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Judah Ha-Parsi

JUDAH HA-PARSI ("the Persian"), medieval scholar. No details are known about his personality or period. He is first mentioned by Abraham *Ibn Ezra (12th century), who states that Judah wrote a work attempting to prove that the ancient Israelites calculated the calendar according to the solar year, like the other peoples of antiquity. S. *Pinsker, and later H. *Graetz and I.H. *Weiss, identified him with the eighth-century sectarian leader *Yudghān, of Persian origin, but this identification seems highly doubtful. Some scholars consider Judah to have been a Karaite. These include S.I. Luzki, who ascribes to Judah a commentary on the Pentateuch. There is, however, no mention of Judah in Karaite literature.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

S. Pinsker, Likkutei Kadmoniyyot (1860), 24, 25 (first pagination); Mann, Texts, 2 (1935), 472.


Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.