Judah Ha-Parsi
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.
[Isaak Dov Ber Markon]