title: Ministry (government department)

text: In Portugal, the organization adopted by the XXI (2015-2019) and the XXII (since 2019) governments ceased to expressly foresee the existence of ministries, with the portfolios of the ministers being referred as "governative areas". While some governative areas inherited the previously established ministerial organizations and continued to structured as traditional ministries (Finance, National Defense, Foreign Affairs, etc.), the other governative areas received a more flexible organization.


title: Ministry (government department)

text: In Nigeria each ministry is led by a minister who is not a member of the Nigerian legislature (due to the separation of powers) and is responsible to the popularly elected president.


title: Ministry (government department)

text: In Lebanon, there are 21 ministries. Each ministry is led by a minister, and the Prime Minister is the 23rd minister of the Lebanese government.


title: Ministry (government department)

text: In the European Union, the equivalent organisation to a national government department is termed "directorate-general" with the civil servant in charge called a director-general (in the European Commission, the political head of the department is one of the European Commissioners).


title: Ministry (government department)

text: The government departments of the Soviet Union were termed "people's commissariats" between 1917 and 1946. "Ministry" was used, thereafter.


title: Su Pollard

text: Susan Georgina Pollard (born 7 November 1949) is an English actress and singer. Her career has spanned over 45 years; she is most famous for her role in the sitcom "Hi-de-Hi!". She also appeared in "You Rang, M'Lord?" and "Oh, Doctor Beeching!".


title: Su Pollard

text: Pollard has appeared in over 35 stage plays and musicals, as well as over 40 pantomimes. As a singer, she scored a UK number-two hit with the song "Starting Together" in 1986 and also released an album.


title: Su Pollard

text: Pollard was born in Nottingham, the eldest daughter of Don and Hilda Pollard. Her interest in acting began at the age of six when she played an angel in a school nativity play. She attended Berridge Road School, Hyson Green and Peveril Bilateral School, Robin's Wood Road (now Nottingham Girls' Academy). After leaving school at the age of 16, she got a job at the Tennant Rubber Company in Carlton as a shorthand typist and began singing in working men's clubs and charity shows.


title: Su Pollard

text: Following an apprenticeship at the Arts Theatre in Nottingham, Pollard appeared on "Opportunity Knocks" in 1974, singing "I Cain't Say No" from "Oklahoma!", and came second to a singing Jack Russell.


title: Su Pollard

text: She went on to play in the musicals "The Desert Song" and "Rose Marie" with John Hanson, starred in the Cameron Mackintosh West End production of "Godspell", played opposite Jack Wild in "Big Sin City" at the Roundhouse, toured in the musical "Grease" in a company that also included Tracey Ullman, appeared with Tim Brooke-Taylor and Hugh Paddick in the farce "Not Now Darling", won a role in Andrew Sachs's play "Philately Will Get You Nowhere" and appeared at the Mermaid Theatre in a celebration of the music of Cole Porter, titled "Oh Mr. Porter!"


title: Su Pollard

text: Pollard's first comedy role was in a BBC series screened in 1979 entitled "Two Up, Two Down", in which she played a hippy named Flo. Paul Nicholas played her partner, Jimmy, both of whom were squatting in the house of a nice middle-class couple. It only lasted for one series, but then later that year came the pilot programme for a new BBC comedy written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft set in a holiday camp. Pollard landed the role of chalet maid Peggy Ollerenshaw in "Hi-de-Hi!". She continued in this role until the programme's end in 1988, by which time she had become a household name.


title: Su Pollard

text: In 1981, she became one of the presenters of children's magazine show "Get Set for Summer", in which she delivered wacky reports and bogus weather forecasts.


title: Su Pollard

text: During the run of "Hi-de-Hi!" Pollard also had a singing career, and in 1986, she reached No. 2 in the UK Singles Chart with the song "Starting Together", the theme song from the BBC Television 'fly-on-the-wall' documentary series "The Marriage". It was her only Top 40 hit; her first single, "Come To Me (I Am Woman)", had reached No. 71 in 1985 and her only charting album, "Su", peaked at No. 86 in the UK Albums Chart in November 1986. In 1987, she toured the UK with "The Su Pollard Show" and co-hosted "It's a Royal Knockout".


title: Su Pollard

text: Pollard also starred in the stage production of "Hi De Hi! - The Holiday Musical", along with almost all of the cast from the television series, played sell out seasons in Bournemouth, London and Blackpool. In 1985 she played Sally in the West End production of "Me And My Girl" at the Adelphi Theatre which she appeared in for over a year. Then came roles in a national tour of Rodgers and Hart's "Babes In Arms" playing Bunny Byron opposite Matthew Kelly, and the title role in "Sweet Charity" at the Connaught Theatre, Worthing.


title: Su Pollard

text: Pollard also appeared in a number of television adverts, Typhoo, Walls, Kit Kats, with comedy star Roy Kinnear, Heineken lager, Toymaster toy stores, Ideal World shopping and the British Safety Council. She also wrote two books, "Hearts and Showers" and "Sensible Slimming".


title: Su Pollard

text: Shortly after "Hi-de-Hi!" had ended, the writers David Croft and Jimmy Perry chose Pollard to star as Ivy Teasdale in their new sitcom "You Rang, M'Lord?", which starred her "Hi-de-Hi!" co-stars Paul Shane and Jeffrey Holland. This period sitcom ran from 1988 to 1993. In 1988, she won the "Rear of the Year" award. In 1989 she hosted the short-lived ITV game show "Take The Plunge", which was cancelled after one season. From 1993 until 1996, Pollard starred opposite Gorden Kaye in "For Better or Worse", a BBC Radio 2 sitcom about an engaged-to-be-married couple. In 1995 Pollard took over as face of the National Egg Awareness Campaign. From 1995 to 1997 she played Ethel Schumann in another David Croft sitcom "Oh, Doctor Beeching!". From 1989 to 1990, Pollard's distinctive voice voiced the lead character in the BBC children's television series "Penny Crayon".


title: Su Pollard

text: More recently, Pollard made a guest appearance in "Gimme Gimme Gimme" in 2001 and voiced Noisy in "Little Robots". In 2001, she presented "Songs of Praise" three times. She has made four appearances on "Just a Minute", and also regularly appears in pantomimes and other stage shows, including "Annie" and "The Pirates of Penzance". In 2008, Pollard starred in the musical "Shout!" alongside Claire Sweeney. From April 2009, Pollard appeared in the London transfer of "Shout!" at the Arts Theatre. In December 2010, Pollard had a guest role in the Christmas special of ITV's hit show "Benidorm", playing herself. In December 2011, Pollard appeared as a guest on BBC One's "Strictly Come Dancing". In the 2012 movie "Run For Your Wife" she had a cameo role as the newsagent. She starred in "Who's Doing the Dishes?" in September 2016. In 2018 she appeared in ITV's "Last Laugh in Vegas".


title: Su Pollard

text: In pantomime, Pollard appears mainly as the Wicked Queen in "Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs", appearing in recent years at Sunderland, Blackpool, Tunbridge Wells, Aylesbury and Malvern.


title: Su Pollard

text: In 2019, Pollard starred as Queen Rat in "Dick Whittington" in Wolverhampton, alongside her "Hi-de-Hi!" co star Jeffrey Holland.


title: Su Pollard

text: Pollard was married to Peter Keogh from 1984 to 1992. In 2014, Keogh published his memoir, "My Hi-de-High Life: Before, During and After Su Pollard".


title: Su Pollard

text: Pollard is related to journalist and former "Blue Peter" presenter Liz Barker and is a supporter of Nottingham Forest football club.


title: David Selby

text: David Lynn Selby is an American film, television, and stage actor. He is best known for playing Quentin Collins on the daytime soap "Dark Shadows" (1968–71) and Richard Channing on the prime-time soap "Falcon Crest" (1982–90). Selby also had prominent roles in the television series "Flamingo Road" (1981–82) and the feature film "Raise the Titanic" (1980). Also a published writer, Selby has written several books, including novels, memoirs, and collections of poetry.


title: David Selby

text: Selby was born in Morgantown, West Virginia, the son of Sarah E. (née McIntyre) and Clyde Ira Selby, a carpenter. He attended West Virginia University, earning degrees in theater, followed by a PhD from Southern Illinois University.


title: David Selby

text: Midway through his time at WVU, Selby joined the cast of "Honey in the Rock", a civil war drama at Grandview State Park.


title: David Selby

text: In 1968, Selby joined the cast of the TV series "Dark Shadows" as ghost Quentin Collins. After the series' cancellation in 1971, Selby played Quentin Collins "Night of Dark Shadows", the second feature film based on the show, released later the same year. He reprised the role from the series for a series of "Dark Shadows" audio dramas from Big Finish Productions, beginning in 2006.


title: David Selby

text: In 1972, Selby co-starred with Barbra Streisand in the movie "Up the Sandbox". He continued to appear in a number of film and television roles during the 1970s, including "U-Turn" (1973), "The Super Cops" (1974) and "Rich Kids" (1979), and episodes of "The Waltons" (1974), "Police Woman" (1975), and "Kojak" (1976). He was part of the cast in the Emmy Award-winning miniseries "" (1977).


title: David Selby

text: Selby was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor for his role in the 1980 film "Raise the Titanic", which was met with a negative reception from critics and audiences along with poor box-office takings.


title: David Selby

text: In 1981, Selby played the villainous Michael Tyrone in the final season of the prime-time serial "Flamingo Road". After its cancellation in 1982, he joined the cast of "Falcon Crest" as Richard Channing, the illegitimate son of Jacqueline Perrault's (Lana Turner) with Angela Channing's husband Douglas Channing. Originally considered an antagonist, Richard gradually became more of a protagonist, and by the final season, he was the central character of the show (in part due to the health-related absence of Wyman). Selby was nominated for six Soap Opera Digest Awards for his role of Richard, winning one. In all, Selby appeared in 209 episodes of the series.


title: David Selby

text: Selby continued in numerous film and TV roles during the 1990s and 2000s, including "Dying Young" (1991), "White Squall" (1996) and "Surviving Christmas" (2004), and episodes of series such as "Cold Case" (2007) and "Mad Men" (2009).


title: David Selby

text: To mark the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birthday in 2009, Selby appeared onstage with Barack Obama and portrayed Lincoln in a scene from the play "The Heavens Are Hung in Black" at the reopening of Ford's Theatre. Selby had also played Abraham Lincoln in a 1998 episode of the series "Touched by an Angel", titled "Beautiful Dreamer".


title: David Selby

text: Selby made an appearance in the 2012 film adaptation of "Dark Shadows, one of four cast members from the original series to feature in the movie. The same year, he co-starred in "", a two-part direct-to-video animated film adaptation of the 1986 graphic novel "The Dark Knight Returns", portraying Commissioner James Gordon.


title: David Selby

text: Selby is also an accomplished writer. His work includes the plays "Lincoln and James" and "Final Assault" as well as the poetry collections "My Mother's Autumn" and "Happenstance". Novels he has written include "Lincoln's Better Angel" and "The Blue Door." "A Better Place" combines memoir and social commentary to discuss Selby's upbringing. In 2010, he published "My Shadowed Past," chronicling what it was like to work on "Dark Shadows".


title: David Selby

text: In 1998, West Virginia University awarded Selby its first Life Achievement Award from the College of Creative Arts. He received an honorary doctorate in 2004.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: Santa Maria Novella is a church in Florence, Italy, situated opposite, and lending its name to, the city's main railway station. Chronologically, it is the first great basilica in Florence, and is the city's principal Dominican church.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The church, the adjoining cloister, and chapter house contain a multiplicity of art treasures and funerary monuments. Especially famous are frescoes by masters of Gothic and early Renaissance. They were financed by the most important Florentine families, who ensured themselves funerary chapels on consecrated ground.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: This church was called S. Maria Novella ('New') because it was built on the site of the 9th-century oratory of Santa Maria delle Vigne. When the site was assigned to the Dominican Order in 1221, they decided to build a new church and adjoining cloister. The church was designed by two Dominican friars, Fra Sisto Fiorentino and Fra Ristoro da Campi. Building began in the mid-13th century (about 1276), and lasted 80 years, ending under the supervision of Friar Iacopo Talenti with the completion of the Romanesque-Gothic bell tower and sacristy. In 1360, a series of Gothic arcades were added to the façade; these were intended to contain sarcophagi. The church was consecrated in 1420.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: On a commission from the wealthy Florentine wool merchant Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai, Leon Battista Alberti designed the upper part of the inlaid green marble of Prato, also called 'serpentino', and white marble façade of the church (1456–1470). He was already famous as the architect of the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini, but even more for his seminal treatise on architecture "De re aedificatoria". Alberti had also designed the façade for the Rucellai Palace in Florence.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: Alberti attempted to bring the ideals of humanist architecture, proportion and classically inspired detailing to bear on the design, while also creating harmony with the already existing medieval part of the façade. The combined façade can be inscribed by a square; many other repetitions of squares can be found in the design. His contribution consists of a broad frieze decorated with squares, and the full upper part, including the four white-green pilasters and a round window, crowned by a pediment with the Dominican solar emblem, and flanked on both sides by enormous S-curved volutes.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The four columns with Corinthian capitals on the lower part of the façade were also added. The pediment and the frieze are clearly inspired by antiquity, but the S-curved scrolls in the upper part are new and without precedent in antiquity. Solving a longstanding architectural problem of how to transfer from wide to narrow storeys, the scrolls (or variations of them), found in churches all over Italy, all draw their origins from the design of this church.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The frieze below the pediment carries the name of the patron : "IOHAN(N)ES ORICELLARIUS PAU(LI) F(ILIUS) AN(NO) SAL(UTIS) MCCCCLXX (Giovanni Rucellai son of Paolo in the year of salvation 1470)."


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The vast interior is based on a basilica plan, designed as an Egyptian cross (T-shaped) and is divided into a nave, two aisles set with windows and a short transept. The large nave is 100 metres long and gives an impression of austerity. The piers are of compound form and have Corinthian columns supporting pointed Gothic arches above which is a clerestory of ocular windows above which rises a ribbed, pointed quadrupartite vault. The ribs and arches are all black and white polychrome.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: There is a "trompe-l'œil" effect by which towards the apse the nave seems longer than its actual length because the piers between the nave and the aisles are progressively closer, nearer to the chancel.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: Many of the windows have stained glass dating from the 14th and 15th century, such as 15th century "Madonna and Child" and St. John and St. Philip (designed by Filippino Lippi), both in the Filippo Strozzi Chapel. Some stained glass windows have been damaged in the course of centuries and have been replaced. The one at the west end, a depiction of the "Coronation of Mary", dates from the 14th century, and is based on a design of Andrea di Bonaiuto da Firenze.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The pulpit, commissioned by the Rucellai family in 1443, was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi and executed by his adopted son Andrea Cavalcanti. This pulpit has a particular historical significance, since it was from this pulpit that the first verbal attack was made on Galileo Galilei, leading eventually to his indictment.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: "The Holy Trinity", situated almost halfway along the left aisle, is a pioneering early Renaissance work of Masaccio, showing his new ideas about perspective and mathematical proportions. Its meaning for the art of painting can easily be compared to the importance of Brunelleschi for architecture and Donatello for sculpture. The patrons were the judge and his wife, members of the Lenzi family, here depicted kneeling. The cadaver tomb below carries in Italian the epigram: "I was once what you are, and what I am you will become".


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: Of particular note in the right aisle is the "Tomba della Beata Villana", a monument by Bernardo Rossellino executed in 1451. In the same aisle, are located tombs of bishops of Fiesole, one by Tino di Camaino and another by Nino Pisano.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The chancel (or the Cappella Tornabuoni) contains series of famous frescoes painted from 1485 to 1490 by Domenico Ghirlandaio whose apprentice was the young Michelangelo. The frescoes represent themes from the lives of the Virgin and John the Baptist. They contain portrayals of several members of important Florentine families. The vaults have roundels with paintings of the Evangelists. On the rear wall are the paintings "Saint Dominic burns the Heretical Books" and "Saint Peter's Martyrdom", the "Annunciation", and "Saint John goes into the Desert".


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The stained-glass windows were made in 1492 by the Florentine artist Alessandro Agolanti, known also as Il Bidello, and were based on cartoons by Ghirlandaio.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The Filippo Strozzi Chapel is situated on the right side of the main altar. The series of frescoes by Filippino Lippi depict the lives of Apostle Philip and the Apostle Saint James the Great and were completed in 1502. On the right wall is the fresco "St Philip Driving the Dragon from the Temple of Hieropolis" and in the lunette above it, the "Crucifixion of St Philip". On the left wall is the fresco "St John the Evangelist Resuscitating Druisana" and in the lunette above it "The Torture of St John the Evangelist". Adam, Noah, Abraham and Jacob are represented on the ribbed vault. Behind the altar is the tomb of Filippo Strozzi with a sculpture by Benedetto da Maiano (1491).


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: This chapel, designed by Giuliano da Sangallo, is situated on the left side of the main altar and dates from the end of the 13th century. Here, on the rear wall, is the famous wooden "Crucifix" by Brunelleschi, one of his very few sculptures. The legend goes that he was so disgusted by the "primitive" Crucifix of Donatello in the Florence's church of Santa Croce that he made this one. The vault contains fragments of frescoes by 13th-century Greek painters. The polychrome marble decoration was applied by Giuliano da Sangallo (c. 1503). The stained-glass window and dates from the 20th century.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The Cappella Strozzi di Mantova is situated at the end of the left transept. The frescoes were commissioned from Nardo di Cione (1350–1357) by Tommaso Strozzi, an ancestor of Filippo Strozzi. The frescoes are inspired by Dante's "Divine Comedy": Last Judgment (on the back wall; including a portrait of Dante), Hell (on the right wall) and paradise (on the left wall). The main altarpiece of "The Redeemer with the Madonna and Saints" was done by Nardo di Cione's brother, Andrea di Cione, better known as Orcagna. The large stained-glass window on the back was made from a cartoon by the two brothers.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The Della Pura Chapel is situated north of the old cemetery. It dates from 1474 and was constructed with Renaissance columns. It was restored in 1841 by Gaetano Baccani. On the left side there is a lunette with a 14th-century fresco "Madonna and Child with St Catherine". On the front altar there is a wooden crucifix by Baccio da Montelupo (1501).


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The Rucellai Chapel, at the end of the right aisle, dates from the 14th century. Besides the tomb of Paolo Rucellai (15th century) and the marble statue of the "Madonna and the Child" by Nino Pisano, it houses several art treasures such as remains of frescoes by the Maestro di Santa Cecilia (end 13th – beginning 14th century). The panel on the left wall, "the Martyrdom of St Catherine", was painted by Giuliano Bugiardini (possibly with assistance from Michelangelo). The bronze tomb, in the centre of the floor, was made by Lorenzo Ghiberti in 1425.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The Bardi Chapel, the second chapel on the right of the apse, was founded by Riccardo Bardi and dates from early 14th century. The high-relief on a pillar on the right depicts "St Gregory blessing Riccardo Bardi". The walls show us some early 14th-century frescoes attributed to Spinello Aretino. The "Madonna del Rosario" on the altar is by Giorgio Vasari (1568)


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The sacristy, at the end of the left aisle, was built as the Chapel of the Annunciation by the Cavalcanti family in 1380. It houses, after a recent period of fourteen years of cleaning and renovation, the enormous painted "Crucifix with the Madonna and John the Evangelist", an early work by Giotto. The sacristy is also embellished by a glazed terra cotta and a marble font, masterpieces by Giovanni della Robbia (1498). The cupboards were designed by Bernardo Buontalenti in 1593. The paintings on the wall are ascribed to Giorgio Vasari and to other contemporary Florentine painters. The large Gothic window with three mullions at the back wall dates from 1386 and was based on cartoons by Niccolò di Pietro Gerini


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The Spanish Chapel (or "Cappellone degli Spagnoli") is the former chapter house of the convent. It is situated at the north side of the green Cloister ("Chiostro Verde"). It was commissioned by Buonamico (Mico) Guidalotti as a chapter house for the Dominican Order. Construction started c. 1343 and was finished in 1355. The Guidalotti chapel was later called "Spanish Chapel", because Cosimo I assigned it to Eleonora of Toledo and her Spanish retinue. Within the Spanish Chapel there is a smaller Chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The Spanish Chapel was decorated from 1365 to 1367 by Andrea di Bonaiuto, also known as Andrea da Firenze. As the chapel was built for the Dominicans, depictions of Saint Dominic are found in most of the frescos. The large fresco on the right wall depicts an "Allegory of the Active and Triumphant Church and of the Dominican order". It is especially interesting because in the background it shows a large pink building that some think may provide some insight into the original designs for Florence Cathedral by Arnolfo di Cambio (before Brunelleschi's dome was built). However, such an interpretation is fantasy since the Duomo was never intended to be pink, nor to have the bell tower at the rear. This fresco also contains portraits of pope Benedict IX, cardinal Friar Niccolò Albertini, count Guido di Poppi, Arnolfo di Cambio and the poet Petrarch.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The frescoes on the other walls represent scenes from the lives of Christ and St Peter on the entry wall (mostly ruined due to the later installation of a choir), "The Triumph of St Thomas Aquinas" and the "Allegory of Christian Learning" on the left wall, and the large "Crucifixion with the Way to Calvalry and the Descent into Limbo" on the archway of the altar wall.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The four-part vault contains scenes of Christ's resurrection, the navicella, the Ascension, and Pentecost. The five-panelled Gothic polyptych that was probably originally made for the chapel's altar, depicting the "Madonna Enthroned with Child and Four Saints" by Bernardo Daddi dates from 1344 and is currently on display in a small museum area reached ed through glass doors from the far end of the cloister. Together, the complex iconography of the ceiling vault, walls, and altar combine to communicate the message of Dominicans as guides to salvation.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: Rectangular in shape, towards the west it has a scarsella containing the altar and a marble crucifix by Domenico Pieratti from the early seventeenth century, donated in 1731 by Gian Gastone de' Medici.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: Giorgio Vasari was the architect, commissioned in 1567 by Grand Duke Cosimo I, for the first remodelling of the church, which included removing its original rood screen and loft, and adding six chapels between the columns. The second remodelling was designed by Enrico Romoli, and was carried out between 1858 and 1860.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: The square in front the church was used by Cosimo I for the yearly chariot race ("Palio dei Cocchi"). This custom existed between 1563 and late in the 19th century. The two Obelisks of the Corsa dei Cocchi marked the start and the finish of the race. They were set up to imitate an antique Roman Circus Maximus. The obelisks rest on bronze tortoises, made in 1608 by the sculptor Giambologna.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: An armillary sphere (on the left) and an astronomical quadrant with gnomon (on the right) were added to the end blind arches of the lower façade by Ignazio Danti, astronomer of Cosimo I, in 1572. The armilliary sphere was intended to determine the vernal equinox and this was observed for the first time publicly in 1574. The gnomon threw shadows on the astronomical quadrant to tell the time according to the transalpine, Italian and Bohemian methods.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: Thanks to these instruments, the astronomer was able to calculate exactly the discrepancy between the true solar year and the Julian calendar, then still in use since its promulgation in 46 BC. By demonstrating his studies in Rome to Pope Gregory XIII, he obtained the realignment of the days and the promulgation of the new Gregorian calendar, jumping into a night in 1582 from 4 October to 15 October.


title: Santa Maria Novella

text: Danti also placed a hole in the south facing circular window at a height of and installed a meridian line on the floor of the church as a better method of determining the equinoxes than the armilliary sphere. However, the construction was not completed due to the death of his patron, the Grand Duke Cosimo I.


title: BMW S85

text: The BMW S85 is a naturally aspirated V10 petrol engine which replaced the BMW S62 V8 engine in the M5 model and was produced from 2005–2010. It was both BMW's first and only production V10 engine, and the first petrol V10 engine to be available in a production sedan (saloon).


title: BMW S85

text: Introduced in the E60 M5, the S85 was inspired by BMW's previous Formula One involvement. Unlike most other BMW M engines, the S85 is not related to a regular production BMW engine.


title: BMW S85

text: As the S85 was BMW's first V10 engine, it was given a new series in the BMW's engine codes. The "60s" were used for V8 engines and the "70s" were used for V12 engines, therefore the V10 was allocated in the "80s" (despite having fewer cylinders than the V12 engines in the "70s".)


title: BMW S85

text: The engine code for the related BMW S65 V8 engine reflects its link to the S85. The S65 code was selected to signify that the V8 is largely derived from the S85 minus two cylinders, and not related to BMW's other V8s.


title: BMW S85

text: The S85 has dual overhead camshafts with four valves per cylinder and double-VANOS (variable valve timing). The engine block and cylinder head are constructed from aluminum alloy.


title: BMW S85

text: The redline is 8,250 rpm, and the specific output of per litre is amongst the highest of naturally aspirated production car engines.


title: Sheldon Riley

text: Sheldon Riley Hernandez (born 14 March 1999) is an Australian singer. He represented Australia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 with his song "Not the Same". He first appeared as a contestant on the eighth season of The X Factor Australia. Riley later competed on the seventh season of The Voice Australia, and in 2020, he appeared on America’s Got Talent for its fifteenth season.


title: Sheldon Riley

text: Riley was born in Sydney, New South Wales, to an Australian mother and a Filipino father. He grew up on the Gold Coast in Queensland.


title: Sheldon Riley

text: In 2016, Riley, who then performed under his full name Sheldon Hernandez, auditioned for the eighth season of "The X Factor Australia" with the songs "Circle of Life" by Elton John and "Ordinary People" by John Legend. He originally participated in the 14–21s category, which was mentored by Adam Lambert, and was eliminated as a solo artist at the bootcamp stage of the competition. Riley returned to The X Factor after the mentor of the groups category, Iggy Azalea, selected him to be a part of a new boy band of eliminated solo artists. The band was called "Time and Place" and its members, in addition to Sheldon, included Sami Afuni, Matthew McNaught, and Leon Kroeber. The group was selected as one of Iggy Azalea's three acts, moving on to the live shows following the three-chair challenge. They were eliminated in the first week of the live shows.


title: Sheldon Riley

text: In 2018, Riley appeared in the seventh season of "The Voice Australia". He auditioned with the song "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" by Culture Club. All of the four judges turned their chairs and Riley chose Boy George to be his coach. Riley made it to the final of the show and finished in third place.


title: Sheldon Riley

text: In 2019, Riley returned to The Voice to compete in its eighth season as an all-star contestant. Riley auditioned with "Frozen" by Madonna and received chair turns from both eligible coaches. He chose Delta Goodrem as his coach. He was eliminated in the semi-final of the show.


title: Sheldon Riley

text: In 2020, Riley competed in the fifteenth season of America's Got Talent. He auditioned with the song "Idontwannabeyouanymore" by Billie Eilish. He was eliminated in the third quarter-final of the season.


title: Sheldon Riley

text: On 26 November 2021, he was announced as one of the participants in the "Eurovision – Australia Decides". Later, it was announced that his song for the contest was called "Not the Same", which released on 15 February 2022. He won the show with 100 points and therefore had the chance to represent Australia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 in Turin. Riley was one of the 10 qualifiers that advanced to the final of the competition on 14 May, where he reached 15th place with 125 points. Of the points he received, 123 were from national juries, and 2 points were from televoting.


title: Sheldon Riley

text: In 2022, Riley took place in the fourth season of "The Masked Singer" as "Snapdragon" where he finished as runner-up. Riley later released a cover of "Never Enough", the song that he sang on the grand final.


title: Sheldon Riley

text: Riley is openly gay. He was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome at age six. He currently lives in Melbourne.


title: International unit

text: In pharmacology, the international unit (IU) is a unit of measurement for the effect, not mass of a substance; the variance is based on the biological activity or effect, for the purpose of easier comparison across similar "forms" of substances. International units are used to quantify vitamins, hormones, some medications, vaccines, blood products, and similar biologically active substances.


title: International unit

text: Many biological agents exist in different forms or preparations (e.g. vitamin A in the form of retinol or "beta"-carotene). The goal of the IU is to be able to compare these, so that different forms or preparations with the same biological effect will contain the same number of IUs. To do so, the WHO Expert Committee on Biological Standardization provides a reference preparation of the agent, arbitrarily sets the number of IUs contained in that preparation, and specifies a biological procedure to compare other preparations of the same agent to the reference preparation. Since the number of IUs contained in a new substance is arbitrarily set, there is no equivalence between IU measurements of different biological agents. For instance, one IU of vitamin E cannot be equated with one IU of vitamin A in any way, including mass or efficacy.


title: International unit

text: The term "international unit" is also used to describe any of various physical or monetary units agreed upon internationally, in particular one forming part of the International System of Units (SI). International units as used in pharmacology are not part of the SI. The IU is distinct from the enzyme unit, also known as the "international unit of enzyme activity" and abbreviated as U.


title: International unit

text: To define the IU for a substance, an international collaborative study is organized by the WHO Expert Committee on Biological Standardization using various assay systems in several laboratories. The main goal of the study is to reach a consensus regarding methods of analysis and the approach to standardization so that results can be compared.


title: International unit

text: The study is performed using highly purified preparations of the substance, typically in lyophilized form, called "international reference preparations" or IRPs. Each preparation is divided into precisely weighed samples, with each sample stored in its own ampoule labeled with a code corresponding to the source IRP. Assays are performed using these samples and are calibrated against the previously available IU standard. These results can be quite variable; the final IU value for samples of a given IRP are determined by consensus. The IRP that provides the best results and shows the best long term stability is selected to define the next IU. This IRP is then referred to as the "international standard."


title: International unit

text: For some substances, the precise mass equivalent of one IU has been changed. When that happens, the former IU mass for that substance is officially abandoned in favor of a newly established mass. Such a change has happened with the immunoassay standards for prolactin: as one batch of standard (84/500; 53 mIU ≈ 2.5 μg) was running out of stock, a new standard (83/573; 67 mIU ≈ 3.2 μg) was calibrated against the old one (as 67.2 mIU) and replaced the former.


title: International unit

text: The name "international unit" is often capitalized in English and other languages, although major English-language dictionaries treat it as a common noun and thus use lower case. The name has several accepted abbreviations. It is usually abbreviated as "IU" in English, and "UI" in Romance languages (for example Spanish "unidad internacional", French "unité internationale", Italian "unità internazionale", Romanian "unitate internațională"), "IE" in several Germanic languages (for example German "internationale Einheit", Dutch "internationale eenheid") or as other forms (for example Russian МЕ, международная единица ["mezhdunarodnaya yedinitsa"], Hungarian NE, "nemzetközi egység").


title: International unit

text: In order to remove the possibility of having the letter "I" confused with the digit "1", some hospitals have it as a stated policy omit the "I", that is, to only use U or E when talking and writing about dosages, while other hospitals require the word "units" (or words "international units") to be written out entirely. (For example, "three international units per litre" may be abbreviated "3 U/L". The "liter" sign (L) is less affected, as less confusing written forms are used.)


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Nepali cuisine comprises a variety of cuisines based upon ethnicity, alluvial soil and climate relating to Nepal's cultural diversity and geography. "Dal-bhat-tarkari" () is eaten throughout Nepal. "Dal" is a soup made of lentils and spices, "bhat" — usually rice but sometimes another grain — and a vegetable curry, "tarkari". Condiments are usually small amounts of spicy pickle ("achaar", अचार) which can be fresh or fermented, mainly of dried mustard greens (called "gundruk ko achar") and radish ("mula ko achar") and of which there are many varieties. Other accompaniments may be sliced lemon ("nibuwa") or lime ("kagati") with fresh green chilli () and a fried (thin, crisp disc-shaped food) and also Islamic food items like rice pudding, sewai, biryani etc. (ढिंडो) is a traditional food of Nepal.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Momo is a Nepalese style dumpling, an adaptation of Tibetan mogmog, filled with minced meat in a flour dough, given different shapes and then cooked by steaming. It is one of the most popular foods in Nepal and the regions of Sikkim, Darjeeling and Kalimpong in India where Nepali-speaking Indians have a presence. Momo were originally filled with buffalo meat but are now commonly filled with goat or chicken, as well as vegetarian preparations.Special foods such as "sel roti", "finni roti" and "patre" are eaten during festivals such as "Tihar". Sel roti is a traditional Nepali homemade ring-shaped rice bread which is sweet to taste. Other foods have hybrid Tibetan and Indian influence.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Chow mein is a Nepali favorite in modern times based on Chinese-style stir fried noodles. It is one of the most beloved everyday staple lunches in Nepali households.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Dal-bhat-tarkari is the standard meal eaten twice daily traditionally by the Khas people. However, with land suitable for irrigated rice paddies in short supply, other grains supplement or even dominate. Wheat becomes unleavened flat bread ("roti" or "chapati"). Maize ("makai"), buckwheat ("fapar"), barley ("jau"), or millet ("kodo") become porridge-like ( or "ato"). "Tarkari" can be spinach and fresh greens ("sag"), fermented and dried greens ("gundruk" or "sinki"), white radish ("mula"), potatoes ("alu"), green beans ("simi"), tomatoes (), cauliflower ("kauli"), cabbage ("bandakopi"), pumpkin ("farsi"), etc.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: The climate of the hilly region remains moderate throughout the year. This kind of climate is perfect for horticulture. Fruits traditionally grown in the hills include mandarin orange (), kaffir lime ("kagati"), lemon ("nibuwa"), Asian pear ("nashpati"), and bayberry ("kaphal"), mangoes ("aanp"), apples (), peach ("aaru"), plum ("aalcha or aarubakhara"), apricot ("kurpani") . In some seasons there is an excess amount of these fruits produced. These excess fruits are often preserved or otherwise made use of in the form of Alcohol, pickles, dried fruits and fruit juice.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Dahi (yogurt) and curried meat ("masu") or fish ("machha") are served as side dishes when available. Chicken ("kukhura") and fish are usually acceptable to all including the Khas Brahmin ("Bahun") caste. Observant Hindus never eat beef ("gaiko masu"). They also eschew buffalo and yak meat as being too cow-like. Domestic pork ("sungurko masu") was traditionally only eaten by aadibasi, however wild boar ("bangur ko masu") was traditionally hunted and eaten by magars. A strain derived from wild boar is now raised in captivity and used for meat that is increasingly popular with Pahari ethnicities and castes that did not traditionally eat pork. They however eat bandel (wild boar) as it is considered clean due to its forest habitat though they do not eat pork meat.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Himalayan cuisine is influenced culturally by Tibetan and closely related ethnic groups in the Himalaya and Trans-Himalaya. The Himalayan region is not fertile as compared to other regions. Moreover, the climate is cold throughout the year with heavy snowfalls. The food crops grown in this region are buckwheat, millet, naked barley, common beans, and high-altitude rice. Potatoes are another important staple crop and food. Substantial amounts of rice are imported from the lowlands.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Because of the cold temperature, people often prefer warm foods like soup, thukpa, tea and strong alcohols. Grains are made into alcoholic beverages (see below). Butter tea is made by mixing butter or ghyu (घ्यु)/ghee and salt into a strong brew of tea. This tea preparation is also commonly mixed with tsampa flour to make a kind of fast food, which is especially eaten while traveling.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: The cattle raised in this region are yak, (yak and cow crossed), Himalayan goats, and sheep. People raise these animals for meat, milk, cheese, and dahi (yogurt).


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Most of the Himalayan regions are hard to reach. There is no proper means of transportation because of higher altitudes and it is a considerable challenge to build good road transportation. Hence only rice and some spices like salt are imported from other regions by air transport or by using animals as their means of transportation.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: People in this region eat (millet or barley cooked dough), potato curry, momo (dumplings), yak or goat or sheep meat, milk, thukpa, laping or strong alcohol like (millet juice) for their regular diet. This region also imports rice from other regions and consumes daal-bhat-tarkari from time to time.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Thakali cuisine—transitional between Himalayan and lowland cuisines—is eaten by "Thakali" people living in "Thak-Khola" Valley, an ancient and relatively easy trade route through the high Himalaya. This cuisine is also served in inns ("bhattis") run by Thakalis alongside other trade routes and in Pokhara and other towns in the hills of central Nepal, that were said to offer the best food and accommodations before the great proliferation of facilities catering to foreign trekkers.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Very few Thakali own their own yaks, so butter made from the yak milk is usually purchased at the market, along with other staples like rice, tea, lentils, sugar and spices. After butter is produced, a hard cheese called "chhurpi" is made with the buttermilk.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Yak and yak-cow hybrids locally known as "Jhopa" were consumed by the lower castes. All castes eat the meat of local sheep called "Bheda" and "Chyangra" or "Chiru" imported from Tibet. Meat is sliced into thin slices and dried on thin poles near the cooking fire. Blood sausage is also prepared and dried. Dried meat is added to vegetable curries or sauteed in ghee and dipped into "timur-ko-choup" which is a mixture of red chili powder, Sichuan pepper, salt and local herbs. This spice mixture also seasons new potatoes, or eggs which may be boiled, fried or made into omelets.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Thakali cuisine uses locally grown buckwheat, barley, millet and dal, as well as rice, maize and dal imported from lower regions to the south. Grain may be ground and boiled into a thick porridge that is eaten in place of rice with dal. A kind of dal is even made from dried, ground buckwheat leaves. Grain can be roasted or popped in hot sand (which is then sieved off) as a snack food. Thakalis also follow the Tibetan customs of preparing tsampa and tea with butter and salt. "Ghee" is used in this tea preparation and as a cooking oil otherwise.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Since most Thakali people were engaged in trade, they could import vegetables, fruits and eggs from lower regions. A large variety of vegetables were consumed daily, some—especially daikon radish and beetroot—dried and often prepared with mutton. Soup prepared from spinach known as "gyang-to" was served with a pinch of "timur-ko-choup". Apples were introduced following the arrival of foreign horticulturists and are now widely enjoyed.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Newars are an urbanized ethnic group originally living in the Kathmandu Valley, but now also in bazaar towns elsewhere in the world and Middle Hills. In the fertile Kathmandu and Pokhara valleys, local market farmers find growing produce more profitable than grain, especially now that cheap rice and other staples can be trucked in. Furthermore, Newar households have relatively high incomes and their culture emphasizes food and feasting.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Although daily Newar food practices consist mostly of components from the generic hill cuisine, during ritual, ceremonial and festive eating, Newar dishes can be much more varied than the generic Pahade/Pahari ones. Newari cuisine makes wide use of buffalo meat. For vegetarians, meat and dried fish can be replaced by fried tofu or cottage cheese. The cuisine has a wide range of fermented preparations, whereas Pahade/Pahari cuisine has beyond a few "aachar" condiments.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: "Kwāti" (क्वाति soup of different beans), "kachilā" (कचिला spiced minced meat), "chhoylā" (छोयला water buffalo meat marinated in spices and grilled over the flames of dried wheat stalks), "pukālā" (पुकाला fried meat), "wo" (व: lentil cake), "paun kwā" (पाउँक्वा sour soup), "swan pukā" (स्वँपुका stuffed lungs), "syen" (स्येँ fried liver), "mye" (म्ये boiled and fried tongue), "sapu mhichā" (सःपू म्हिचा leaf tripe stuffed with bone marrow) and "sanyā khunā" (सन्या खुना jellied fish soup) are some of the popular festival foods.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Dessert consists of "dhau" (धौ yogurt), "sisābusā" (सिसाबुसा fruits) and "mari" (मरि sweets). There are "achaars" made with "aamli" fruit. "Thwon" (थ्वँ rice beer) and "aylā" (अयला local alcohol) are the common alcoholic liquors that Newars make at home.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: There is great importance of food in Newari culture. Newari cuisine is one of the most delicious food with intense flavorings. There are dishes for every edible part of buffalo meat (cooked and uncooked) that includes intestine, stomach and brain. That's another reason why they are famous.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Lohorung are indigenous to eastern Nepal. They have a variety of food in their cuisine made from local ingredients. Some of them are "Wachipa", "Wamik", "Masikdaam", "Sibring", "Sel roti", "Bawari", "Dhule Achar", "Saruwa", "Chamre", "Dibu", and so on.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Limbu have unique ethnic foods including kinema (fermented soybeans), "yangben" (Reindeer Moss), preparations of bamboo shoots, bread made from millet or buckwheat, and traditional Limbu drink Tongba (millet beer). Pork, Beef is eaten in some Eastern regions like Dharan.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Food in the Terai south of Sivalik Hills refers to mirror cuisines such as Maithili cuisine in the east, Tharu cuisine in the west, and Bhojpuri cuisine in the center and near west of Madhesh region of Nepal. Further west, there is Mughlai-influenced Awadhi cuisine—particularly eaten by the substantial Muslim population around Nepalganj.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Terai diets can be more varied than in the Middle Hills because of greater variety of crops grown locally plus cash crops imported from cooler microclimates in nearby hill regions, as well as from other parts of Greater Nepal. Fruit commonly grown in the Terai include mango ("aap"), litchi, papaya ("armewa/mewa"), banana ("kera/kela/kola") and jackfruit ("katahar/katahal").


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: A typical terai set includes basmati rice with ghee, pigeon pea daal, tarkari (cooked variety of vegetable), tarua (battered raw vegetables known as taruwa/baruwa such as potato, brinjal/aubergine, chili, cauliflower etc. deep fried in the oil), papad/papadum, mango/lemon pickles and yogurt. For non-vegetable items, they consume mostly fish or goat curry. Traditionally there never used to be poultry items but nowadays, due to urbanization, poultry items are common, too.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Nepal has seven low elevation Inner Terai valleys enclosed by the Sivalik and Mahabharat ranges. Historically these valleys were extremely malarial and populated mainly by the Tharu and Maithil peoples who had genetic resistance. Since the valleys were isolated from one another, Tharu enclaves spoke different dialects and had different customs. They may have had different cuisines, although this has not been very well studied. Nevertheless, most Tharu historically obtained a varied diet through hunting and gathering as well as shifting agriculture and animal husbandry.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: This contrasted with diets of Pahade/Pahari Hindus that were predominantly agricultural and used only a few sources of animal protein because of religious or caste prohibitions. In the 1950s, when Nepal opened its borders to foreigners and foreign aid missions, malaria suppression programs in the Inner Madhesh made it possible for people without genetic resistance to survive there. The Tharu and Maithil faced an influx of people fleeing land and food deficits in the hills. Conversion of forest and grassland to cropland and prohibitions on hunting shifted the Tharu and Maithil in the east and west away from land-based hunting and gathering, toward greater use of fish, freshwater crab, prawns and snails from rivers and ponds.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Tharu raise chickens and are reported to employ dogs to hunt rats in rice paddies and then roast them whole on sticks. Mutton may be obtained from nomadic hill people such as Kham Magar who take herds of sheep and goats up to sub-alpine pastures bordering the high Himalaya in summer, and down to Inner Madhesh valleys in winter. Increasing competition for land forces the Tharu and Maithil people away from shifting cultivation toward sedentary agriculture, so the national custom of eating rice with lentils gains headway. The Tharu or Maithil have unique ways of preparing these staples, such as rice and lentil dumplings called or and immature rice is used to make a kind of gruel, "maar".


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Taro root is an important crop in the region. The leaves and roots are eaten. "Sidhara" is a mixture of taro root, dried fish and turmeric that is formed into cakes and dried for preservation. The cakes are broken up and cooked with radish, chili, garlic and other spices to accompany boiled rice. Snails are cleansed, boiled and spiced to make "ghonghi". Another short compendium of Tharu and Maithil recipes includes roasted crab, wheat flatbread fried in mustard oil, and fried taro leaf cakes.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Nepal produces a variety of fruits (persimmons, apples, mangoes, tangerines, kiwis) and nuts that are featured in locally prepared sweets. Dessert is not a well-established concept in the Nepali cuisine and sweets made with milk, yogurt and cheese are often eaten for breakfast as standalone meals. Sometimes grated carrots are used instead of flour, or semolina, rice, corn or puffed lotus seeds. "Barfi" is made with some combination of lentils, fruits, flour and thickened milk.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: "Halwa" is a sweetened semolina pudding with green cardamom, cashews, raisins and shredded coconut. Like other Nepalese sweets, Nepalese puddings are prepared using ghee. Dumplings called "lal mohan" are deep fried like fritters and soaked in cardamom-flavored sweet syrup.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: At the festival of "Yomari Purnima" celebrated in December, to thank the goddess of grains Annapurna after the harvest, the Newar make sweet dumplings ("yomari") with rice flour filled with sesame seeds, and brown sugar or molasses. In the predominately Hindu country, sweet "peda" made with thickened milk () are offered to the Hindu gods.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Snacks include maize popped or parched called "khaja" (literally "eat and run"); beaten rice ("baji" or "chiura"), dry-roasted soybeans (, Nepali: भटमास), dried fruit candy ("lapsi"), and South Asian foods like the "samosa" and South Asian sweets. International snacks like biscuits (packaged cookies), potato chips and "wai wai" (Nepali: वाइ वाइ, instant noodles) are all coming into widespread use. Whereas, some youths in Nepal prefer western snacks as they are easy to get and less time-consuming.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Tea ("chiya") usually taken with milk and sugar, juice of sugarcane ("sarbat"), and buttermilk ("mahi") are common non-alcoholic drinks. Alcoholic drinks include "raksi", spirits made in rustic distilleries, and jaand/"jard", homemade beer made from rice. At higher elevations there is millet beer "Tongba, nigaar" and "chhyaang".


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Western culture has influence in Nepali/Nepalese cuisine. Western food like bread, cereals, bagels, pizzas, sandwiches, burgers, and pasta and drinks like Coke, Fanta, and Sprite are common in cities and places where there are a reasonable number of tourists. Middle-class families residing in cities consume these foods on a daily basis. One can find them in almost all the restaurants around cities.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Although most homes and restaurants in cities have dining tables, meals in villages are often eaten seated on a tiny wooden seat (pira) or on chairs or benches. A large mound of "bhat", "dhindo" or a pile of "rotis" is served on a (a large brass plate) or a "khande thal" (a compartment plate). On the , the rice is surrounded by smaller mounds of prepared vegetables, fresh chutney or preserved pickles, and sometimes curd/yogurt, fish or meat. Separate glasses and bowls are instead used for different dishes, while serving on smaller plates or when serving to honoured guest or elders of the family. The most notable of this is the separate thals and bowls that are given to elders and honoured guests that are made of a separate metal alloy (). Although it is vague on the specifics to what can be quantified to be due to the change in the actual metallic composition of for the past few generations and there being no one standard. Thus, , bowls etc. can all vary in appearance from locality, era, craftsmanship, and more, however the sentiment still remains. On a "khande thal", there are separate small compartments for chutney and "tarkari" and other dishes.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: Food is traditionally eaten with the right hand. Touching or eating food with the left hand, which is traditionally used for washing off after stool, is considered unhygienic, and taboo. The hands should be washed before eating, and the hand and mouth should be rinsed after. It is customary to wash one's lips after eating. The use of spoons, and more recently forks, is also increasing, and inquiring if one is available is acceptable. The washing of hands and mouth is not necessary, before or after, when eating with a spoon.


title: Nepalese cuisine

text: In Nepal, especially among the Brahmin and chetry castes, the purity of food and drinks is taken very seriously. Contact with saliva is almost universally considered to make food impure, which is considered to be "jutho" and may be seen as a sign of insult or grave ignorance. Acceptability of "jutho" food follows the traditional hierarchy of respect, where parents' "jutho" is acceptable to children but not vice-versa and so on. People of equal standing, like friends and spouses may also share "jutho", except among highly religious (where "jutho" is impure) or traditional people (where "jutho" is thought to transfer diseases, or husbands may be held superior to wives). In a similar vein, food touched by pets and other animals, or where an insect drops, are discarded and the containers thoroughly washed. Some exceptions may be made for animals traditionally thought pure, such as cows.


title: Sally Burton

text: Sally Hay Burton (born Sally Anne Hay; 21 January 1948) is a British author and theatre producer. She was the fourth wife and widow of actor Richard Burton.


title: Sally Burton

text: Burton was born Sally Anne Hay in Braintree, Essex, the daughter of journalist Jack Hay. She was working as a freelance production assistant on the set of the TV mini-series "Wagner" when she met Richard Burton. During a seven-month tour of the United States with Noël Coward's play "Private Lives", in which Elizabeth Taylor was Richard Burton's co-star, Burton and Hay married on 3 July 1983 in Las Vegas; it was Burton's fifth marriage and her first. After the tour, they went to rest in Hawaii for several months before returning to their home in Céligny where Burton died on 5 August 1984; Sally Burton was then 36.


title: Sally Burton

text: In 2012 Burton published the diaries of Richard Burton. She said her motivation was to show Burton's "love for words". In her review of the book, Barbara Ellen in "The Guardian" wrote The suspicion forms that Sally's unspoken motivation was to derail, once and for all, the Liz-Dickie show. To demonstrate that, despite all those tales of Burton's sending secret final love letters to Taylor, in which he wrote of yearning to "come home" to her, in truth, he had gone right off her, and, considering what he was writing, near despised her. To my mind, this none-too-subtle attempt to undermine the Burton/Taylor-myth looks a bit vindictive – especially considering that Taylor is dead now, and can't flash those violet eyes, and open that fabulous fishwife mouth, in reply.Simon De Bruxelles wrote of the diaries in 2012, "The depth of Richard Burton's passion for Elizabeth Taylor is laid bare in diary extracts to be published for the first time this year ... beautiful beyond the dreams of pornography."


title: Sally Burton

text: The diaries had been kept since 1965 and Burton, "... always maintained that they were personal and not intended for publication."


title: Sally Burton

text: Burton donated the Richard Burton Collection to Swansea University in 2005 and she received an honorary fellowship from that university in 2006.


title: Sally Burton

text: In 2005, Burton moved to Perth, Western Australia, where her brother and his family had lived for years. In 2009, she launched the Richard Burton Award for New Plays, in conjunction with Black Swan State Theatre Company offering a prize pool of A$30,000 for writers of unproduced scripts; this is Australia's richest prize for playwrights. The 2010 first prize of A$20,000 was awarded to Caleb Lewis; Hellie Turner was awarded the runner-up prize of A$10,000. The prize was not awarded in 2011 and new guidelines were drawn for 2012. The award was shared in 2012 by Ingle Knight and Tommy Murphy who would each receive a commission of $15,000 at the completion of a new play. No further awards have been announced and the award has ceased,


title: Sally Burton

text: Burton was patron of the Black Swan State Theatre Company from 2009 to 2012. She is a supporter of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. She was a board member of Agelink, a theatre company for older actors. Established in 2007 She presents the Sally Burton Awards, a prize pool of A$4,000, to the two most talented performers of Shakespeare texts at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.


title: Sally Burton

text: In 2009 she launched the independent production house Onward Production whose productions ran from 2009 to 2011. In October that year she produced the Australian première of the international touring anthology "Seven Deadly Sins Four Deadly Sinners" at the Playhouse Theatre in Perth and Noël Coward's "Private Lives" at Perth's Subiaco Arts Centre.


title: Sally Burton

text: Burton had moved to Perth, Australia to be closer to her brother and his family. She first moved into a house in Subiaco, then purchased a recently built nearby house in 2007. In August 2017 she put her home on the market and returned to the UK to live in Suffolk.


title: Aptitude

text: An aptitude is a component of a competence to do a certain kind of work at a certain level. Outstanding aptitude can be considered "talent". Aptitude is inborn potential to perform certain kinds of activities, whether physical or mental, and whether developed or undeveloped. Aptitude is often contrasted with skills and abilities, which are developed through learning. The mass term ability refers to components of competence acquired through a combination of both aptitude and skills.


title: Aptitude

text: According to Gladwell (2008) and Colvin (2008), it is often difficult to set apart the influence of talent from the influence of hard training in the case of outstanding performances. Howe, Davidson, and Sloboda argue that talents are acquired rather than innate. Talented individuals generally show high levels of competence immediately in only a narrow range of activities, often comprising only a single direction or genre.


title: Aptitude

text: Aptitude and IQ are different but related concepts relating to human mental ability. Unlike the original idea of IQ, aptitude often refers to one of the many different characteristics which can be independent of each other, such as aptitude for military flight, air traffic control, or computer programming. This approach measures a variety of separate skills, similar to the theory of multiple intelligences and Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory and many other modern theories of intelligence. In general, aptitude tests are more likely to be designed and used for career and employment decisions, and intelligence tests are more likely to be used for educational and research purposes. However, there is a great deal of overlap between them, and they often measure the same kinds of abilities. For example, aptitude tests such as the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery measure enough aptitudes that they could also serve as a measure of general intelligence.


title: Aptitude

text: A single construct such as mental ability is measured with multiple tests. Often, a person's group of test scores will be highly correlated with each other, which makes a single measure useful in many cases. For example, the U.S. Department of Labor's General Learning Ability is determined by combining Verbal, Numerical and Spatial aptitude scores. However, many individuals have skills that are much higher or lower than their overall mental ability level. Aptitude subtests are used intra-individually to determine which tasks that individual is more skilled at performing. This information can be useful for determining which job roles are the best fits for employees or applicants. Often, before more rigorous aptitude tests are used, individuals are screened for a basic level of aptitude through a previously-completed process, such as SAT scores, GRE scores, GATE scores, degrees, or other certifications.


title: Aptitude

text: Tests that assess learned skills or knowledge are frequently called achievement tests. However, certain tests can assess both types of constructs. An example that leans both ways is the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), which is given to recruits entering the armed forces of the United States. Another is the SAT, which is designed as a test of aptitude for college in the United States, but has achievement elements. For example, it tests mathematical reasoning, which depends both on mathematical ability and education received in mathematics.


title: Aptitude

text: Aptitude tests can typically be grouped according to the type of cognitive ability they measure, whether that be fluid or crystallized intelligence.


title: Aribert Heim

text: Aribert Ferdinand Heim (28 June 191410 August 1992), also known as Dr. Death and Butcher of Mauthausen, was an Austrian "Schutzstaffel" (SS) doctor. During World War II, he served at the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Mauthausen, killing and torturing inmates using various methods, such as the direct injection of toxic compounds into the hearts of his victims.


title: Aribert Heim

text: After the war, Heim lived in Cairo, Egypt, under the alias of Tarek Farid Hussein after his conversion to Islam. In February 2009, after years of attempts to locate him, German television network ZDF had found Heim's passport and other documents in Cairo. It was then reported that Heim had died there on 10 August 1992 from complications of rectal cancer, according to testimony by his son Ruediger and lawyer. This information, though set forth by a German court, was questioned by Efraim Zuroff, a leading Nazi hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Zuroff stated that on a visit to Puerto Montt, Chile, in July 2008, Heim's daughter told him that Heim had died in 1993 in Argentina. In 2012, a court in Baden-Baden confirmed again that Heim had died in 1992 in Egypt, based on new evidence provided by his family and lawyer. The Wiesenthal Center continued to dispute these findings, and Heim remained on the list of most-wanted Nazi war criminals until 2013.


title: Aribert Heim

text: Heim was born on June 28, 1914 in Bad Radkersburg, Austria-Hungary, the son of a policeman and a housewife. He studied in Graz, and received his diploma in medicine from the University of Vienna in 1940.


title: Aribert Heim

text: Aribert Heim worked in Mauthausen for six weeks as a doctor starting in October 1941 at the age of 27. Prisoners at Mauthausen called Heim "Dr. Death", or the "Butcher of Mauthausen" for his cruelty.


title: Aribert Heim

text: According to witnesses, Heim worked closely with SS pharmacist Erich Wasicky. The two performed gruesome experiments together, such as injecting various solutions into the hearts of Jewish prisoners to see which killed them the fastest.


title: Aribert Heim

text: Heim was known for performing operations without anesthesia. For about two months (October to December 1941), Heim was stationed at the Ebensee concentration camp near Linz, Austria, where he carried out experiments on Jews and others similar to those performed at Auschwitz by Josef Mengele. According to Holocaust survivors, Jewish prisoners were poisoned with various injections directly into the heart, including petrol, phenol, available poisons, or even water, to induce death.


title: Aribert Heim

text: Heim reportedly removed organs from living prisoners without anesthesia, killing hundreds. A prisoner by the name of Karl Lotter also worked in the Mauthausen hospital at the time Aribert Heim was there. Lotter testified that in 1941, he witnessed Aribert Heim butcher a prisoner who came to him with an inflamed foot. Lotter provided more gruesome details about how Aribert butchered the 18-year-old prisoner, stating that Aribert gave him anesthetic and then proceeded to cut him open, castrate him, and take out one of his kidneys. The prisoner died, and his head was cut off, boiled and stripped of its flesh.


title: Aribert Heim

text: Heim then allegedly used this young man's skull as a paperweight on his desk. In a sworn statement that was given eight years after the incident Lotter stated that Heim "needed the head because of its perfect teeth". Other survivors of the Holocaust referred to Aribert removing tattooed flesh from prisoners and using the skin to make seat coverings, which he gave to the commandant of the camp. Marcelino Bilbao Bilbao stated that Heim drew blood from him for six weeks and later injected him with a liquid that ended up paralyzing his body.


title: Aribert Heim

text: From February 1942, Heim served in the 6th SS Mountain Division Nord in northern Finland, especially in Oulu's hospitals as an SS doctor. His service continued until at least October 1942.


title: Aribert Heim

text: On 15 March 1945, Heim was captured by US soldiers and sent to a camp for prisoners of war. He was released and worked as a gynecologist at Baden-Baden until his disappearance in 1962; he had telephoned his home and was told that the police were waiting for him. Having been questioned on previous occasions, he surmised the reason (an international warrant for his arrest had been in place since that date) and went into hiding. According to his son, Rüdiger Heim, he drove through France and Spain onward to Morocco, moving finally to Egypt via Libya.


title: Aribert Heim

text: In the years following his disappearance, Heim was the target of a rapidly escalating manhunt and ever-increasing rewards for his capture. Following his escape there were reported sightings in Latin America, Spain and Africa, as well as formal investigations aimed at bringing him to justice, some of which took place even after he had apparently died in Egypt. The German government offered €150,000 for information leading to his arrest, while the Simon Wiesenthal Center launched Operation Last Chance, a project to assist governments in the location and arrest of suspected Nazi war criminals who are still alive. Tax records prove that, as late as 2001, Heim's lawyer asked the German authorities to refund capital gains taxes levied on him because he was living abroad.


title: Aribert Heim

text: Heim reportedly hid out in South America, Spain and the Balkans, but only his presence in Spain has ever been confirmed. He was alleged to have moved to Spain after fleeing Paysandú, Uruguay, when he was located by the Israeli Mossad. Efraim Zuroff, of the Wiesenthal Center, initiated an active search for his whereabouts, and in late 2005, Spanish police incorrectly determined he was in Palafrugell, Spain. According to "El Mundo", Heim had been helped by associates of Otto Skorzeny, who had organised one of the biggest ODESSA bases in Franco's Spain.


title: Aribert Heim

text: Press reports in mid-October 2005 suggested that Heim's arrest by Spanish police was "imminent". Within a few days, however, newer reports suggested that he had successfully evaded capture and had moved either to another part of Spain or to Denmark.


title: Aribert Heim

text: Fredrik Jensen, a Norwegian and a former SS Obersturmführer, was put under police investigation in June 2007, and charged with assisting Heim in his escape. The accusation was denied by Jensen. In July 2007, the Austrian Ministry of Justice declared that it would pay €50,000 for information leading to his arrest and extradition to Austria.


title: Aribert Heim

text: On 6 July 2008, Efraim Zuroff, the Wiesenthal Center's chief Nazi-hunter, went to South America as part of a public campaign to capture the most wanted Nazi in the world and bring him to justice, claiming that Heim was alive and hiding in Patagonia, either in Chile or in Argentina. He elaborated on 15 July 2008 that he was sure Heim was alive and the groundwork had been laid to capture him within weeks.


title: Aribert Heim

text: In 2008, Heim was named as one of the ten most wanted Nazi war criminals by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.


title: Aribert Heim

text: Heim and his former wife, Friedl, had two sons. He also had a daughter, Waltraud, born out of wedlock in Chile.


title: Aribert Heim

text: In 2006, a German newspaper reported that he had a daughter, Waltraud, living on the outskirts of Puerto Montt, Chile, who said he had died in 1993. However, when she tried to recover a multimillion-euro inheritance from an account in his name, she was unable to provide a death certificate.


title: Aribert Heim

text: In August 2008, Heim's son Rüdiger asked that his father be declared legally dead, in order to take hold of his assets. He claimed he intended to make a donation to humanitarian projects working to document the atrocities committed in the camps.


title: Aribert Heim

text: After years of apparently false sightings, the circumstances surrounding Heim's escape, life in hiding and death were jointly reported by the German broadcaster ZDF and "The New York Times" in February 2009. It was reported that Heim died on August 10, 1992 in Cairo, Egypt with his cause of death being colorectal cancer. In the later years of his life, Heim had named himself Tarek Farid Hussein. People in Egypt who knew Heim said they did not know he was a wanted man.


title: Aribert Heim

text: In an interview at the family's villa in Baden-Baden, his son Rüdiger admitted publicly for the first time that he was with his father in Egypt at the time of Heim's death, saying that it was during the Olympics, and that he died the day after the games ended. According to Efraim Zuroff, Rüdiger Heim had constantly denied having any knowledge of the whereabouts of his father until the publishing of the ZDF research results.


title: Aribert Heim

text: On 18 March 2009, the Simon Wiesenthal Center filed a criminal complaint due to suspicion of false testimony. In 2012, a regional court in Baden-Baden confirmed that Heim died under the assumed identity of Tarek Hussein Farid in Egypt in 1992, based on papers from his lawyer and testimony from his son.


title: Aribert Heim

text: In its 2013 annual Nazi war criminal report, the Simon Wiesenthal Center disputed the 2012 ruling by the Baden-Baden court, claiming a lack of forensic confirmation of Heim's death. Ruediger Heim recounted how Egyptian authorities had forced him to have his father interred in an unmarked common grave in Cairo, rendering it impossible for investigators to find Heim's remains for DNA testing. Heim was not included in the 2014 report.


title: Aribert Heim

text: Israeli author Danny Baz published "The Secret Executioners" in 2007, in which he claimed that a clandestine organisation called 'The Owl', operating outside of international law, tracked Heim down and assassinated him in the U.S. on an island off the California coast in 1982. Baz claimed he was a member of 'The Owl' himself and claimed that his group carried out several assassinations of Nazis who had sought refuge in the USA. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre has expressed doubts regarding Baz's claims.


title: Aribert Heim

text: In her novel "The Scent of Lemon Leaves" ("Lo que esconde tu nombre", 2010) Clara Sánchez gives a fictional account of Heim's refuge in Spain. In the afterword to the novel the author states that she used a real name for a fictional character.


title: Aribert Heim

text: In the fictional Netflix series "Jaguar" (Global release September 22, 2021) a group of Nazi hunters attempt to catch Heim in Spain in 1962.


title: Flux Gourmet

text: Flux Gourmet is a 2022 black comedy film written and directed by Peter Strickland and starring Asa Butterfield and Gwendoline Christie.


title: Flux Gourmet

text: A trio of experimental performance artists, known for their process of "sonic catering" (where they extract disturbing sounds from various foods) take up residency at a remote artistic institution, run by a wealthy, enigmatic director who is funding the project. The group is led by a narcissistic, controlling woman named Elle. A self-described "hack" journalist named Stones is hired to document the day-to-day activities of the group, while dealing with unpleasant gastrointestinal disorders, for which tests are being administered by an on-site doctor. As Stones documents the artistic collective's power struggles, vendettas, rehearsals, performances, and sordid history, he increasingly becomes a participant in the artistic proceedings.


title: Flux Gourmet

text: In July 2021, it was announced that IFC Films acquired North American distribution rights to the film. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on February 11, 2022. It also made it to 'World Cinema' section of 27th Busan International Film Festival to be screened in October 2022.


title: Flux Gourmet

text: In the United States and Canada, the film earned $3,780 from 19 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $1,397 from six theaters the following weekend, and $4,387 in its third.


title: Flux Gourmet

text: The film has an 85% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 80 reviews, with a weighted average of 7.1/10. The site's consensus states, ""Flux Gourmet" isn't for all tastes, but viewers attuned to writer-director Peter Strickland's unique wavelength will find this horror-laced satire a savory delight". On Metacritic, the film had a weighted average score of 80 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "universal acclaim."


title: Flux Gourmet

text: Pat Brown of "Slant Magazine" awarded the film two and a half stars out of four and wrote, "That being said, Strickland’s playful mockery of performance art and excessively serious-minded “collectives” feels both insular and, at times, a shade too flavorless." David Ehrlich of IndieWire graded the film a B+ and wrote, "As usual, Strickland has made a sumptuous meal out of social impropriety — a strange cinematic delicacy about the discomforts that need to be shared so that others don’t have to be stomached." Matthew Joseph Jenner of the International Cinephile Society awarded the film four and a half out of five stars, writing ""Flux Gourmet" is an absolute triumph, best enjoyed by those who accept that Strickland’s work is undeniably an acquired taste, but one that offers a truly unforgettable experience, one that may even tempt us to go back for a second serving."


title: Flux Gourmet

text: Peter Debruge of "Variety" gave the film a negative review and wrote, "In fact, "Flux Gourmet" may well send audiences running for the loo, or else reaching for the barf bag, coming about as close to triggering the gag reflex as a film can without actually jamming a finger down your throat." Leslie Felperin of "The Hollywood Reporter" gave the film a positive review and wrote, "Nevertheless, Strickland builds his own worlds with such a distinctive style — down to the fonts, the bilious shades of green and the textures of the silks — that the viewer can’t help feeling pulled into his crazy maelstrom of quirk." Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" awarded the film three stars out of five and wrote, ""Flux Gourmet" may yet have a claim to cult-favourite status, but Strickland has given us a stronger, realer taste in the past." Anna Smith of "Deadline Hollywood" gave the film a positive review and wrote, "Strickland has delivered another delicious character-driven drama that balances the amusingly surreal with the uncomfortably real — and it’s a wild and witty ride."


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: The history of the Jews in Iraq (, "", ; , ) is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c. 586 BC. Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and most historically significant Jewish communities.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: The Jewish community of what is termed in Jewish sources "Babylon" or "Babylonia" included Ezra the scribe, whose return to Judea in the late 6th century BCE is associated with significant changes in Jewish ritual observance and the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Babylonian Talmud was compiled in "Babylonia", identified with modern Iraq.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: From the biblical Babylonian period to the rise of the Islamic caliphate, the Jewish community of "Babylon" thrived as the center of Jewish learning. The Mongol invasion and Islamic discrimination in the Middle Ages led to its decline. Under the Ottoman Empire, the Jews of Iraq fared better. The community established modern schools in the second half of the 19th century. Driven by persecution, which saw many of the leading Jewish families of Baghdad flee for India, and expanding trade with British colonies, the Jews of Iraq established a trading diaspora in Asia known as the Baghdadi Jews.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: In the 20th century, Iraqi Jews played an important role in the early days of Iraq's independence. Between 1950 and 1952, 120,000–130,000 of the Iraqi Jewish community (around 75%) reached Israel in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: The religious and cultural traditions of Iraqi Jews are kept alive today in strong communities established by Iraqi Jews in Israel, especially in Or Yehuda, Givatayim and Kiryat Gat. According to government data as of 2014, there were 227,900 Jews of Iraqi descent in Israel, with other estimates as high as 600,000 Israelis having some Iraqi ancestry. Smaller communities upholding Iraqi Jewish traditions in the Jewish diaspora exist in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Singapore, Canada, and the United States.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: What Jewish sources called "Babylon" and "Babylonia" may refer to the ancient city of Babylon and the Neo-Babylonian Empire; or, very often, it means the specific area of Mesopotamia (the region between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers) where a number of Jewish religious academies functioned during the Geonic period (6th–11th century CE).


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: In the Bible, Babylon and the country of Babylonia are not always clearly distinguished, in most cases the same word being used for both. In some passages the land of Babylonia is called Shinar, while in the post-exilic literature it is called Chaldea. In the Book of Genesis, Babylonia is described as the land in which Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh are located – cities that are declared to have formed the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom (). Here, the Tower of Babel was located (); and it was also the seat of Amraphel's dominion ().


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: In the historical books, Babylonia is frequently referred to (there are no fewer than thirty-one allusions in the Books of Kings), though the lack of a clear distinction between the city and the country is sometimes puzzling. Allusions to it are confined to the points of contact between the Israelites and the various Babylonian kings, especially Merodach-baladan (Berodach-baladan of ; compare ) and Nebuchadnezzar. In Books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah the interest is transferred to Cyrus (see, for example, ), though the retrospect still deals with the conquests of Nebuchadnezzar, and Artaxerxes is mentioned once ().


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: In the poetical literature of Israel, Babylonia plays an insignificant part (see , and especially Psalm 137), but it fills a very large place in the Prophets. The Book of Isaiah resounds with the "burden of Babylon" (), though at that time it still seemed a "far country" (). In the number and importance of its references to Babylonian life and history, the Book of Jeremiah stands preeminent in the Hebrew literature. With numerous important allusions to events in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah has become a valuable source in reconstructing Babylonian history within recent times. The inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar are almost exclusively devoted to building operations; and but for the Book of Jeremiah, little would be known of his campaign against Jerusalem.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: During the 6th century BCE, the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah were exiled to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar in three waves. These three separate occasions are mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah (). The first was in the time of Jehoiachin in 597 BC, when, in retaliation for a refusal to pay tribute, the First Temple in Jerusalem was partially despoiled and a number of the leading citizens removed (Book of Daniel, ). After eleven years, in the reign of Zedekiah—who had been enthroned by Nebuchadnezzar—a fresh revolt of the Judaeans took place, perhaps encouraged by the close proximity of the Egyptian army. The city was razed to the ground, and a further deportation ensued. Finally, five years later, Jeremiah records a third captivity. After the overthrow of Babylonia by the Persians, Cyrus gave the Jews permission to return to their native land (537 BC), and more than forty thousand are said to have availed themselves of the privilege. (See Jehoiakim; Ezra; Nehemiah.)


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: The earliest accounts of the Jews exiled to Babylonia are furnished only by scanty biblical details, although a number of archaeological discoveries shed light into the social lives of the deportees; certain sources seek to supply this deficiency from the realms of legend and tradition. Thus, the so-called "Small Chronicle" (Seder Olam Zutta) endeavors to preserve historic continuity by providing a genealogy of the exilarchs ("Reshe Galuta") back to King Jeconiah; indeed, Jeconiah himself is made an exilarch. The "Small Chronicle's" states that Zerubbabel returned to Judea in the Greek period. Certainly, the descendants of the Davidic line occupied an exalted position among their brethren in Babylonia, as they did at that period in Judea. During the Maccabean revolt, these Judean descendants of the royal house had immigrated to Babylonia.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: According to the biblical account, the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great was "God's anointed", having freed the Jews from Babylonian rule. After the conquest of Babylonia by the Persian Achaemenid Empire Cyrus granted all the Jews citizenship and by decree allowed the Jews to return to Israel (around 537 BCE). Subsequently, successive waves of Babylonian Jews emigrated to Israel. Ezra (/ˈɛzrə/; Hebrew: עֶזְרָא, ‘Ezrā;[1] fl. 480–440 BCE), also called Ezra the Scribe (עֶזְרָא הַסּוֹפֵר, Ezra ha-Sofer) and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra, a Jewish scribe (sofer) and priest (kohen), returned from Babylonian exile and reintroduced the Torah in Jerusalem (Ezra 7–10 and Neh 8).


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: With Alexander the Great's campaign, accurate information concerning the Jews in the East reached the western world. Alexander's army contained numerous Jews who refused, from religious scruples, to take part in the reconstruction of the destroyed Belus temple in Babylon. The accession of Seleucus Nicator, 312 BC, to whose extensive empire Babylonia belonged, was accepted by the Jews and Syrians for many centuries as the commencement of a new era for reckoning time, called "minyan sheṭarot", æra contractuum, or era of contracts, which was also officially adopted by the Parthians. This so-called Seleucid era survived in the Orient long after it had been abolished in the West (see Sherira's "Letter," ed. Neubauer, p. 28). Nicator's foundation of a city, Seleucia, on the Tigris is mentioned by the Rabbis (Midr. The. ix. 8); both the "Large" and the "Small Chronicle" contain references to him. The important victory which the Jews are said to have gained over the Galatians in Babylonia (see II Maccabees – ) must have happened under Seleucus Callinicus or under Antiochus III. The last-named settled a large number of Babylonian Jews as colonists in his western dominions, with the view of checking certain revolutionary tendencies disturbing those lands. Mithridates (174–136 BC) subjugated, about the year 160, the province of Babylonia, and thus the Jews for four centuries came under Parthian domination.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: Jewish sources contain no mention of Parthian influence; the very name "Parthian" does not occur, unless indeed "Parthian" is meant by "Persian", which occurs now and then. The Armenian prince Sanatroces, of the royal house of the Arsacides, is mentioned in the "Small Chronicle" as one of the successors (diadochoi) of Alexander. Among other Asiatic princes, the Roman rescript in favor of the Jews reached Arsaces as well (I Macc. xv. 22); it is not, however, specified which Arsaces. Not long after this, the Partho-Babylonian country was trodden by the army of a Jewish prince; the Syrian king, Antiochus VII Sidetes, marched, in company with Hyrcanus I, against the Parthians; and when the allied armies defeated the Parthians (129 BC) at the Great Zab (Lycus), the king ordered a halt of two days on account of the Jewish Sabbath and Feast of Weeks. In 40 BC. the Jewish puppet-king, Hyrcanus II, fell into the hands of the Parthians, who, according to their custom, cut off his ears in order to render him unfit for rulership. The Jews of Babylonia, it seems, had the intention of founding a high-priesthood for the exiled Hyrcanus, which they would have made quite independent of Judea. But the reverse was to come about: the Judeans received a Babylonian, Ananel by name, as their high priest which indicates the importance enjoyed by the Jews of Babylonia. Still in religious matters the Babylonians, as indeed the whole diaspora, were in many regards dependent upon Judea. They went on pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the festivals.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: How free a hand the Parthians permitted the Jews is perhaps best illustrated by the rise of the little Jewish robber-state in Nehardea (see Anilai and Asinai). Still more remarkable is the conversion of the king of Adiabene to Judaism. These instances show not only the tolerance, but the weakness of the Parthian kings. The Babylonian Jews wanted to fight in common cause with their Judean brethren against Vespasian; but it was not until the Romans waged war under Trajan against Parthia that they made their hatred felt; so that it was in a great measure owing to the revolt of the Babylonian Jews that the Romans did not become masters of Babylonia too. Philo speaks of the large number of Jews resident in that country, a population which was no doubt considerably swelled by new immigrants after the destruction of Jerusalem. Accustomed in Jerusalem from early times to look to the east for help, and aware, as the Roman procurator Petronius was, that the Jews of Babylon could render effectual assistance, Babylonia became with the fall of Jerusalem the very bulwark of Judaism. The collapse of the Bar Kochba revolt no doubt added to the number of Jewish refugees in Babylon.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: In the continuous Roman–Persian Wars, the Jews had every reason to hate the Romans, the destroyers of their sanctuary, and to side with the Parthians, their protectors. Possibly it was recognition of services thus rendered by the Jews of Babylonia, and by the Davidic house especially, that induced the Parthian kings to elevate the princes of the Exile, who until then had been little more than mere collectors of revenue, to the dignity of real princes, called "Resh Galuta". Thus, then, the numerous Jewish subjects were provided with a central authority which assured an undisturbed development of their own internal affairs.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: After the fall of Jerusalem, Babylon became the focus of Judaism for more than a thousand years, and the place where Jews would define themselves as "a people without a land". In 587-6 BCE, following the fall of the Kingdom of Judah and the destruction of the First Temple, Jews were brought to the region between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, also known as Mesopotamia. This period in Jewish history became known as the Babylonian captivity. Some five centuries later, after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, there was a wide dispersion of Jews in which many ended up in Babylonia. The Jews of Babylon would for the first time write prayers in a language other than Hebrew, such as the Kaddish, written in Judeo-Aramaic – a harbinger of the many languages in which Jewish prayers in the diaspora would come to be written in, such as Greek, Arabic, and Turkish.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: Babylon therefore became the center of Jewish religion and culture in exile. Many esteemed and influential Jewish scholars dating back to Amoraim have their roots in Babylonian Jewry and culture.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: The Iraqi Jewish community formed a homogeneous group, maintaining communal Jewish identity, culture and traditions. The Jews in Iraq distinguished themselves by the way they spoke in their old Arabic dialect, Judeo-Arabic; the way they dressed; observation of Jewish rituals, for example, the Sabbath and holidays; and kashrut.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: The rabbi Abba Arika (175–247 AD), known as "Rab" due to his status as the highest authority in Judaism, is considered by the Jewish oral tradition the key leader, who along with the whole people in diaspora, maintained Judaism after the destruction of Jerusalem. After studying in Palestine at the academy of Judah I, Rab returned to his Babylonian home; his arrival, in the year 530 in the Seleucidan calendar, or 219 AD, is considered to mark the beginning of a new era for the Jewish people, initiating the dominant role that the Babylonian academies played for several centuries, for the first time surpassing Judea and Galilee in the quality of Torah study. Most Jews to this day rely on the quality of the work of Babylonian scholars during this period over that of the Galilee from the same period. The Jewish community of Babylon was already learned, but Rab focused and organised their study. Leaving an existing Babylonian academy at Nehardea for his colleague Samuel, Rab founded a new academy at Sura, where he and his family already owned property, and which was known as a Jewish city. Rab's move created an environment in which Babylon had two contemporary leading academies that competed with one another, yet were so far removed from one another that they could never interfere with each other's operations. Since Rab and Samuel were acknowledged peers in position and learning, their academies likewise were considered of equal rank and influence. Their relationship can be compared to that between the Jerusalemite academies of the House of Hillel Ha-Zaken and the House of Shammai, albeit Rab and Samuel agreed with each other far more often than did the houses of Hillel and Shammai. Thus, both Babylonian rabbinical schools opened a new era for diaspora Judaism, and the ensuing discussions in their classes furnished the earliest stratum and style of the scholarly material deposited in the Babylonian Talmud. The coexistence for many decades of these two colleges of equal rank, even after the school at Nehardea was moved to Pumbedita (now Fallujah), produced for the first time in Babylonia the phenomenon of dual leadership that, with some slight interruptions, became a permanent fixture and a weighty factor in the development of the Jewish faith today.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: The key work of these semi-competing academies was the compilation of the Babylonian Talmud (the discussions from these two cities), completed by Rav Ashi and Ravina, two successive leaders of the Babylonian Jewish community, around the year 520, though rougher copies had already been circulated to the Jews of the Byzantine Empire. Editorial work by the Savoraim or "Rabbanan Savoraei" (post-Talmudic rabbis), continued on this text's grammar for the next 250 years; much of the text did not reach its "perfected" form until around 600–700 AD. The Mishnah, which had been completed in the early 3rd century AD, and the Babylonian Gemara (the discussions at and around these academies) together form the "Talmud Bavli" (the "Babylonian Talmud"). The Babylonian Jews became the keepers of the Bible. Jewish culture flourished in Babylonia during the Sasanian Empire (331–638) and catalyzed the rise of Rabbinic Judaism and central texts. Jewish scholars compiled the Babylonian Talmud starting in 474 as the spiritual codex of Judaism, transferring Judaism into a spiritual and moral movement. The Talmud, a central commentary on the Mishnah, was perceived as a "portable homeland" for the Jews in diaspora.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: The three centuries in the course of which the Babylonian Talmud was developed in the academies founded by Rab and Samuel were followed by five centuries during which it was intensely preserved, studied, expounded in the schools, and, through their influence, discipline and work, recognized by the whole diaspora. Sura, Nehardea, and Pumbedita were considered the seats of diaspora learning; and the heads of these authorities were referred to later on as "Geonim" and were considered the highest authorities on religious matters in the Jewish world. Their decisions were sought from all sides and were accepted wherever diaspora Jewish communal life existed. They even successfully competed against the learning coming from the Land of Israel itself. In the words of the haggadist, "God created these two academies in order that the promise might be fulfilled, that 'the word of God should never depart from Israel's mouth (Isa. lix. 21). The periods of Jewish history immediately following the close of the Talmud are designated according to the titles of the teachers at Sura and Pumbedita; thus we have the time of the Geonim and that of the Saboraim. The Saboraim were the scholars whose diligent hands completed the Talmud and the first great Talmudic commentaries in the first third of the 6th century. The two academies among others, and the Jewish community they led, lasted until the middle of the 11th century, Pumbedita faded after its chief rabbi was murdered in 1038, and Sura faded soon after. Which ended for centuries the great scholarly reputation given to Babylonian Jews, as the center of Jewish thought.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: Iraq's Jewish community reached an apex in the 12th century, with 40,000 Jews, 28 synagogues, and ten "yeshivot", or Rabbinic academies. Jews participated in commerce, artisanal labor and medicine. Under Mongol rule (1258–1335) Jewish physician Sa’ad Al-Dawla served as , or assistant director of the financial administration of Baghdad, as well as Chief Vizier of the Mongol Empire.


title: History of the Jews in Iraq

text: During Ottoman rule (1534–1917) Jewish life prospered in Iraq. Jews were afforded religious liberties, enabling them to administer their own affairs in Jewish education. Tolerance towards Jews and Jewish customs, however, depended on local rulers. Ottoman ruler Sultan Murad IV appointed 10,000 Jewish officers in his government, as he valued the Baghdadi Jews. In contrast, Murad's governor Dauod Pasha was cruel and was responsible for the emigration of many Iraqi Jews. After Dauod's death in 1851, Jewish involvement in commerce and politics increased, with religious influence also transforming. The Iraqi Jewish community introduced the "Hakham Bashi", or Chief Rabbinate, in 1849, with Hakham Ezra Dangoor leading the community. The chief rabbi was also president of the community and was assisted by a lay council, a religious court, and a schools committee.