Judah, Theodore Dehone, 1826-63, American railroad builder, b. Bridgeport, Conn. He built the Niagara Gorge RR and did canal work before going (1854) to lay out a railroad near Sacramento, Calif. There he promoted the idea of a railroad across the mountains eastward from the Central Valley and interested a number of men in the scheme. The Central Pacific RR was formed, with Judah as chief engineer. He became dissatisfied with his associates and was on his way to the East to obtain capital and support when he died.

Judah ha-Nasi, c.135-c.220, Palestinian Jewish communal leader (tanna). He occupied the office of patriarch (nasi) which was reestablished by the Romans after 135. Under his leadership, Palestinian Jewry rebuilt its economy, which had been devastated during the revolt against Rome (132-135). Tradition has presented him also as a learned rabbi and as the redactor of the Mishna, although his role in the production of the Mishna has been questioned by recent scholarship.

Judah ha-Levi or Judah Halevy, c.1075-1141, Jewish rabbi, poet, and philosopher, b. Tudela, Spain. His poems—secular, religious, and nationalist—are filled with a serene and lofty spirit. In his great philosophic work Sefer ha-Kuzari he emphasized the superiority of religious truths, arrived at through intuition, over philosophical and speculative truths, arrived at through logic and reason. In this work he developed a philosophy of history wherein he explains the force of the "divine influence" at work in the world, known first by the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), through them by the Jewish people, and ultimately, through the martyrdom of the Jews, by all mankind.

Judah. 1 In the Bible he is the fourth son of Jacob and Leah and the eponymous ancestor of one of the 12 tribes of Israel. In the Book of Genesis, Judah emerges as a leader. With Reuben he interceded for Joseph's life, and he was the spokesman for his brothers before Joseph in Egypt. In the exodus his tribe was in the lead, and it settled in the rich land of S Palestine, extending from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean, according to scripture. Within its borders was Jerusalem. It gave its name to the Kingdom of Judah. The royal and Messianic family of David was of the tribe of Judah. 2 In the Book of Nehemiah, a Levitical family. 3 In the Book of Ezra, a Levite. 4 In Nehemiah, an overseer. 5 In Nehemiah, a priest's son. 6 The same as Hodaviah 3.

Judah, in the Bible, the southern of the two kingdoms remaining after the division of the kingdom of the Jews that occurred under Rehoboam. The northern kingdom, Israel, was continually at war with Judah. In the Bible the southern kingdom is regarded as usually more loyal to God than the northern kingdom was. Judah's capital was Jerusalem, and its dynasty was the house of David. It lasted from 931 B.C. to 586 B.C.

Ibn Gabirol, Solomon ben Judah, c.1021-1058, Jewish poet and philosopher, known also as Avicebron, b. Malaga. His secular poetry deals partly with nature and love, but most of it reveals a gloom and bitterness engendered by his tragic life. Orphaned early, he spent much of his life contending with mediocre rivals and critics jealous of his scholarship. It is thought that he was murdered by a rival. Ibn Gabriol's religious poetry is filled with a mystic awe of God, and much of it has been incorporated into the Judaic liturgy. His great philosophical work, The Well of Life, showing the influence of Neoplatonism, was written in Arabic. In its Latin translation (Fons vitae), it exercised a great influence on Christian thought. The book is an attempt to explain the universality of matter, man's purpose in life, and the communion of man's soul with the spiritual sources that created it. His hundreds of poems and his book of ethics, The Improvement of the Moral Qualities, were also important.

Halevy, Judah: see Judah ha-Levi.

Gordon, Judah Leon, 1830-92, Russian-Hebrew novelist and poet, b. Vilna. As teacher and writer he was one of the leaders in the renaissance of a progressive culture among the Jews (see Haskalah) and he was an indefatigable foe of obscurantism. His historical poems were followed by satirical works attacking the severity of traditional Judaism. He wrote in incomparable classical Hebrew, and in Russian, Yiddish, and German as well. A complete edition of his works was published (1928-35) in Tel Aviv.

Gershom ben Judah, c.965-c.1040?, rabbi, religious poet, and scholar. He was also called Me'or ha-Golah [light of the exile]. He lived his entire adult life in Mainz, Germany (now in France), where he founded a Talmudic academy. He played an important role in the formation of an Ashkenazic tradition of learning and communal organization. He wrote commentaries on the Talmud, liturgical poetry, and numerous responsa. He is famous for his highly influential edict against polygamy.

Benjamin, Judah Philip, 1811-84, Confederate statesman and British barrister, b. Christiansted, St. Croix, Virgin Islands, of Jewish parents. His family moved (c.1813) to Wilmington, N.C., and finally settled (1822) in Charleston, S.C. A precocious youth, Benjamin entered Yale at the age of 14 but left (1827) early in his junior year. He went to New Orleans in 1828, worked for a notary, taught English, and studied French and the law in his spare time. Admitted to the bar in Dec., 1832, he published (1834), with his friend Thomas Slidell, a digest of Louisiana appeal cases that enhanced his reputation as a rising young lawyer. His practice soon made him rich enough to become a sugar planter as well. Benjamin, a prominent Whig, served in both branches of the state legislature, was a delegate to two state constitutional conventions, and in 1852 was elected to the U.S. Senate. On the dissolution of the Whig party because of the slavery issue, he publicly proclaimed himself a Democrat (May 2, 1856), and two years later he was reelected Senator. One of the ablest defenses of Southern policy was presented in the Senate by Benjamin on Dec. 31, 1860. On Feb. 4, 1861, after Louisiana's secession, he resigned his seat. In the new Southern government, Benjamin first served as attorney general, was appointed secretary of war in Nov., 1861 (he had been acting secretary since September), and from Mar., 1862, to the end of the Civil War was secretary of state. Though not popular with the public, he was an intimate friend of Jefferson Davis and was known in the North as "the brains of the Confederacy." As secretary of war he was an able administrator, but was severely criticized—for the most part unjustly—for Confederate defeats early in 1862, particularly the loss of Roanoke Island, N.C. After Davis promoted him to head the state department, Benjamin worked unceasingly but unsuccessfully to secure European recognition of the Confederacy. In Feb., 1865, he proposed that slaves who willingly joined the Confederate ranks be freed. Upon the collapse of the Confederacy, Benjamin escaped by way of Florida and the West Indies to England and there established a new career in the law. He was called to the bar in 1866 and won immediate recognition with A Treatise on the Law of Sale of Personal Property (1868). On his retirement early in 1883 he was universally acknowledged to have been in the front rank of his profession. He died and was buried in Paris, where his wife, who was a Louisiana Creole, and his daughter had made their home since the 1840s.

Abravanel or Abarbanel, Judah, c.1460-c.1523, Jewish philosopher, physician, and poet, son of Isaac Abravanel, b. Lisbon; he is also known as Leone Ebreo. He fled (1483) from Portugal to Spain with his father and, after the expulsion (1492) of the Jews from Spain, went to Naples, where he became (1505) physician to the viceroy. Philosophically, Abravanel was influenced by the scholars of the Platonic Academy of Florence, most notably Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola; in addition, there are clear indications of philosophical influence from Maimonides and Ibn Gabirol. In his most celebrated work, the Dialoghi di Amore (published posthumously, 1535; tr. The Philosophy of Love, with introduction by Cecil Roth, 1937), Abravanel gave a classic exposition of platonic love. Holding love to be the dominating and motivating force within the universe, and seeing as its end a union of the lover with the idea of the beautiful and the good as embodied in the beloved, he posited as the ultimate goal of all creation a union with the sublime goodness and intellect that are contained within God. A "circle of love" is thus formed between the universe and its creator in which all things find sustenance and fulfillment. The work had a profound effect upon philosophers into the 17th cent., most notably upon Giordano Bruno and Baruch Spinoza.

(born AD 135—died circa 220) Palestinian Jewish scholar. A descendant of the great sage Hillel, he was patriarch of the Jewish community in Palestine and head of its Sanhedrin, and he became an important figure in early rabbinic Judaism. He spent over 50 years studying the oral law and is said to have compiled it into six sections divided by subject matter, thus creating the Mishna. His exact role in the Mishna's redaction is not known; other scholars such as Meïr and Akiba ben Joseph were probably also involved.

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(born Aug. 6, 1811, St. Croix, Virgin Islands—died May 6, 1884, Paris, France) Prominent lawyer in the U.S. and Britain and member of the Confederate cabinet. He moved with his parents from St. Croix to South Carolina in his early youth. In 1832 he began building a successful law practice in New Orleans. He was the first Jew elected to the U.S. Senate (1853–61), where he was noted for his proslavery speeches. After the South seceded, Jefferson Davis appointed him attorney general (1861), secretary of war (1861–62), and secretary of state (1862–65). Late in the war he enraged many white Southerners by urging that slaves be recruited into the Confederate army and emancipated after their term of service. At the end of the war he escaped to England, where he was called to the bar (1866) and served as queen's counsel (1872).

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One of the 12 tribes of Israel, descended from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. The tribe of Judah entered Canaan with the other Israelites after the escape from Egypt and settled in the region south of Jerusalem. It eventually became the most powerful tribe, producing the kings David and Solomon, and it was prophesied that the messiah would come from among its members. After the 10 northern tribes were dispersed by the Assyrian conquest of 721 BC, the tribes of Judah and Benjamin were left as the sole inheritors of the Mosaic covenant. Judah flourished until 586 BC, when it was overrun by the Babylonians and many of its people were carried into exile. Cyrus II allowed them to return in 538 BC, and the Temple of Jerusalem was rebuilt. The history of Judah from that time forward is the history of the Jews and Judaism. The kingdom of Judah was succeeded by Judaea.

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(born Aug. 6, 1811, St. Croix, Virgin Islands—died May 6, 1884, Paris, France) Prominent lawyer in the U.S. and Britain and member of the Confederate cabinet. He moved with his parents from St. Croix to South Carolina in his early youth. In 1832 he began building a successful law practice in New Orleans. He was the first Jew elected to the U.S. Senate (1853–61), where he was noted for his proslavery speeches. After the South seceded, Jefferson Davis appointed him attorney general (1861), secretary of war (1861–62), and secretary of state (1862–65). Late in the war he enraged many white Southerners by urging that slaves be recruited into the Confederate army and emancipated after their term of service. At the end of the war he escaped to England, where he was called to the bar (1866) and served as queen's counsel (1872).

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