The common meaning of parashah (plural: parshiyyot) is the weekly Torah portion. The Torah (also called Chumash, or the first five books of the Bible) is divided into sections read cyclically. There are two cycles for reading: (1) An annual cycle of 54 portions, meaning that you read the entire Torah yearly (some are doubled…
Knowledge Base
Piyyut
פיוט – pl. piyyutim – Hebrew, and occasionally Aramaic, liturgical poetry, meaning poems added to the prayer service. Piyyutim appear especially in the machzor for the different holidays, but also to the daily siddur, especially in the earlier period of their composition. The earliest piyyutim were written in Eretz Yisrael during the Byzantine period when…
Provence
The term used by Jews to refer to the Jewish communities of what is today the southern third of modern France, encompassing the regions today called Provence, Languedoc, and the Rousillon. Major cities of Jewish Provence in the medieval period include Narbonne, Lunel, Béziers, Montpellier, Perpignan, and Avignon, among others that where home to renowned…