ARZARETH:

By: Morris Jastrow, Jr., Kaufmann Kohler

The name of the land beyond the great river, far away from the habitation of man, in which the Ten Tribes of Israel will dwell, observing the laws of Moses, until the time of the restoration, according to IV Esd. xiii. 45. Columbus identified America with this land. (See Kayserling's "Christopher Columbus," translated by Dr. C. Gross, p. 15.)

The name, it has been suggested by Schiller-Szinessy, is taken from Deut. xxix. 24-27, "Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord . . . and went and served other gods . . . the Lord rooted them out of their land . . . and cast them into another land [ereẓ aḦeret] as this day." This passage is made to refer (in Mishnah Sanh. x. 3) to the Ten Tribes (compare Tosef., Sanh. xiii. 12; Bab. ib. 110b; Yer. ib. x. 29c; Ab. R. N., ed. Schechter, A, xxxvi. 108, and Bacher, "Agada der Tannaiten," i. 143).