Arama, Isaac

Arama, Isaac (also called Baal-Akedah), a celebrated Jewish philosopher and commentator, was born in Zamora about 1460, and was one of the 300,000 Jews who were expelled in 1492 from Spain. He went to Naples, where he died in 1494. The work which immortalized his name is called Akedath Isaac (יצחק עקדת), The Litigation of Isaac, a philosophical commentary on the Pentateuch and the five Megilloth, consisting of one hundred and five sections, and containing some of the severest strictures of the views of Aristotle, as well as some of the most beautiful moral sayings. It is from this work that Arama received the name of Baal-Akedah. He also wrote, a separate commentary on Esther (Constantinople, 1518):- יד אבשלום, The Hand of Absalom, an exposition to the book of Proverbs (ibid. s. a.; Leipsic, 1859):- and : חזות קשה, The nIeavy Vision, written against Mohammedans and Christians (Sabionetta, 155P2; Frankfort-on- .the-Oder, 1792). See Furst, Bibl. Jud. i, 48; De' Rossi, Dinionario Storico (Germ. transl.), p. 45; Kitto, Cyclop. s.v.; Liido, H/story of the Jews in: Spain, p. 266; Finn, Seridirm, p. 413; Ginsburg, Comnmentary on Ecclesiasteis (London, 1861), p. 66 sq.; Basnage, History of the Jewus (Taylor's transl.), p. 693; Gratz, Gesch. d. Juden, viii;, 226 - sq.; Jost, Gesch. d. Judenth. u. s. Sekten, iii, 119; Etheridge, Introd. to Hebrew Literature, p. 413.' (B. P.)