Rosh ha-Shanah [Heb.,=head of the year], the Jewish New Year, also known as the Feast of the Trumpets. It is observed on the first day of the seventh month, Tishri, occurring usually in September. Rosh ha-Shanah is held in great reverence as the Day of Judgment (Yom ha-Din), the beginning of the 10-day period concluding with Yom Kippur and known as the "Days of Awe," during which, according to tradition, all the people of the earth pass before the Lord and are marked in the "Book of Life" or in the "Book of Death." A distinguishing feature of the New Year is the blowing of the shofar (a ram's horn), which summons Jews to penitential observance. Orthodox and Conservative Jews celebrate Rosh ha-Shanah for two days; most Reform congregations celebrate the first day.

Letteris, Meir ha-Levi, 1800-1871, Austrian-Jewish poet. He wrote about 30 volumes of prose and poetry. The poem called "Yonah Homiyah" [the plaintive dove] became very widely known and is still popular. He is also famous for his Hebrew version of Faust called Ben Abuya.

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.

Ha, formerly the suggested symbol for the name hahnium, which was applied variously to two elements, now called dubnium and hassium.

Ch'i-ch'i-ha-erh: see Qiqihar, China.

Berekhiah ben Natronai ha-Nakdan, fl. 12th or 13th cent., French Jewish fabulist, biblical commentator, philosopher, grammarian, and translator. His first name also appears as Berachya. He is best known for his collection of fables in rhymed prose, Mishlei Shualim (tr. by Moses Hadas, Fables of a Jewish Aesop, 1967), derived from the French collection Ysopet of Marie de France (c.1170), from the now lost Latin translation of Aesop, Romulus, and from several Middle Eastern sources. His Sefer Mazref (tr. by Sir Herman Gollancz, The Ethical Treatises of Berachya, 1902) is a summary of the ethical views of Saadia and several other Gaonim.

Berachya ben Natronai ha-Nakdan: see Berekhiah ben Natronai ha-Nakdan.

Al-Fasi, Isaac ben Jacob ha-Kohen, 1013-1103, prominent Jewish Talmudic scholar of the very late Gaonic period, b. near Fès, N Africa. He headed the rabbinical school at Fès until forced out at the age of 75 by political intrigues. He then settled in Lucena, Spain, where he established a school. His Halachoth [book of laws] contains a digest of legal decisions distilled from the Talmud. It played a significant role in establishing the supremacy of the Babylonian over the Palestinian Talmud and the 1881 edition is appended to regular editions of the Talmud. He is also known for his collection of Responsa, many of which were written in Arabic and later translated into Hebrew.

Ahad Ha-am [Heb.,=One of the People], 1856-1927, Jewish thinker and Zionist leader, b. Ukraine. Originally named Asher Ginzberg, he adopted his pen name when he published his first and highly controversial essay, "The Wrong Way" (1889), in which he criticized those who sought immediate settlement in Palestine, advocating instead Jewish cultural education as the basis for building a strong people for later settlement. After a traditional Hasidic upbringing, he acquired a broad secular education studying philosophy and literature in five languages (Russian, German, French, English, and Latin). He developed a strong rationalist attitude and rejected first Hasidism and then religion itself; he believed the chief obligation of Jewish life to be the fulfillment of the ethical demands of the Old Testament prophets. He did not view the imminent creation of a Jewish state in Palestine to be the most important goal of the Zionist movement; he saw Palestine as the "spiritual center" for a cultural and spiritual revival of the Jewish people. As editor of the journal Ha'shiloah (1896-1902) he was influential in developing the modern Hebrew literary style. In 1907, he moved to London and in 1922 to Palestine, where he spent his last years.

(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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