Sambation

Sambation or Sambatyon even Sanbatyon and Sabbatyon referred to rabbinic the legendary river tradition behind the ten lost tribes of Israel by the Assyrian King Shalmaneser V have been displaced.

location

The Sambation is a mythical river that cannot be crossed six days a week because it carries stones and sand with it in its rapid current. On the Sabbath, however, the river stops and is now impassable for exiled Jews because of the Sabbath regulations. Maybe this has something to do with the name.

In addition to the early mention of the river in rabbinical sources, it is also mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis historia . Josephus located the river between Arka (in northern Lebanon) and Raphaneia (in Syria). In the post-Almudic period, the legend of the Sambation increased. The Jewish traveler Eldad ha-Dani (9th century) claimed that the river did not close off all ten tribes, but only the descendants of Moses. In addition, the river does not carry any water, only stones and sand. The river was also mentioned in the Alexander novels and in the Christian antichrist legends of the Middle Ages. In the German and Yiddish- speaking areas, there was talk of the "red Jews" (or Yiddish "rojte jidlech") who stood ready behind the river to take revenge on the Christians at the last judgment together with the Antichrist. There were similar ideas in the various messianic movements on the Jewish side.

In addition to Eldad ha-Dani, other Jewish travelers tried to find the fabled river. The travel report of Petachja from Regensburg begins with the fact that his journey led him to the Sambation. Also in the 12th century, the Spanish Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia set off on a journey to the Orient with the aim of finding the Sambation.

literature

• Hillel Halkin: Across the Sabbath River. In search of a lost tribe of Israel. Boston 2002, ISBN 978-0618029983 .
• Shalva Weil: Beyond the Sabatyon. The Myth of the Ten Tribes. Tel Aviv 1991.
• A.Ro .:  SAMBATYON. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica . 2nd Edition. Volume 17, Detroit / New York a. a. 2007, ISBN 978-0-02-865945-9 , pp. 743-744 (English).

Web links

• M. Seligsohn:  SAMBATION, SANBATION, SABBATION. In: Isidore Singer (Ed.): Jewish Encyclopedia . Funk and Wagnalls, New York 1901-1906.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cf. Abraham Epstein: Eldad ha-Dani. Pressburg 1891.
2. ↑ See Andrew C. Gow: The Red Jews: Antisemitism in an Apocalyptic Age, 1200–1600. Brill 1994.
3. ↑ Cf. Rebekka Voss: Controversial Redeemers. Politics, Ideology, and Judeo-Christian Messianism in Germany, 1500–1600. Göttingen 2011.
4. ↑ Cf. Annelies Kuyt: The world from a Sephardic and Ashkenazi point of view: The medieval Hebrew travel reports of Benjamin of Tudela and Petachja of Regensburg. In: Xenja von Ertzdorff-Kupffer (ed.): Exploration and description of the world. Amsterdam 2003, pp. 211-231
5. ↑ See Heinrich Graetz : History of the Jews , Vol. 7, p. 192.