Elijah ben Solomon Zalman,, also known as the Vilna Gaon (Yiddish: דער װילנער גאון Der Vilner Goen; Polish: Gaon z Wilna, Gaon Wileński; or Elijah of Vilna, or by his Hebrew acronym Gra, was a Lithuanian Jewish Talmudist, halakhist, kabbalist, and the foremost leader of misnagdic Jewry of the past few centuries. He is commonly referred to in Hebrew as ha-Gaon mi-Vilna, "the genius from Vilnius".
In Jewish law and history, Acharonim are the leading rabbis and poskim living from roughly the 16th century to the present, and more specifically since the writing of the Shulchan Aruch in 1563 CE.
Rishonim were the leading rabbis and poskim who lived approximately during the 11th to 15th centuries, in the era before the writing of the Shulchan Aruch and following the Geonim. Rabbinic scholars subsequent to the Shulchan Aruch are generally known as acharonim.
Abraham ben David, also known by the abbreviation RABaDRavad or RABaD III, was a Provençal rabbi, an important commentator on the Talmud, Sefer Halachot of Rabbi Yitzhak Alfasi and Mishne Torah of Maimonides, and is regarded as a father of Kabbalah and one of the key links in the chain of Jewish mystics.
Elijah Mizrachi was a Talmudist and posek, an authority on Halakha, and a mathematician. He is best known for his Sefer ha-Mizrachi, a supercommentary on Rashi's commentary on the Torah. He is also known as Re'em, the Hebrew acronym for "Rabbi Elijah Mizrachi", coinciding with the Biblical name of an animal, the re'em.
Abraham ben Elijah of Vilna also known as Abraham ben HaGaon;, was a Litvak Talmudist who lived in Lithuania. There is some debate as to when he was born. Some place his birth as early as 1749, but more recent scholarship suggests he was actually born in 1766. He was born in Vilna and died there on December 14, 1808. He was the son of Elijah, the Vilna Gaon, the most famous Talmudist of modern times. He was educated under the supervision of his father, who was famous both for his opposition to both the Hasidic movement, and the dry scholasticism which dominated the rabbinic leadership of Poland at that time. According to the custom of the time, he married at the age of twelve, but continued his studies in the Talmudic colleges in other cities, and after a few years returned home, where he completed his studies under his father. Like his father, he never officiated as rabbi, but was a highly respected member of the Jewish community of Vilna, in which he held various offices.
Rabbi Samuel ben Moses de Medina, was a Talmudist and author from Thessaloniki. He was principal of the Talmudic college of that city, which produced a great number of prominent scholars during the 16th and 17th centuries. His teachers were the noted Talmudists Joseph Taitazak and Levi Ibn Chaviv, and among his schoolmates were Isaac Adarbi, Joseph ibn Leb, and Moses Almosnino. While on a mission to Constantinople he met the noted grammarian Menahem Lonzano, who studied under him for some time and who therefore speaks of him as his teacher.
Abraham ben Isaac of Narbonne (c. 1080-85 – 1158) was a Provençal rabbi, also known as Raavad II, and author of the halachic work Ha-Eshkol.
Michael Friedländer was an Orientalist and principal of Jews' College, London. He is best known for his English translation of Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed, which was the most popular such translation until the more recent work of Shlomo Pines, and still remains in print.
Daniel Boyarin is an Israeli–American academic and historian of religion. Born in New Jersey, he holds dual United States and Israeli citizenship. He is the Hermann P. and Sophia Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture in the Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. He is married to Chava Boyarin, a lecturer in Hebrew at UC Berkeley. They have two sons. His brother, Jonathan Boyarin, is also a scholar, and the two have written together. He has defined himself as a "diasporic rabbinic Jew".
Moses ben Joseph ben Merwan ha-Levi flourished about the mid-12th century and was a prominent Provençal rabbi, philosopher, and talmudist.
Isaac ben Merwan ha-Levi was a Provençal rabbi and Talmudist; he was the elder son of Merwan of Narbonne.
The mixture of meat and dairy is forbidden according to Jewish law. This dietary law, basic to kashrut, is based on two verses in the Book of Exodus, which forbid "boiling a (goat) kid in its mother's milk" and a third repetition of this prohibition in Deuteronomy.
Nittel Nacht or Nittel is a name given to Christmas Eve by Jewish scholars in the 17th century, observed as early as the late 16th century by Rabbi Samuel Eidels.
Saving Lincoln is a 2013 American historical drama film about Ward Hill Lamon, a friend of President Abraham Lincoln, and follows their overlapping legal careers in Illinois prior to the American Civil War. Lamon accompanied Lincoln to Washington and served as the President's main bodyguard during the war, thwarting several assassination attempts while holding the post of US Marshal. Lincoln sent Lamon to Richmond, Virginia, on Reconstruction business a few days before April 14, 1865, the day that John Wilkes Booth assassinated the President.
Jason Ian Drucker is an American actor. He starred as Greg Heffley in the 2017 film Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul. He also played Tommy Miller, the youngest of the Miller family, in Nickelodeon's Every Witch Way. In 2018, he co-starred in the Transformers spin-off Bumblebee.
The Vigil is a 2019 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Keith Thomas in his feature directorial debut. It stars Dave Davis, Menashe Lustig, Malky Goldman, Fred Melamed and Lynn Cohen, and follows a young man who is tasked with keeping vigil over a deceased member of his former Orthodox Jewish community, only to be targeted by a malevolent spirit known as a Mazzik. Jason Blum serves as an executive producer through his Blumhouse Productions banner.
Guns & Moses is a 2024 American crime thriller film written by Nina Davidovich Litvak and Salvador Litvak, directed by Salvador Litvak and starring Mark Feuerstein, Neal McDonough, Dermot Mulroney and Christopher Lloyd.
