“Rambam Year,” which marks the 750th anniversary of the death of Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon, the medieval Jewish philosopher and scientist also known as Maimonides, will be opened here tomorrow at the Rabbi Kook Institute.
Maimonides, whose initials make up the name Rambam under which he is known in literature, was born in 1135 in Cordoba Spain and died in 1204 in Egypt. A few years after his death, his remains were transferred from Egypt to Palestine and reinterred near Tiberias, where his tomb has remained a shrine for generations of Jews.
Present at the ceremonies tomorrow will be President Itzhak Ben Zvi, Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog, members of the Cabinet, scientists and cultural leaders. A special pilgrimage will be made to the tomb of the Rambam in Tiberias Sunday.
The observance of the anniversary is sponsored jointly by the Rabbi Kook Institute, a religious educational center, and the Ministry of Religion. The latter is appropriating 80,000 pounds for the observance of the anniversary, 50,000 pounds of which has been set aside for the rebuilding of the tomb in which the remains of the world-famed Jewish thinker lie.
The national observance will be started at Tiberias Sunday night when the greatest experts on the Rambam will lecture on the significance of his work in the fields of theology, philosophy and science. It is expected that this lecture will be succeeded by some 2,600 other talks on the Rambam during the commemorative year. To further stimulate interest in the Rambam, the Ministry of Religion has offered special prizes for outstanding work by students of the Rambam.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
