JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

construction and ignores the mythological dimension; other
tannaitic views similarly deny that the creation was initiated
at Zion (Yoma 54b). The mishnaic source may have antedated
the cosmogonic belief; it may have postdated it and rejected
it; or it may have assumed that it was the cosmogenetic rock
that was brought to the Temple site. The later Midrash states
that the entire Temple was founded upon the rock, and that
the stone was possessed of magical properties.
The relationship of the even shetiyyah to the rock presently
housed under the Dome of the Rock (the “Mosque of
Omar”) built on the Temple Mount is not fully clear. Muslim
tradition identifies the two, and this is the view most widely
held today. The major difficulty here is the size: the rock
housed in the Dome of the Rock measures approximately 58 by
51 feet, an area larger than the entire Holy of Holies in which
the even shetiyyah was found. The later Midrash does state,
though, that the entire Temple was based on this rock, which,
it implies, merely broke through in the Holy of Holies. In medieval
times it was thought that the ground around the rock
had been worn away by violence and the erosion of centuries,
revealing it in its present magnitude (cf. Radbaz, Responsa,
2 (1882), nos. 639, 691). A second theory states that the rock
under the Dome is not the even shetiyyah but the foundationrock
of the great altar of holocausts; the cave under the rock
would then have served to collect ashes and other sacrificial
refuse. In that case, the Holy of Holies would have stood to
the west of the present Dome of the Rock, which presents architectural
and topographical difficulties.
Bibliography: Ginzberg, Legends, 5 (1925), 14–16; H. Albeck,
Shishah Sidrei Mishnah, 2 (1958), 469; S. Lieberman, Tosefta
ki-Feshutah, 4 (1962), 772–3; de Vaux, Anc Isr, 318–9; H.H. Rowley,
Worship in the Bible (1967), 76n. (bibl.); D. Noy, in: G. Elkoshi et al.
(eds.), Ve-li-Yrushalayim (1968), 360–94.
[Gerald Y. Blidstein]
EVEN-SHOSHAN, AVRAHAM (1906–1984), Hebrew educator,
writer, and editor. His father, Chaim David Rosenstein
(1871–1934), was an educator and Zionist leader, who was imprisoned
by the Soviet government for his activities. Avraham
was born in Minsk, and went to Palestine in 1925. He served
as teacher and principal in a number of schools, and from
1954 until 1968 was director of the Bet ha-Kerem Teachers
Institute in Jerusalem. His first literary efforts appeared in a
children’s magazine (Ittonenu) which he helped edit (1932–36).
Subsequently he published stories, poems, and plays for children,
and translated children’s books into Hebrew. He is best
known for a monumental Hebrew dictionary which he compiled,
Millon Ḥadash Menukkad u-Mezuyyar (“New Vocalized
and Illustrated Dictionary”), which originally appeared
in five volumes and a supplementary volume (1947–58); a
seven-volume edition subsequently appeared, which is now
also available in other formats. His Concordance to the Bible
listing and explaining the words and expressions of the Bible
appeared between 1977 and 1979. Even-Shoshan was awarded
the Israel Prize in 1978 and the Bialik Prize in 1981. His brother
even yiẒḤak
Shelomo even-Shoshan (1910– ) was one of the founders
of kibbutz Sedeh Naḥum. He contributed poems, stories, and
articles to the labor press and from 1944 was one of the editors
at the Kibbutz ha-Me’uḥad publishing house. His books
include an appreciation of Yiẓḥak *Katzenelson and translations
from Soviet Russian literature.
[Getzel Kressel]
EVENTOV, YAKIR (Drago Steiner; 1901–1984), journalist
and historian.
Born in Koprivnica, Yugoslavia, he lived and worked in
Zagreb until his immigration to Palestine. A Zionist activist
from his youth in the Ha-Po’el ha-Ẓa’ir branch in Yugoslavia,
he edited the Zionist weekly Židov and an “Anthology
of Hebrew Literature,” to which he contributed his own
translations.
Arriving in Palestine in 1934, he spent a year in kibbutz
Merḥavyah; the next year he joined the staff of the Haifa
Electric Corporation and worked there until his retirement.
He devoted all his spare time to the study of Jewish history,
producing with the assistance of C. *Rotem a volume entitled
“History of the Jews in Yugoslavia” (1979), the first work in
Hebrew on the subject.
With his wife, Ethel, he initiated in 1955, and directed
from his home in Haifa, an archival collection of documents
and materials on Jewish life in all parts of Yugoslavia. It was
called the Museum and Historical Section of the Association
of Immigrants from Yugoslavia. After the Eventovs’ death,
the collection was renamed in their honor the Eventov Archives,
and in 1986 it was transferred to Jerusalem, where it
became part of the Central Archives for the History of the
Jewish People.
[Zvi Loker (2nd ed.)]
EVEN YEHUDAH (Heb. הָ דּוהְי ןֶ בֶ א), rural settlement in central
Israel, 4⅓ mi. (7 km.) southeast of Netanyah. The settlement
area consists of 3.2 sq. mi. (8.3 sq. km.). It was founded in
1932 by the members of the *Benei Binyamin movement. Two
neighboring villages, Be’er Gannim and Tel Ẓur, later merged
with it. In 1950 it received municipal council status. The youth
village Hadassim was also included in its boundaries. Citrus
orchards constituted the principal branch of its economy. In
the early 1970s the settlement began to decline. However, after
the Yom Kippur War there was an influx of new residents,
so that the population grew from 4,000 in 1968 to 8,480 in
2002, with income much higher than the national average. It
is named after Eliezer *Ben-Yehuda.
Website: www.even-yehuda.mumi.il.
[Efraim Orni / Shaked Gilboa (2nd ed.)]
EVEN YIẒḤAK (Heb. קָחְצִי ןֶ בֶ א), kibbutz in Israel, in the
Manasseh Hills of Samaria, affiliated with Iḥud ha-Kibbutzim,
founded on March 11, 1945, by pioneers from Germany, many
of whom had been hiding in Holland under Nazi occupation
from 1940. They were joined by Jews from other countries.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 575