100-522: The El Ghriba Synagogue ( Arabic : كنيس الغريبة ), also known as the Djerba Synagogue , is an ancient Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue , located in the Jewish village of Hara Seghira (currently known as er-Riadh), several kilometres southwest of Houmt El Souk , the main town on the island of Djerba , Tunisia . The synagogue appears to be the oldest synagogue in the world. Besides being
200-408: A yahrtzeit is marked by observances that "bring out the solemn and serious nature of the day". Other issues raised include the practice of throwing clothes into bonfires, which is perceived as wasteful , the fact that the holiday has not been celebrated by earlier sages, and the prohibition of establishing holidays. Nevertheless, these authorities did not ban the holiday. Other rabbis responded to
300-527: A 16th-century kabbalist in Tripoli, Libya , in honor of Shimon Bar Yochai. Other songs include " Ve'Amartem Koh LeChai ", a poem arranged as an alphabetical acrostic , and " Amar Rabbi Akiva ". Most Hasidic Rebbes conduct a tish on Lag BaOmer, in addition to or instead of a bonfire. A full meal is usually served, and candles are lit. It is traditional to sing " Bar Yochai ", " Ve'Amartem Koh Lechai ", and " Amar Rabbi Akiva ". Among
400-530: A black band around their pants, which signifies the destruction of the Temple. Another tradition claims that the synagogue was built on a spot where a young girl ( ghriba , "the isolated one") had lived, that had not been accepted by the others. She died, and her uncorrupted body was found by the Jews of the nearby village, and then buried in a cave which became the site of an annual pilgrimage for Lag BaOmer . The synagogue
500-598: A century-old tradition among his Hasidim to light a bonfire at the grave of Rabbi Akiva in Tiberias on Lag BaOmer night. The tradition had been abandoned due to attacks on participants. After the bonfire, the Rebbe delivered a dvar Torah , gave blessings, and distributed shirayim . Later that same night, the Rebbe cut the hair of three-year-old boys for their Upsherin . For many years, New York based Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum of Satmar discouraged bonfires, saying it
600-562: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as
700-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By
800-1077: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to
900-483: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic
1000-532: A member of the Tunisian National Guard violently attacked Jewish worshippers outside, the synagogue, shooting and killing two Jewish cousins (one of the two men a French tourist and a Tunisian citizen living in Netivot, Israel ), and two Tunisian security guards. Eight others were injured. The shooter, a guard at a naval center, initially shot and killed a colleague and seized his ammunition before heading to
1100-677: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb [ ar ] ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak
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#17330853027341200-469: A passage by Hayyim ben Joseph Vital , which read שמחת רשב"י "the celebration of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai" but was mistakenly printed as שמת רשב"י "when Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai died" - a difference of one letter. The actual origin of kabbalistic traditions of visiting Meron on any of several dates in the month of Iyar date to the Middle Ages ; but it is not clear when, by whom, or in what way Lag baOmer
1300-600: A rabbinic-oriented celebration to a commemoration of the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire (132–136 CE ). According to work published by Yael Zerubavel of Rutgers University , a number of Lag BaOmer traditions were reinterpreted by Zionist ideologues to focus on the victory of the Bar Kokhba rebels rather than their ultimate defeat at Betar three years later. The plague that decimated Rabbi Akiva's 24,000 disciples
1400-576: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from
1500-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",
1600-465: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for
1700-503: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means
1800-499: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as
1900-436: A wave of anti-Jewish sentiment following the operation. On April 11, 2002, a truck full of explosives was detonated close to the synagogue, killing 21 people, among whom were 14 German tourists, five Tunisians, and two French nationals. Al-Qaeda militants claimed responsibility for the bombing, which was found to have been masterminded by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and financed by a Pakistani resident of Spain. On 9 May 2023,
2000-470: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted
2100-727: Is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic
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#17330853027342200-640: Is a Jewish religious holiday celebrated on the 33rd day of the Counting of the Omer , which occurs on the 18th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar . According to some of the Rishonim , it is the day on which the plague that killed Rabbi Akiva 's 24,000 disciples came to an end, and for this reason the mourning period of the Counting of the Omer concludes on Lag BaOmer in many communities. According to modern kabbalah , this day
2300-585: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak
2400-542: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It
2500-469: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in
2600-486: Is close to Mount Meron it was customary for the pilgrims to stop by the graves of other holy saints on Mount Meron, among them Shimon's tomb. During the 16th century, when the Ashkenazic community came to Safed , the pilgrimage naturally moved up to Lag Baomer (3 days later), already a joyous day according to Ashekaniz custom (Rema OC 493:2), as it was believed to be the day the plague of Rabbi Akiva's students ended. As one of
2700-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon
2800-468: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and
2900-452: Is not grammatically correct in this setting.) The origins of Lag BaOmer as a minor festival are unclear. The earliest clear reference to the observance of Lag BaOmer is a gloss to Mahzor Vitry in BL Add MS 27,201 (f. 227v), if it is the work of Isaac ben Dorbolo . The gloss points out that Purim and Lag BaOmer always fall on the same day of the week, but says nothing about the origin of
3000-566: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference
3100-836: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not
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3200-457: Is said to explain a previously-existing custom to allow marriages between Lag baOmer and Shavuot. According to MS ex-Montefiore 134, it was traditional to let blood on Lag BaOmer in celebration. Lag Baomer is commonly said to be the day on which Shimon ben Yochai died. Neither the Chazal nor the Rishonim mention that the date of his death was Lag Baomer. The source for this idea appears to be
3300-519: Is the Hillula of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and/or the anniversary of his death. According to a late medieval tradition, Simeon ben Yochai is buried in Meron, and this association has spawned several well-known customs and practices on Lag BaOmer, including the lighting of bonfires and pilgrimages to Meron . Additionally, in modern-day Israel, the holiday also serves to commemorate the Bar Kokhba revolt against
3400-506: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As
3500-584: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that
3600-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into
3700-516: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while
3800-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary
3900-555: The Satmar Hasidim , " Tzama Lecha Nafshi " is sung at the tish in addition to the other songs. Teachings of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, both from the Talmud and the Zohar, are generally expounded upon by Rebbes at their tishen . In some Hasidic courts, the Rebbe may shoot a toy bow and arrow during the tish , and three-year-old boys may be brought to have a lock of hair cut by
4000-561: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to
4100-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic
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4200-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In
4300-805: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c. 8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Lag BaOmer Lag BaOmer ( Hebrew : לַ״ג בָּעוֹמֶר , LaG Bāʿōmer ), also Lag B'Omer or Lag LaOmer ,
4400-413: The "spiritual light" brought in to the world by Simeon ben Yochai . Some have speculated a connection between the bonfires of Lag BaOmer and the festivals of May Day and Beltane which are celebrated by some European cultures around halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice on 1 May, and are also celebrated through large bonfires. In Germany it is also not uncommon to see rural men go out in
4500-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to
4600-470: The 1950s in the three Jewish villages on Djerba. In 2023 Djerba was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site . The synagogue has been the target of terrorist attacks in 1985, in 2002, and in 2023. Djerba is home to around 1,300 Jews, and El Ghriba is an important feature of Jewish life on the island. According to legend, the construction of the synagogue dates from to the High Priests' escape following
4700-399: The 33rd day, which is the fifth day of the fifth week, corresponds to Hod she-be-Hod (Splendor within [the week of] Splendor). As such, Lag BaOmer represents the level of spiritual manifestation or Hod that would precede the more physical manifestation of the 49th day ( Malkhut she-be-Malkhut , Kingship within [the week of] Kingship), which immediately precedes the holiday of Shavuot. While
4800-562: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of
4900-764: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized
5000-525: The Bar Kokhba revolt against the Romans, who had forbidden the kindling of fires that signalled the start of Jewish holidays. Historically, children across Israel used to go out and play with bows and arrows, reflecting the Midrashic statement that the rainbow (the sign of God's promise to never again destroy the earth with a flood; Genesis 9:11–13) was not seen during Bar Yochai's lifetime, as his merit protected
5100-513: The Counting of the Omer is a semi-mourning period, all restrictions of mourning are lifted for Ashkenazim on the 33rd day of the Omer. The Sephardic custom is to cease mourning the following day, celebrations being allowed on the 34th day of the Omer, Lad BaOmer ( ל״ד בעומר ). As a result, weddings, parties, listening to music, and haircuts are commonly scheduled to coincide with Lag BaOmer among Ashkenazi Jews , while Sephardi Jews hold weddings
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#17330853027345200-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around
5300-426: The Omer". Lag Ba Omer is the traditional method of counting by some Ashkenazi and Hasidic Jews; Lag La Omer is the count used by Sephardi Jews . Lag La Omer is also the name used by Yosef Karo , who was a Sepharadi, in his Shulchan Aruch ( Orach Chaim 493:2, and cf. 489:1 where Ba Omer is inserted by Moses Isserles ). (The form Lag B ' Omer ["33rd day of an Omer"] is also sometimes used, though it
5400-672: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from
5500-418: The Rebbe as part of their first haircut . Some rabbis, namely Moses Sofer and Joseph Saul Nathansohn , have opposed the celebration of or the practice of certain customs observed on Lag BaOmer. These halachic scholars pointed out that the way Lag BaOmer is observed differs from the traditional manner in which anniversaries of deaths are observed, as Lag BaOmer is observed in a festive way, whereas usually
5600-561: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With
5700-463: The Romans. Lag BaOmer is Hebrew for "33rd [day] in the Omer ". The Hebrew letter ל ( lamed ) or "L" has the numerical value of 30 and ג ( gimel ) or "G" has the numerical value of three (see Hebrew numerals ). A vowel sound is conventionally added for pronunciation purposes. Some Jews call this holiday Lag La Omer, which means "33rd [day] of the Omer", as opposed to Lag Ba Omer, "33rd [day] in
5800-621: The actions of Bar Kokhba's rebel forces. This interpretation of the holiday reinforced the Zionist reading of Jewish history and underscored their efforts to establish an independent Jewish state. As Benjamin Lau writes in Haaretz : This is how Lag Ba'omer became a part of the Israeli-Zionist psyche during the first years of Zionism and Israel. A clear distinction became evident between Jews and Israelis in
5900-399: The aforesaid opposition by explaining that it has been observed by many great rabbis and that expensive clothes are never burned. They relate what happened on the day of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai's death as evidence that the day is very holy and should be celebrated. This has remained the opinion of most contemporary and recent rabbis. In modern Israel, early Zionists redefined Lag BaOmer from
6000-517: The believers are situated around the Teva. The inner walls are decorated ceramic tiles with blue, white and brown ornaments that were painted in hand work. A recess underneath the holy arc marks the spot where the body of the girl is supposed to have been found: It is known as «the cave of the girl». The inner courtyard is surrounded by covered loggias standing on columns. Pilgrims can use the adjacent buildings for accommodation. The oldest of them were built at
6100-424: The capacity for the number of visitors. At the entrance, there are two columns dividing the room into three areas. This hall is connected to the main hall by three vaults. At this side there are two columns, supporting a high skylight of numerous windows. Initially there were twelve windows in the hall, representing the twelve tribes of Israel. During later renovations further windows were added. The north side also
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#17330853027346200-498: The center of the island's Jewish life, the synagogue is also a Jewish site of pilgrimage . While extensively renovated in the 19th century CE, the buildings may date from the 6th century BCE : one of the legends associated with its founding claims that either a stone or a door from Solomon's Temple or the Second Temple is incorporated in the building. El Ghriba is the most famous of the about 20 synagogues that were being used until
6300-567: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after
6400-513: The destruction of Solomon's Temple by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar II in the year 586 BCE (or, alternately, the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE). The High Priests carried with them a door and a stone of the destroyed Temple. Thus the synagogue links the Jewish diaspora to the "sole sanctuary of Judaism". In modern times, the local Jews are distinguished by their dress, which includes
6500-577: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of
6600-600: The end of the nineteenth century, whereas the newer ones stem from the early 1950s. The pilgrimage takes place every year on the 33rd day of the Counting of the Omer , in between Pesach and Shavuot. On the 14th of Iyar, the festivities begin, in remembrance of the tannaitic rabbi Meir Baal HaNess , and last until the Lag BaOmer on the 18th of Iyar, in remembrance of Tannaitic Rabbi Simeon bar Yochai (regionally known as Rabbi Shimon). In 1985, three people were killed, including one child, and fifteen people were wounded during
6700-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around
6800-593: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From
6900-499: The festival of Simchat Torah when a local policeman responsible for guarding the synagogue fired into a crowd of celebrating Jews. The attack was in response to Operation Wooden Leg ( Hebrew : מבצע רגל עץ , romanized : Mivtza Regel Etz ), when Israel targeted the PLO headquarters in Tunisia. The local policeman, whose relative was killed in the operation, targeted the synagogue in
7000-462: The fields with their teachers with bows and rubber-tipped arrows. Tachanun , the prayer for special Divine mercy on one's behalf, is not said on days with a festive character, including Lag BaOmer; when God is showing one a "smiling face", so to speak, as He does especially on the holidays, there is no need to ask for special mercy. The most well-known custom of Lag BaOmer is the lighting of bonfires . The custom may originate in symbolizing
7100-501: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and
7200-431: The holiday. Abraham ben Nathan (citing Zerachiah haLevi of Girona ) , David ben Levi of Narbonne , MS ex-Montefiore 134 , Levi ben Abraham ben Hayyim , Joshua ibn Shuaib (citing a " midrash ") Menachem Meiri (citing "a tradition of the geonim "), and Judah Halawa (citing a " yerushalmi ") are the first to name Lag BaOmer as the day on which the plague afflicting Rabbi Akiva's students ended, although this
7300-579: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward
7400-608: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about
7500-599: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c. 603 –689)
7600-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA
7700-468: The latter's prominent students, Shimon's tomb ultimately became the focus of the pilgrimage. Lag BaOmer has another significance based on the Kabbalistic custom of assigning a Sefirah to each day and week of the Omer count. The first week corresponds to Chesed , the second week to Gevurah , etc., and similarly, the first day of each week corresponds to Chesed , the second day to Gevurah , etc. Thus,
7800-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya
7900-768: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum [ ar ] (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve
8000-520: The next day. It is customary mainly among Hassidim that three-year-old boys be given their first haircuts ( upsherin ). While haircuts may be taken anywhere, if possible, the occasion is traditionally held at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in Meron, Israel , or at the Jerusalem grave of Shimon Hatzaddik for those who cannot travel to Meron. Families go on picnics and outings. Children go out to
8100-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on
8200-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on
8300-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within
8400-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there
8500-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of
8600-556: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of
8700-640: The synagogue. He was shot dead by security guards during a gunfight. The synagogue is being supervised by an independent administration committee that was established at the end of the nineteenth century, when Djerba was a French protectorate. The administration committee organizes the annual pilgrimage and distributes the pilgrimage's revenues to the village elders. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )
8800-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to
8900-492: The way the day was celebrated: The religious Jews lit torches in Rashbi's [Shimon bar Yochai's] honor and sang songs about him, while young Israelis, sitting around an alternative bonfire, sang about a hero "whom the entire nation loved" and focused on the image of a powerful hero who galloped on a lion in his charges against the Romans. In modern Israel, Lag BaOmer is "a symbol for the fighting Jewish spirit". The Palmach division of
9000-523: The woods to shoot arrows at demons on May Day, similar to how the bow and arrow is used on Lag BaOmer. Throughout the world celebrants gather on the night and during the day of Lag BaOmer to light fires. A large celebration is held at the Tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his son Rabbi Eleazar in Meron , where hundreds of thousands usually celebrate with bonfires, torches, song, dancing and feasting. In 1983, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Horowitz of Boston reinstated
9100-434: The world as a demonstration of Jewish unity and pride. Chabad sponsors parades as well as rallies, bonfires and barbecues for thousands of participants around the world each year. Several traditional songs are associated with the holiday; these are sung around bonfires, at weddings, and at tishen held by Hasidic Rebbes on Lag BaOmer . The popular song " Bar Yochai " was composed by Rabbi Shimon Lavi ,
9200-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study
9300-548: The world. In Israel, Lag BaOmer is a holiday for children and the various youth movements. It is also marked in the Israel Defense Forces as a week of the Gadna program (youth brigades) which were established on Lag BaOmer in 1941 and which bear the emblem of a bow and arrow. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson , encouraged Lag BaOmer parades to be held in Jewish communities around
9400-435: Was built at the end of the 19th century at the spot where the sixth-century building had stood. On the outside, the current synagogue is a modest building, whereas the interior is richly decorated. In contrast to the other synagogues of Djerba, El Ghriba consists of two covered halls. Following several structural extensions the first of the two halls was built through the roofing of a formerly open courtyard in order to increase
9500-478: Was explained as a veiled reference to the revolt; the 33rd day when the plague ended was explained as the day of Bar Kokhba 's victory. By the late 1940s, Israeli textbooks for schoolchildren painted Bar Kokhba as the hero while Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and Rabbi Akiva stood on the sidelines, cheering him on. This interpretation lent itself to singing and dancing around bonfires by night to celebrate Bar Kokhba's victory, and playing with bows and arrows by day to remember
9600-510: Was first connected to Shimon ben Yochai. Nachman Krochmal , a 19th-century Jewish scholar, among others, suggests that the deaths of Rabbi Akiva's students was a veiled reference to the defeat of "Akiva's soldiers" by the Romans, and that Lag BaOmer was the day on which Bar Kokhba enjoyed a brief victory. In pre-war Europe, Lag BaOmer became a special holiday for students and was called "Scholar's Day". Students were freed to engage in outdoor sports. According to another suggestion, Lag Baomer
9700-479: Was modified. The Teva (the cupboard for the Torah) is located under the skylight (at the western side of the prayer room). A third column to the east is missing. It probably never got constructed. Local tradition sees that as a reminder of the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem. Furthermore, it is said that the building should remain unfinished, because "nothing, except for the divinity, is perfect". The wooden benches for
9800-510: Was not the custom to light them outside of the Land of Israel. However, when his father Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum instructed him to organize a large bonfire in the Satmar enclave of Kiryas Joel tens of thousands turned up. For Zionists (see section below), the bonfires are said to represent the signal fires that the Bar Kokhba rebels lit on the mountaintops to relay messages, or are in remembrance of
9900-440: Was said to have been killed at age 33. Another theory posits that the connection between Lag Baomer and Shimon Bar Yochai arose from a general pilgrimage to Mount Meron on Pesach Sheini (15th of Iyar), specifically to Hillel's cave wherein water filled up the cave's cisterns and sometimes overflowed; the natural phenomenon poorly understood then was considered miraculous and attracted Jews and Muslims alike. As Hillel's cave
10000-643: Was the date on which the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem began under the Emperor Julian . With the failure of this project and the death of Julian, Lag Baomer initially became a fast day. After the Muslim conquest and the end of Christian oppression of Jews in Israel, mourning practices ceased to be observed. The choice to begin the reconstruction on the 33rd day of the omer may have been an anti-Christian polemic, as Jesus
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