JewishEncyclopedia.com

DEAF AND DUMB IN JEWISH LAW – In Jewish legislation deaf and dumb persons are frequently classed with minors and idiots, and are considered unable to enter into transactions requiring responsibility and independence of will. They are regarded as...
DEAF-MUTISM – Disease of the ear, generally beginning in infancy, causing deafness and consequent dumbness. As with blindness, Jews, at any rate in modern times, have shown a marked tendency toward deaf-mutism—in the general proportion, as...
DEATH, ANGEL OF – Biblical Data: In the Bible death is viewed under form of an angel sent from God, a being deprived of all voluntary power. The "angel of the Lord" smites 185,000 men in the Assyrian camp (II Kings xix. 35). "The destroyer"...
DEATH, VIEWS AND CUSTOMS CONCERNING – In Biblical and Apocryphal Literature: The ancient Hebrews expected to "be gathered to [or sleep with] their fathers" when death befell them (Gen. xxv. 8, xlvii. 30), and feared only the idea of going down to Sheol mourning (ib....
DEATH (Statistics) – See Mortality.
DEBARIM – See Deuteronomy.
DEBARIM RABBAH – Sections of the Midrash. A Midrash or homiletic commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy. Unlike Bereshit Rabbah, the Midrash to Deuteronomy which has been included in the collection of the Rabbot in the ordinary editions does not...
DEBASH, ISAIAH BEN SAMUEL – Provençal poet of the second half of the thirteenth century. Renan supposes that the surname "Debash" (honey) is the Hebrew translation of the Provençal name "Miles," a surname frequently borne by the Jews of Provence. Debash is...
DEBE RABBI ISHMAEL – See Ishmael Ben Elisha.
DEBIR – 1. A king of Eglon referred to in Josh. x. 3 et seq. The Septuagint reads Δαβὶν. Debir was one of the five kings who joined Adonizedek, King of Jerusalem, against the city of Gibeon. In the battle which ensued, according to the...
DEBIR, THE – See Holy of Holies.
DEBORAH – 1. Rebekah's nurse, who accompanied Jacob, and died on the road to Beth-el. She was buried under a terebinth ("oak" in A. V. and R. V.), on this account named "Allon-bakut" (terebinth of weeping; Gen.xxxv. 8). This tree appears...
DEBORAH, THE SONG OF – Name of the triumphal ode found in Judges v. 2-31 and ascribed in the title (Judges v. 1) to Deborah; it celebrates the victory in the plain of Megiddo over Sisera and his army. The song belongs to the earlier poetry of the...
DEBORAH – A Jewish weekly in the German language, founded in 1855 by Isaac M. Wise and Max Lilienthal in Cincinnati, Ohio, for German immigrants who had not mastered English. It was planned as a German supplement to the American...
DEBTOR AND CREDITOR – The law-books treat under this head the incidents of payment: the kind of money that the creditor must accept; the place at which the debtor must pay; the means of sending or bringing the money; good and bad tenders; the...
DEBTS OF DECEDENTS – Under the old law as it is recognized in many passages of the Talmud (e.g., Ket. 81b) and implied in the Mishnah (Ket. ix. 2; B. Ḳ. x. 1), the goods and chattels of a decedent, or the moneys due to his estate, can not be seized...
DECALOGUE – A word, derived from the Greek, corresponding to the Biblical ; LXX. οἷ δέκα λόγοι(Ex. xxxiv. 28; Deut. x. 4; compare Josephus, "Ant." iii. 5, § 3) and τὰ δέκα ῥήματα (Deut. xiv. 13); also τὰ δέκα λόγια, in the title of Philo's...
DECALOGUE, THE, IN JEWISH THEOLOGY – The Ten Words are designated by Philo as κεφαλαῖα νόμων ="the heads of the law," the title of the chapter "De Decem Oraculis." The second table Philo, contrary to the usual order, begins with the commandment against adultery,...
DECAPITATION – See Capital Punishment.
DECAPOLIS, THE – Name of a district of Palestine that included a number of autonomous cities. According to Pliny ("Historia Naturalis," v. 18, 74) these ten cities were Damascus, Philadelphia, Raphana, Scythopolis, Gadara, Hippos, Dion, Pella,...
DECKERT, FRANCIS – Clerical anti-Semitic agitator; born at Vienna 1846; died there March 21, 1901. From its beginning in the eighth decade of the nineteenth century Deckert was identified, as a political agitator and writer, with the anti-Semitic...
DECKINGEN, JUDAH BEN BENJAMIN – German lexicographer of the sixteenth century. He was the pupil of Isaac of Ahrweiler, and lived as tutor at Wendersheim (1555), Rüsselheim, and other places of southern Germany. In 1556 he compiled a Hebrew-German glossary of...
DECSEY, SIGMUND – Departmental president of the Supreme Court of Budapest; born in 1839 at Aszod. He studied law at Budapest; founding with Desider Szilágyi (afterward minister of justice and president of the Parliament) "a lawyer's relief...
DEDANIM – The descendants of the Arabian Dedan, spoken of (Isa. xxi. 13) as engaged in commerce. Dedan is first mentioned (Gen. x. 7; I Chron. i. 9) as a son of Raamah, son of Cush, and again (Gen. xxv. 3; I Chron. i. 32) as a son of...
DEDE AGATCH – Turkish port on the Ægean Sea, at the mouth of the Maritza, near Enos, European Turkey. It has about two hundred Jews in a population of three thousand. The community, founded in 1870, possesses a synagogue, and a primary school...

DEAF AND DUMB IN JEWISH LAW – In Jewish legislation deaf and dumb persons are frequently classed with minors and idiots, and are considered unable to enter into transactions requiring responsibility and independence of will. They are regarded as...

DEAF-MUTISM – Disease of the ear, generally beginning in infancy, causing deafness and consequent dumbness. As with blindness, Jews, at any rate in modern times, have shown a marked tendency toward deaf-mutism—in the general proportion, as...

DEATH, ANGEL OF – Biblical Data: In the Bible death is viewed under form of an angel sent from God, a being deprived of all voluntary power. The "angel of the Lord" smites 185,000 men in the Assyrian camp (II Kings xix. 35). "The destroyer"...

DEATH, VIEWS AND CUSTOMS CONCERNING – In Biblical and Apocryphal Literature: The ancient Hebrews expected to "be gathered to [or sleep with] their fathers" when death befell them (Gen. xxv. 8, xlvii. 30), and feared only the idea of going down to Sheol mourning (ib....

DEATH (Statistics) – See Mortality.

DEBARIM – See Deuteronomy.

DEBARIM RABBAH – Sections of the Midrash. A Midrash or homiletic commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy. Unlike Bereshit Rabbah, the Midrash to Deuteronomy which has been included in the collection of the Rabbot in the ordinary editions does not...

DEBASH, ISAIAH BEN SAMUEL – Provençal poet of the second half of the thirteenth century. Renan supposes that the surname "Debash" (honey) is the Hebrew translation of the Provençal name "Miles," a surname frequently borne by the Jews of Provence. Debash is...

DEBE RABBI ISHMAEL – See Ishmael Ben Elisha.

DEBIR – 1. A king of Eglon referred to in Josh. x. 3 et seq. The Septuagint reads Δαβὶν. Debir was one of the five kings who joined Adonizedek, King of Jerusalem, against the city of Gibeon. In the battle which ensued, according to the...

DEBIR, THE – See Holy of Holies.

DEBORAH – 1. Rebekah's nurse, who accompanied Jacob, and died on the road to Beth-el. She was buried under a terebinth ("oak" in A. V. and R. V.), on this account named "Allon-bakut" (terebinth of weeping; Gen.xxxv. 8). This tree appears...

DEBORAH, THE SONG OF – Name of the triumphal ode found in Judges v. 2-31 and ascribed in the title (Judges v. 1) to Deborah; it celebrates the victory in the plain of Megiddo over Sisera and his army. The song belongs to the earlier poetry of the...

DEBORAH – A Jewish weekly in the German language, founded in 1855 by Isaac M. Wise and Max Lilienthal in Cincinnati, Ohio, for German immigrants who had not mastered English. It was planned as a German supplement to the American...

DEBTOR AND CREDITOR – The law-books treat under this head the incidents of payment: the kind of money that the creditor must accept; the place at which the debtor must pay; the means of sending or bringing the money; good and bad tenders; the...

DEBTS OF DECEDENTS – Under the old law as it is recognized in many passages of the Talmud (e.g., Ket. 81b) and implied in the Mishnah (Ket. ix. 2; B. Ḳ. x. 1), the goods and chattels of a decedent, or the moneys due to his estate, can not be seized...

DECALOGUE – A word, derived from the Greek, corresponding to the Biblical ; LXX. οἷ δέκα λόγοι(Ex. xxxiv. 28; Deut. x. 4; compare Josephus, "Ant." iii. 5, § 3) and τὰ δέκα ῥήματα (Deut. xiv. 13); also τὰ δέκα λόγια, in the title of Philo's...

DECALOGUE, THE, IN JEWISH THEOLOGY – The Ten Words are designated by Philo as κεφαλαῖα νόμων ="the heads of the law," the title of the chapter "De Decem Oraculis." The second table Philo, contrary to the usual order, begins with the commandment against adultery,...

DECAPITATION – See Capital Punishment.

DECAPOLIS, THE – Name of a district of Palestine that included a number of autonomous cities. According to Pliny ("Historia Naturalis," v. 18, 74) these ten cities were Damascus, Philadelphia, Raphana, Scythopolis, Gadara, Hippos, Dion, Pella,...

DECKERT, FRANCIS – Clerical anti-Semitic agitator; born at Vienna 1846; died there March 21, 1901. From its beginning in the eighth decade of the nineteenth century Deckert was identified, as a political agitator and writer, with the anti-Semitic...

DECKINGEN, JUDAH BEN BENJAMIN – German lexicographer of the sixteenth century. He was the pupil of Isaac of Ahrweiler, and lived as tutor at Wendersheim (1555), Rüsselheim, and other places of southern Germany. In 1556 he compiled a Hebrew-German glossary of...

DECSEY, SIGMUND – Departmental president of the Supreme Court of Budapest; born in 1839 at Aszod. He studied law at Budapest; founding with Desider Szilágyi (afterward minister of justice and president of the Parliament) "a lawyer's relief...

DEDANIM – The descendants of the Arabian Dedan, spoken of (Isa. xxi. 13) as engaged in commerce. Dedan is first mentioned (Gen. x. 7; I Chron. i. 9) as a son of Raamah, son of Cush, and again (Gen. xxv. 3; I Chron. i. 32) as a son of...

DEDE AGATCH – Turkish port on the Ægean Sea, at the mouth of the Maritza, near Enos, European Turkey. It has about two hundred Jews in a population of three thousand. The community, founded in 1870, possesses a synagogue, and a primary school...