-Croix (destroyed
during the Revolution). There is still a rue de la Juiverie
in Étampes, near the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville. One house
in this square is still called the “synagogue,” a name also given
to the vast cellar (since filled in) under 39 and 41, rue Ste-
Croix. Local tradition holds that Jews took refuge in the cellars
of the quarter to escape persecutions and expulsions and
that they buried their treasures there. Until 1182, R. Nathan b.
Meshulam, great-grandfather of Joseph b. Nathan *Official,
author of Yosef ha-Mekanne, lived in Étampes.
Bibliography: Gross, Gal Jud, 44–45; B. Fleureau, Les antiquitez…
d’Etampes (1683), 380f.; M. de Mont-Rond, Essais historiques
sur… Etampes (1836), 1, 136ff.; M. Legrand, Etampes pittoresque
(1897), passim.
[Bernhard Blumenkranz]
ETHAN (Heb. ןתי ָ א; ֵ “permanent, enduring”? or “one consecrated
[to a temple]”?). The Bible ostensibly mentions four individuals
named Ethan: (1) Ethan the Ezrahite, a sage (along
with *Heman, Calcol, and Darda, “sons of Mahol”) whom
Solomon surpassed in wisdom (I Kings 5:11). Psalm 89 is as-
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 523