beadle a minor parish official or caretaker.
Hasidic (ha sih dihk) an eighteenth-century group of Jews who stressed the joyous, ecstatic, elements in their faith. The term also describes fiercely orthodox Jews who bind themselves to strict observance of Jewish laws.
Transylvania a plateau in northwest Romania.
cabbala (kuh bah luh) a medieval system of interpreting scripture by the application of meditation, emotion, mysticism, insight, intuition, communion with God, and numerology.
Maimonides (may mah nih deez) Moses ben Maimon (1135-1204), a Spanish physician and philosopher who fled Muslim persecution by moving his family from Cordoba to Israel, then to Egypt, where he rose to the rank of royal physician. He codified Jewish law, formulated a Jewish creed, wrote scriptural commentary, and compiled a religious guide book.
Zohar (zoh hahr) literally, the "Book of Brightness," a symbolic or allegorical interpretation of Jewish law. Moses de Leon compiled the Zohar, the main text of the cabbala, in Spain near the end of the thirteenth century.
Hungarian police After Germany forced Romania to cede Transylvania to Hungary on August 30, 1940, the Hungarian police ruled millions of Romanians and, under compulsion of the SS, launched anti-Semitic terrorism against Jews.
Galicia, near Kolomaye a Slavic territory in the northern Carpathian Mountains which lies partly in Poland and the Ukraine. Kolomaye (modern Kolomyya) is north of Sighet in Russia.
Gestapo (gee stahp oh) the Geheime Staatspolizei, or secret state police, an arm of the Schutzstaffel, called the SS or Black Shirts, a hand-picked corps of 50,000 secret police who functioned as security officers and as Hitler's body guard. For their fanaticism and devotion to Hitler's dictates, the Gestapo became the most hated and feared of German terrorists.
London radio After the Nazi takeover of much of Europe, people depended on the BBC (British Broadcasting Company), a state-owned communication system that kept listeners informed of developments in the war.
Zionism an international drive or political movement that resulted in the development and establishment of a Jewish state.
Fascist party a political party supporting brutally oppressive, dictatorial control of public speech and civil rights and enforcing uncompromising adherence to inhumane laws. There were German Fascists under Hitler and Italian Fascists under Mussolini.
Horthy Nikolaus Horthy de Nagybanya, ruler of Hungary, supported Hitler's invasion of Yugoslavia and Russia. In October 1944, he realized that Germany intended to overrun Hungary and defied Hitler. The SS placed him under house arrest in Bavaria, from which American troops released him in 1945.
Nyilas Hungary's fascist party.
the yellow star a palm-sized patch centered with a hexagram, the yellow Mogen David, or Magen David, called the Shield of David, or the Star of David, a regular six-pointed shape composed of two triangles superimposed—one point up and the other point down. Today, the same figure adorns the flag of Israel.
Passover a Jewish holiday that commemorates the departure of Jews from slavery in Egypt under the leadership of Moses, who defied Pharoah following an onslaught of seven plagues that concluded in the death of the firstborn in each household. The Jews avoided the Angel of Death by daubing their doorposts with the blood of a sacrificial lamb.
ghetto a section of a city into which an ethnic or religious minority, lepers, or outcasts are restricted. Jews were required to live in ghettos from medieval times unto the French revolution of 1789, which ended this oppressive practice.
Pentecost a Jewish harvest festival, called Sukkot in Hebrew.
phylacteries (fuh lak tuh reez) a set of leather cubes containing parchment slips inscribed with biblical passages and bound to the head and left forearm or middle finger during ritual weekday prayers. Phylacteries, also known as tefillin, are a sign of orthodox devotion to Deuteronomy 9:18, a scriptural passage that requires an outward demonstration of piety.
captivity of Babylon In 586 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar put down a Jewish revolt and placed the most prominent Jews in captivity in Babylon, leaving behind the poorest and least troublesome. Although Cyrus of Persia freed the captives in 516 B.C., most chose to remain in their new homeland.
Spanish Inquisition Founded in 1478 by Ferdinand V and Isabella, under Father Tomás de Torquemada, it began torturing "new Christians," Jews who had converted to Christianity but were suspected of having lapsed back into an observance of Judaism, in order to eradicate blasphemy, immorality, infanticide, and homosexuality, and to assure that the souls of all of the "heretics" would enter heaven after death. Some suspects were strangled or burned at the stake in public ceremonies; others fled to Turkey. The church enriched itself by confiscating their property.
boches (bohsh uz) a derogatory name for Germans. The word is a shortened form of caboche, or hardhead.
