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2,144 records
Passover
(Yid., Peysekh; Heb., Pesaḥ), the eight-day holiday commemorating the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. The special dietary requirements of the holiday—the ban on leavened products and the need for matzo and other spe…
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Pasternak, Boris Leonidovich
(1890–1960), poet, prose writer, and translator. Boris Pasternak was raised in a highly cultured Moscow family. His mother Rozaliia (née Kaufman) was a pianist; his father, Leonid Osipovich, was a prominent artist and ar…
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Pasternak, Leonid
(1862–1945), painter. Born in Odessa to a poor innkeeper’s family of nine, Leonid Pasternak completed his gymnasium education in 1879. He then studied first at the Odessa Drawing School and between 1882 and 1886 at the M…
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Patai, József
(1882–1953), poet, scholar, and Zionist leader. In his life and work, József Patai is representative of the first generation of Hungarian Zionist intellectuals. He changed his name from Klein to Patai after his birthplac…
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Pauker, Ana
(1893–1960), prominent official of the Communist International (Comintern), Romanian Communist leader, and foreign minister of Romania. Born Ana Rabinsohn to impoverished Orthodox Jewish parents, Ana Pauker grew up in Bu…
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Paşcani
Town in the Romanian region of Moldavia (known in Yiddish as Peshkan). In 1845, there were 17 Jewish families living in Paşcani. Numbering 85 persons, they were among the founders of the town and were involved in timber,…
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Peltz, Isac
(1899–1980), writer, playwright, and journalist. Isac Peltz was born in Bucharest, to a family of impoverished craft workers. Beyond attending heder, it is unlikely that he received formal schooling. At age 16, Peltz sin…
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Pen, Yehudah
(1854–1937), painter, graphic artist, teacher, and founder of the “Vitebsk school.” Yehudah (Yudel, Iurii; patronymic Moiseevich, Movshevich) Pen was born in the shtetl Novo-Aleksandrovsk, Kovno guberniia (now Zarasai, L…
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Peretz, Yitskhok Leybush
(1852–1915), Yiddish and Hebrew poet, writer, essayist, dramatist, and cultural figurehead. Yitskhok Leybush Peretz was born to a prominent family in Zamość, a multiethnic Polish city ruled by Russia during his lifetime,…
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Period of Wandering: 1857–1883
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Perl, Feliks
(1871–1927), leader of the Polish Socialist Party, writer, editor, and Polish parliamentarian. Born in Warsaw to a Polish-speaking, middle-class Jewish family, Feliks Perl was raised in a Polonizing household, his father…
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Perl, Yosef
(1773–1839), educator, writer, and a central figure in the Haskalah. Yosef Perl was born in Tarnopol to a wealthy family. His father, Todros, was a wine merchant and for some time also leased the communal concession for …
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Perle, Yoshue
(1888–1943), novelist. Yoshue Perle was born in Radom (central Poland); his father was a merchant. After several years of traditional Jewish education, Perle was sent to a Russian school and became a bookkeeper. At age 1…
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Perlmutter, Avraham Tsevi
(1844/46–1930), rabbi, Polish Sejm deputy. A child prodigy, Avraham Tsevi Perlmutter was ordained as a rabbi at age 14 and was a disciple of some of the leading rabbis of his era, including Ḥayim Halberstam of Sandz (Now…
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Personal Hygiene and Grooming
Religious law calls on Jews to undertake ritual washings or ablutions that range from immersion of the whole body (tevilah) to pouring water over the hands (netilat yadayim), although there is no evidence to prove that t…
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Personal Names
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Persov, Shmuel
(1890–1950), Yiddish writer. Shmuel Persov was born in the shtetl of Pochep, Ukraine, to the family of a religious teacher. In addition to receiving a traditional Jewish education, he read secular books at a private libr…
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Petschek Family
Industrialists and bankers in Bohemia. The Petschek family, originally based in Kolín in central Bohemia, included captains of industry of Czech lands from the late nineteenth century. Its members reached their pinnacle …
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Philanthropy
Accompanying the classical version of charity—direct assistance provided by a person of means to a person in need, and the traditional and fraternal associations that addressed the various needs of the poor—there develop…
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Photography
Invented in Western Europe in 1839, the new technology of photography soon migrated to Eastern Europe and Russia. Beginning in the 1840s, East European Jews were leading figures in developing photography as a new art for…
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