For the mathematician and Tamil activist see C.J. Eliezer; for the AI researcher and writer on rationality see Eliezer Yudkowsky; for the Levite priest of the Hebrew Bible, see Eleazar. For the great rabbi from the Second Commonwealth period, see Eliezer ben Hurcanus.

Eliezer (Hebrew: אֱלִיעֶזֶר, Modern Eli'ezer Tiberian ʼĔlîʻézer, "Help/Court of my God") was the name of at least three different individuals in the Bible.

The son of Moses[link]

Eliezer was Moses and Zipporah's second son. His name means "God is help" in Hebrew.

The verse in the Book of Exodus (18:4) states:

Both Gershom and Eliezer were born during the time Moses had taken refuge in Midian and had married Jethro's daughter Zipporah.

Isaac's servant trying the bracelet on Rebecca's arm by Benjamin West. The servant in question was possibly Eliezer of Damascus.

Eliezer of Damascus[link]

There is also an Eliezer known as Eliezer of Damascus (Hebrew: דַּמֶּשֶׂק אֱלִיעֶזֶר, Modern Damméseq Eliʿézer Tiberian Damméśeq ʾĔlîʿézer), son of Nimrod,^[1] and head of the patriarch Abraham's household mentioned in the Book of Genesis (15:2).

There is an interpretation in Bereshit Rabbah (43:2), cited by Rashi, that Eliezer went alone with Abraham to rescue Lot, with the reference to "his initiates" stated to be 318 in number (Lech-Lecha 14:14) being the numerical value of Eliezer's name in Hebrew, interpreted in tractate Nedarim (32a) as Abraham not wishing to rely on a miracle by taking only one individual.^[3] According to most interpretations, the unnamed "...slave, the elder of the household, who controlled all that was his" in Chayei Sarah 24:2 who acted as a marriage broker (sharchan) for Isaac was this Eliezer.

Eliezer, prophet[link]

A prophet called Eliezer, son of Dodavah, rebuked King Jehosophat for aligning himself with Ahaziah, the King of Israel. He and Ahaziah built ships in Ezion Geber which were to sail to Tarshish for trade. According to 2 Chronicles (20:37), the ships sank due to his not relying on the Lord:

Eliezer at Yale[link]

Eliezer is the name of the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which supports the activities of the Yale student club at Yale University.

References[link]

1. ^ Targum Jonathan Bereishit, 14:14
2. ^ Scherman, Nosson, TANACH, the Stone Edition, Mesorah Publications, New York, 1996, p.31
3. ^ Herczeg, Y.I.Z, The Torah: with Rashi's commentary, Vol.1, Mesorah Publications, New York, 2000, p.138

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky at the 2006 Stanford Singularity Summit
Born	(1979-09-11) September 11, 1979 (age 32)
Citizenship	American
Nationality	American
Fields	Artificial intelligence
Institutions	Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
Known for	Seed AI, Friendly AI, Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality
Influences	Judea Pearl, Vernor Vinge, E.T. Jaynes, I. J. Good

Eliezer Shlomo Yudkowsky (born September 11, 1979^[1]) is an American artificial intelligence researcher concerned with the singularity and an advocate of friendly artificial intelligence,^[2] living in Redwood City, California.^[3]

Biography[link]

Yudkowsky did not attend high school and is an autodidact, having no formal education in computer science or artificial intelligence.^[4] He co-founded the nonprofit Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI) in 2000 and continues to be employed as a full-time Research Fellow there.^[5]

Work[link]

Yudkowsky's research focuses on Artificial Intelligence theory for self-understanding, self-modification, and recursive self-improvement (seed AI); and also on artificial-intelligence architectures and decision theories for stably benevolent motivational structures (Friendly AI, and Coherent Extrapolated Volition in particular).^[6] Apart from his research work, Yudkowsky has written explanations of various philosophical topics in non-academic language, particularly on rationality, such as "An Intuitive Explanation of Bayes' Theorem".^[7]

Publications[link]

Yudkowsky was, along with Robin Hanson, one of the principal contributors to the blog Overcoming Bias^[8] sponsored by the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. In early 2009, he helped to found Less Wrong, a "community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality".^[9] The Sequences^[10] on Less Wrong, comprising over two years of blog posts on epistemology, Artificial Intelligence, and metaethics, form the single largest bulk of Yudkowsky's writing.

He contributed two chapters to Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom's and Milan Ćirković's edited volume Global Catastrophic Risks,^[11] and "Complex Value Systems are Required to Realize Valuable Futures"^[12] to the conference AGI-11.

Yudkowsky is the author of the Singularity Institute publications "Creating Friendly AI"^[13] (2001), "Levels of Organization in General Intelligence"^[14] (2002), "Coherent Extrapolated Volition"^[15] (2004), and "Timeless Decision Theory"^[16] (2010).^[17]

Yudkowsky has also written several works^[18] of science fiction and other fiction. His Harry Potter fan fiction story Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality illustrates topics in cognitive science and rationality (The New Yorker described it as "a thousand-page online 'fanfic' text called 'Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality', which recasts the original story in an attempt to explain Harry's wizardry through the scientific method"^[19]), and has been favorably reviewed by authors David Brin^[20][21][22] & Rachel Aaron,^[23][24] Robin Hanson,^[25] Aaron Swartz,^[26] and by programmer Eric S. Raymond.^[27]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Our Molecular Future: How Nanotechnology, Robotics, Genetics and Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Our World by Douglas Mulhall, 2002, p. 321.
• The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed By Rapidly Advancing Technologies by Damien Broderick, 2001, pp. 236, 265-272, 289, 321, 324, 326, 337-339, 345, 353, 370.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Eliezer Yudkowsky

• Personal web site
• Less Wrong - "A community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality" co-founded by Yudkowsky.
• Biography page at KurzweilAI.net
• Biography page at the Singularity Institute
• Downloadable papers and bibliography
• Predicting The Future :: Eliezer Yudkowsky, NYTA Keynote Address - Feb 2003
• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality - The Podcast

Eliezer Gomes
Born	2 April 1920 Rio de Janiero Brazil
Died	12 February 1979 Rio de Janiero Brazil
Years active	1962–1975

Eliezer Gomes (1920–1979) was a Brazilian actor.

Selected filmography[link]

• O Assalto ao Trem Pagador (1962)
• Choque de Sentimentos (1965)
• Faustão (1971)
• O Anjo da Noite (1974)
• Joanna Francesa (1975)

External links[link]

• Eliezer Gomes at the Internet Movie Database

This article about a Brazilian actor or actress is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda
Born	January 7, 1858 (1858-01-07) Luzhky, Russian Empire
Died	December 16, 1922(1922-12-16) (aged 64) Jerusalem, British Mandate of Palestine
Known for	Revival of spoken Hebrew

Eliezer Ben‑Yehuda (Hebrew: אליעזר בן־יהודה‎ ; 7 January 1858 – 16 December 1922) was a Litvak lexicographer and newspaper editor. He was the driving spirit behind the revival of the Hebrew language in the modern era.

Biography[link]

Ben-Yehuda home on Ethiopia St. in Jerusalem

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda was born Eliezer Yitzhak Perlman (Yiddish אליעזר יצחק פערלמאן), in Luzhki (Belarusian Лужкі (Lužki), Polish Łużki), Vilna Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Vitsebsk Voblast, Belarus). He attended cheder where he studied Hebrew and the Bible from the age of three, as was customary among the Jews of Eastern Europe. By the age of twelve, he had read large portions of the Torah, Mishna, and Talmud. His parents hoped he would become a rabbi, and sent him to a yeshiva. There, he continued to study ancient Hebrew and was also exposed to the Hebrew of the enlightenment, including secular writings. Later, he learned French, German, and Russian, and was sent to Dünaburg for more education. Reading the Hebrew language newspaper HaShahar, he became acquainted with Zionism and concluded that the revival of Hebrew language in the Land of Israel could unite all Jews worldwide.

Upon graduation he went to Paris to study at the Sorbonne University. Among the subjects he studied there were history and politics of the Middle East, but the one that had the most lasting effect was Hebrew — specifically, his advanced Hebrew classes taught in Hebrew. It was this use of Hebrew in a spoken form that convinced him fully that the revival of Hebrew as the language of a nation was practical. Ben-Yehuda spent four years in Paris.^[1]

In 1881 Ben-Yehuda immigrated to Palestine, then ruled by the Ottoman Empire, and settled in Jerusalem. He found a job teaching at the Alliance Israelite Universelle school.^[2] Motivated by the surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the diaspora lifestyle, Ben‑Yehuda set out to develop a new language that could replace Yiddish and other regional dialects as a means of everyday communication between Jews who made aliyah from various regions of the world. Ben-Yehuda regarded Hebrew and Zionism as symbiotic: "The Hebrew language can live only if we revive the nation and return it to the fatherland," he wrote.^[2]

Ben Yehuda was married twice, to two sisters. His first wife, Devora (née Jonas), died in 1891 of tuberculosis, leaving him with five small children. Her final wish was that Eliezer marry her younger sister, Paula Beila. Soon after his wife Devora's death, three of his children died of diphtheria within a period of 10 days. Six months later, he married Paula,^[1] who took the Hebrew name "Hemda".^[3]

Ben-Yehuda and wife Hemda, 1912

Ben‑Yehuda raised his son, Ben-Zion Ben-Yehuda (the first name meaning "son of Zion"), entirely through Hebrew. He refused to let his son be exposed to other languages during childhood. He even once yelled at his wife, after he caught her singing a Russian lullaby to the child. His son Ben-Zion was the first native speaker of modern Hebrew.

Journalistic career[link]

Ben-Yehuda was the editor of several Hebrew-language newspapers: HaZvi, Hashkafa and HaOr. HaZvi was closed down for a year in the wake of opposition from Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox community, which fiercely objects to the use of Hebrew, their holy tongue, for everyday conversation.^[1]

Lexicography[link]

Ben-Yehuda was a major figure in the establishment of the Committee of the Hebrew Language (Va'ad HaLashon), later the Academy of the Hebrew Language, an organization that still exists today. He was the author of the first modern Hebrew dictionary and became known as the "reviver" of the Hebrew language, despite opposition to some of the words he coined.^[1] Many of these words have become part and parcel of the language but others — some 2,000 words — never caught on. His word for "tomato," for instance, was badura, but Hebrew speakers today use the word agvania.^[2]

Death and commemoration[link]

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda while working on his dictionary.

In December 1922, Ben Yehuda, 64, died of tuberculosis, from which he suffered most of his life. He was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.^[4] His funeral was attended by 30,000 people.^[2]

Ben Yehuda built a house for his family in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem, but died three months before it was completed. His wife Hemda lived there for close to thirty years. Ten years after her death, her son Ehud transferred the title of the house to the Jerusalem municipality for the purpose of creating a museum and study center. Eventually it was leased to a church group from Germany who established a center there for young German volunteers.^[5] The house is now a conference center and guesthouse run by the German organization Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (ARSP), which organizes workshops, seminars and Hebrew language ulpan programs.^[6]

In his book Was Hebrew Ever a Dead Language, Cecil Roth summed up Ben-Yehuda's contribution to the Hebrew language: "Before Ben‑Yehuda Jews could speak Hebrew; after him, they did."

See also[link]

• Eliezer Ben Yehuda´s residence

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Fellman, Jack (1973). The revival of a classical tongue: Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the modern Hebrew language. The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton ISBN 90-279-2495-3
• Robert William St. John. Tongue of the Prophets, Doubleday & Company, Inc. Garden City, New York, 1952. ISBN 0-8371-2631-2
• Yosef Lang. The Life of Eliezer Ben Yehuda. Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi, 2 volumes, (Hebrew)
• Ilan Stavans, Resurrecting Hebrew (2008)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Eliezer Ben-Yehuda

• An interview with Dola Ben-Yehuda Wittmann (Eliezer Ben-Yehuda's daughter) at the Dartmouth Jewish Sound Archive