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DIALECTS – Under this heading are considered the various forms of those languages, other than Hebrew, which have been spoken or written by the Jews, and which have been modified by them, either through the introduction of Hebrew words,...
DIAS, FÉLIX – French painter; born at Bordeaux 1794; died May 29, 1817. From his earliest youth he betrayed marked talent for painting. Accordingly he was sent to the Academy, where he carried off several academic honors and took the first...
DIAS (DIAZ), MOSES B. ISAAC – Author, publisher, and bookseller of Amsterdam. In 1695 he published Joseph Franco Serrano's Spanish translation of the Pentateuch, and, between that date and 1715, a number of Hebrew books. He is the author of "Meditaciones...
DIASPORA – The Jews in their dispersion through the Greco-Roman world. In the present article the Jewish race is considered in its relations to the Hellenic and the Roman peoples. The geographical distribution of the race; the civil...
DIATHESIS – A predisposition to certain forms of disease. It has been observed by physicians at all times that some races are more prone to be affected by certain diseases than are other races. These peculiar tendencies have sometimes been...
DIAZ (DIAS) DE SORIA – A family of Bordeaux which derived its name from the Spanish town Soria. There is nothing to definitely warrant the belief, held by Féret, that this family went to France as early as 1492. It is found for the first time, with...
DIBBUḲIM – Transmigrated souls. "Dibbuḳ" (lit. "something that cleaves unto something else") is a colloquial equivalent, common among the superstitious Jews in eastern European countries, for a migrant soul. It represents the latest phase...
DIBLAH – According to the Masorah and Septuagint, which the R. V. follows, "Diblah" is the name of a place mentioned in Ezek. vi. 14. No place of this name corresponding with the requirements of the passage is known. J. D. Michaelis...
DIBON – 1. A very ancient town, situated from three to five miles (Baedeker, "Palestine," p. 193) north of the River Arnon (Tristram, "The Land of Moab," pp. 132 et seq.). The true pronunciation seems to be "Daibon" (according to the...
DICE – See Gambling.
DICK, ISAAC MAYER – Russian Hebraist and novelist; born in Wilna 1808 (of the various dates the one given by "Aḥiasaf" is probably most nearly correct); died there Jan. 24, 1893. His father, who was a ḥazzan, gave him the usual Talmudical...
DICK, LEOPOLD – German artist and professor of engraving; born 1817; died June 23, 1854. He studied art at the Royal Academy of Munich, and became well known through his lithographic illustrations of the Old Testament after Raphael. In 1848 he...
DICKENS, CHARLES – English novelist; born Feb. 7, 1812, at 387 Mile End Terrace, Commercial Road, Landport, Portsea; died June 9, 1870, at Gadshill, near Rochester, Kent. Dickens is of interest to the Jewish world principally through two of his...
DICTIONARIES, BIBLE – Calmet's Dictionary. Collections of articles in alphabetical order treating of the various biographical, archeological, geographical, and other subjects of the Bible. Up to within quite recent times Jews have taken very little...
DICTIONARIES, HEBREW – The earliest known work giving a lexical survey of part of the Hebrew language, with comments, is the dictionary of Biblical proper names (Ερμενεία Εβραικῶν ΟΝομάτων) ascribed to Philo of Alexandria, and in any case the work of...
DIDACHE – A manual of instruction for proselytes, adopted from the Synagogue by early Christianity, and transformed by alteration and amplification into a Church manual. Discovered among a collection of ancient Christian manuscripts in...
DIDASCALI – See Catechumens, House of.
DIDASCALIA – A Greek work, in eight books, containing regulations of Church life, better known under the name of "Apostolic Constitutions," the full title being "Constitutions of the Holy Apostles [composed] by Clemens, Bishop and Citizen of...
DIDEROT, DENIS – French philosopher and encyclopedist; born at Langres Oct. 5, 1713; died at Paris July 30, 1784. Although, like all the French encyclopedists, an apostle of tolerance, Diderot does not seem to have had much sympathy with the...
DIDRACHMA – See Numismatics and Weights and Measures.
DIEGO DE VALENCIA – Spanish troubadour of the fifteenth century; born of Jewish parentage at Valencia de Don Juan, in the kingdom of Leon. After his conversion to Christianity he became a Franciscan monk; and receiving the degree of doctor of...
DIENA (DAYYENA), AZRIEL BEN SOLOMON – Rabbi at Sabbionetta; died 1536. He was a disciple of Nathaniel Trabotto, and is mentioned with respect by R. Meïr Katzenellenbogen. Azulai claims to have seen two volumes of his responsa—perhaps those referred to in "Magazin,"...
DIENA (DAYYENA), DAVID – Italian rabbi; he lived at Rovigo at the end of the seventeenth century. He was consulted on Talmudic matters by R. Nathaniel Segre; and his responsa appeared first in the collection "'Afar Ya'aḳob," from which it was copied by...
DIENESOHN, JACOB – Yiddish novelist; born in Zagory (Zagaren), Russia, in 1859. He is one of the most popular Yiddish novelists of the latter half of the nineteenth century. He began to write in 1877, when he published a story called "Ha-Ne'ehabim...
DIESSENHOFEN – City in the Swiss canton of Thurgau, connected by a bridge with the village of Gailingen in Baden. It attracted the Jews in early times by its favorable position. In 1348 the Jews here were accused of having poisoned the wells:...

DIALECTS – Under this heading are considered the various forms of those languages, other than Hebrew, which have been spoken or written by the Jews, and which have been modified by them, either through the introduction of Hebrew words,...

DIAS, FÉLIX – French painter; born at Bordeaux 1794; died May 29, 1817. From his earliest youth he betrayed marked talent for painting. Accordingly he was sent to the Academy, where he carried off several academic honors and took the first...

DIAS (DIAZ), MOSES B. ISAAC – Author, publisher, and bookseller of Amsterdam. In 1695 he published Joseph Franco Serrano's Spanish translation of the Pentateuch, and, between that date and 1715, a number of Hebrew books. He is the author of "Meditaciones...

DIASPORA – The Jews in their dispersion through the Greco-Roman world. In the present article the Jewish race is considered in its relations to the Hellenic and the Roman peoples. The geographical distribution of the race; the civil...

DIATHESIS – A predisposition to certain forms of disease. It has been observed by physicians at all times that some races are more prone to be affected by certain diseases than are other races. These peculiar tendencies have sometimes been...

DIAZ (DIAS) DE SORIA – A family of Bordeaux which derived its name from the Spanish town Soria. There is nothing to definitely warrant the belief, held by Féret, that this family went to France as early as 1492. It is found for the first time, with...

DIBBUḲIM – Transmigrated souls. "Dibbuḳ" (lit. "something that cleaves unto something else") is a colloquial equivalent, common among the superstitious Jews in eastern European countries, for a migrant soul. It represents the latest phase...

DIBLAH – According to the Masorah and Septuagint, which the R. V. follows, "Diblah" is the name of a place mentioned in Ezek. vi. 14. No place of this name corresponding with the requirements of the passage is known. J. D. Michaelis...

DIBON – 1. A very ancient town, situated from three to five miles (Baedeker, "Palestine," p. 193) north of the River Arnon (Tristram, "The Land of Moab," pp. 132 et seq.). The true pronunciation seems to be "Daibon" (according to the...

DICE – See Gambling.

DICK, ISAAC MAYER – Russian Hebraist and novelist; born in Wilna 1808 (of the various dates the one given by "Aḥiasaf" is probably most nearly correct); died there Jan. 24, 1893. His father, who was a ḥazzan, gave him the usual Talmudical...

DICK, LEOPOLD – German artist and professor of engraving; born 1817; died June 23, 1854. He studied art at the Royal Academy of Munich, and became well known through his lithographic illustrations of the Old Testament after Raphael. In 1848 he...

DICKENS, CHARLES – English novelist; born Feb. 7, 1812, at 387 Mile End Terrace, Commercial Road, Landport, Portsea; died June 9, 1870, at Gadshill, near Rochester, Kent. Dickens is of interest to the Jewish world principally through two of his...

DICTIONARIES, BIBLE – Calmet's Dictionary. Collections of articles in alphabetical order treating of the various biographical, archeological, geographical, and other subjects of the Bible. Up to within quite recent times Jews have taken very little...

DICTIONARIES, HEBREW – The earliest known work giving a lexical survey of part of the Hebrew language, with comments, is the dictionary of Biblical proper names (Ερμενεία Εβραικῶν ΟΝομάτων) ascribed to Philo of Alexandria, and in any case the work of...

DIDACHE – A manual of instruction for proselytes, adopted from the Synagogue by early Christianity, and transformed by alteration and amplification into a Church manual. Discovered among a collection of ancient Christian manuscripts in...

DIDASCALI – See Catechumens, House of.

DIDASCALIA – A Greek work, in eight books, containing regulations of Church life, better known under the name of "Apostolic Constitutions," the full title being "Constitutions of the Holy Apostles [composed] by Clemens, Bishop and Citizen of...

DIDEROT, DENIS – French philosopher and encyclopedist; born at Langres Oct. 5, 1713; died at Paris July 30, 1784. Although, like all the French encyclopedists, an apostle of tolerance, Diderot does not seem to have had much sympathy with the...

DIDRACHMA – See Numismatics and Weights and Measures.

DIEGO DE VALENCIA – Spanish troubadour of the fifteenth century; born of Jewish parentage at Valencia de Don Juan, in the kingdom of Leon. After his conversion to Christianity he became a Franciscan monk; and receiving the degree of doctor of...

DIENA (DAYYENA), AZRIEL BEN SOLOMON – Rabbi at Sabbionetta; died 1536. He was a disciple of Nathaniel Trabotto, and is mentioned with respect by R. Meïr Katzenellenbogen. Azulai claims to have seen two volumes of his responsa—perhaps those referred to in "Magazin,"...

DIENA (DAYYENA), DAVID – Italian rabbi; he lived at Rovigo at the end of the seventeenth century. He was consulted on Talmudic matters by R. Nathaniel Segre; and his responsa appeared first in the collection "'Afar Ya'aḳob," from which it was copied by...

DIENESOHN, JACOB – Yiddish novelist; born in Zagory (Zagaren), Russia, in 1859. He is one of the most popular Yiddish novelists of the latter half of the nineteenth century. He began to write in 1877, when he published a story called "Ha-Ne'ehabim...

DIESSENHOFEN – City in the Swiss canton of Thurgau, connected by a bridge with the village of Gailingen in Baden. It attracted the Jews in early times by its favorable position. In 1348 the Jews here were accused of having poisoned the wells:...