11 THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA Italy Itzig

See APULIA; BAKI; BOLOGNA; CHURCH COUN­CILS; FEIUIABA; FLORENCE; LEGHORN; MANTUA; PADUA; POPES; ROME.

G. V. C. ITHAMAR (-iDrVK): Youngest son of Aaron

by Elisheba (Ex. vi. 23). Together with his father and three brothers he was consecrated to the priest­hood (ib. xxviii. 1; Lev. viii. 13). On the death of Nadab and Abihu, Ithamar and his elder brother, Eleazar, were ordered not to mourn for them; and lie and Eleazar were appointed successors of Aaron in the priesthood (Lev. x. 6-15; Num. iii. 4). Dur­ing the wanderings of the Israelites in the wilder­ness, Ithamar was the superintendent of the Ger-shonites and Merarites, who were in charge of the Tabernacle and its equipment, and he directed the service of the Levites (Ex. xxxviii. 21; Num. iv. 21-33). The high-priesthood passed over into the family of Ithamar through ELI, and from him de­scended in regular succession until Abiathar was de­prived of it by Solomon; the high-priesthood then reverted to the family of Eleazar (I Kings ii. 27, 35). In the reign of David, as the descendants of Eleazar were more numerous than those of Ithamar, the latter were appointed for the monthly services in the proportion of one to two of the former (I Chron. xxiv. 3, 4).

E. G. H. M. SEL. ITIL. See ATEL.

I T I N E R A N T M E N D I C A N T . See SCIINORKEH.

ITINERANT TEACHERS. See BAHUR. ITTXREA ('Irovpaia): Greek name of a province,

derived from the Biblical " Jetur," name of a son of Ishmael (comp. Gen. xxv. 15, 16). The name of the province is mentioned only once (Luke iii. 1), while in historical sources the name of the people, the Itureans ('Irovpawi, 'Irvpcuoi), occurs. The latter are first mentioned by Eupolemus—as one of the tribes conquered by David (Eusebius, " Pra;paratio Evangelica, " ix. 30)—and subsequently by Strabo, Pliny, Josephus, and others, some of whom desig­nate the Itureans as Arabs and others as Syrians. They were known to the Romans as a predatory people (Cicero, "Philippics," ii. 112), and were ap­preciated by them for their great skill in archery (Cfflsar, "Bellum Africanum," 20).

Th& Itureans did not always possess the same land; as a nomadic people they roamed through the country, and when dispossessed of one place set­tled in another. Thus, according to I Chron. (v. 19-22), the people of Jetur, the Itureans of the Greeks, fell with the Hagaritesinto the hands of the children of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Ma-nasseh, who occupied their country. Later, in the time of the Roman conquest, they dwelt in the region of Mount Lebanon.

Many Christian theologians, among them Eusebius ("Onomasticon," ed. Lagarde, pp. 268, 298), taking into consideration the above-cited passage of Luke, place Iturea near Trachonitis; but this seems con­trary to all the historical sources. According to Josephus ("Ant." xiii. 11, § 3), the Iturean king­dom lay north of Galilee, and in 105 B.C. Aristobu-

lus, having defeated the Itureans, annexed a part of their country to Judea, imposing Judaism upon the inhabitants. Strabo (xvi. 2, § 10, p. 753) includes the land of the Itureans in the kingdom of Ptolemy, son of Mcnnoeus, whose residence was atChalcisand who reigned 85-40 B.C. Ptolemy was succeeded by his son Lysanias, called by Dio Cassius (xlix. 32) "king of the Itureans." About 23 B.C. Iturea with the adjacent provinces fell into the hands of a chief named Zenodorus (Josephus, I.e. xv. 10, § 1; idem, "B. J." i. 20, § 4). Three years later, at the death of Zenodorus, Augustus gave Iturea to Herod the Great, who in turn bequeathed it to his son Philip (Josephus, "Ant." xv. 10, § 3).

That Iturea was in the region of Mount Lebanon is confirmed by an inscription of about the yearGc.E. ("Ephemeris Epigraphica," 1881, pp. 537-542), in which Q. iEmilius Secundus relates that he was sent by Quirinius against the Itureans in Mount Lebanon. In 38 Caligula gave Iturea to a certain Soemus, who is called b}' Dio Cassius (lix. 12) and by Tac­itus ("Annals," xii. 23) "king of the Itureans." After the death of Soemus (49) his kingdom was incorporated into the province of Syria (Tacitus, I.e.). After this incorporation the Itureans fur­nished soldiers for the Roman army; and the desig­nations "Ala I. Augusta ItursEorum " and "Cohors I. Augusta Iturosorum " are met with in the inscrip­tions ("EphemerisEpigraphica," 1884, p. 194). BIBLIOGRAPHY: G. A. Smith, in Hastings, Diet. Bible; Winer,

B. B.; Sehurer, Geseh. 3d ed., i. 707 et acq. E. G. H. M. SEL. ITZE (ISAAC) OF CHERNIGOV: Russian

scholar of the twelfth century, frequently consulted by his contemporaries on questions of Biblical exe­gesis. He is probably identical with Isaac of Rus­sia, found in the English records of 1181. His ex­planation of the term "yabam," for which he finds a parallel in the Russian language, is quoted by Moses ben Isaac Nasi of London in his lexicon " Sefer ha-Shoham." Zunz, and after him Harkavy, see in this explanation evidence that the Jews living in Russia in the time of Itze of Chernigov spoke the vernacular of the country. BIBLIORRAPHY: Zunz, Ritus, p. 73; Harkavy, Ha-Yehudim

u-Scfat ha-Selavim, pp. 14, 02; Neubauer, in AUg. Zett. des Jud. 1865, No. 17; Jacobs, Jews of Angevin England, pp. 66, 73'; J. Q. B. ii. 329. n. R. I. BR.

ITZIG (sometimes Hitzig) : Wealthy German family which did much in the eighteenth century for the development of modern culture among the Jews.

Babette Itzig: Born 1749; married Salomon; her daughter Leah became the wife of Abraham Men­delssohn and was the mother of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.

Blumchen Itzig: Born 1752; married David Friedlttnder

Bonem Itzig: Born 1756; probably the Julius Eduard Hitzig whose son Georg Heinrieh. Friedrich Hitzig (born Berlin April 8, 1811; died there Oct. 11, 1881), the architect, built the Ber­lin Stock Exchange on the site of his grandfather Daniel Itzig's residence on the Burgstrasse (see Kay-serling, "Moses Mendelssohn," p. 11, Leipsic, 1888).

P. Wi.

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