rain fell only on Sabbath (Friday) nights; so that the working class suffered no loss of pay through the rain falling during their work-time. The fertility of the soil was so great that the grains of wheat grew as large as kidney beans; oats as large as olives; and lentils as large as gold denarii. The sages collected specimens of these grains and preserved them to show future generations the rewards of obedience to the Law, and what piety could achieve. Name "Shlomtzion" () is sometimes used as a female first name in contemporary Israel. Among others, the well-known Israeli writer Amos Kenan gave the name to his daughter. During the British Mandate of Palestine, a major street in Jerusalem was called Princess Mary Street, after the only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary. After the creation of Israel, the street was renamed "Queen Shlomzion Street," to commemorate the Jewish queen. Such street names exist also in Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan. In the 1977 Knesset elections Ariel Sharon accepted the advice of Kenan to name his new political party "Shlomtzion" (it later merged with the Likud). Israeli zoologists carefully observing the leopards of the Judean Desert bestowed the name "Shlomtzion" on a female leopard whose life, mating, and offspring were the subject of intensive, years-long study. In medieval sources According to some versions of the Toledoth Yeshu, a medieval alternative-Christian life of Jesus, Salome is connected with Jesus of Nazareth, placing the death of Jesus 150 years earlier. See also Hasmonean coinage References Sources Josephus, Antiquities xiii. 11, § 12; 15, § 16 idem, B. J. i. 5 Heinrich Ewald, History of Israel, v. 392–94 Heinrich Grätz, Geschichte der Juden, 2d ed., iii. 106, 117–29 Ferdinand Hitzig, Geschichte des Volkes Israel von Anbeginn bis zur Eroberung, ii. 488–90 Emil Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi i. 220, 229–33 Joseph Derenbourg, Essai sur l'Histoire et la Géographie de Palestine, pp. 102–11 Julius Wellhausen, I. J. G. Geschichte Israels pp. 276, 280–85 F. W. Madden, Coins of the Jews, pp. 91, 92 Hugo Willrich, Judaica: Forschungen zur Hellenisch-Jüdischen Geschichte und Litteratur, 1900, pp. 74, 96 External links Queen Salome Alexandra Entry in Chabad.org Gallery of Our Great The Salome No One Knows Biblical Archaeology Review July/August Issue The Jewish Queen Gates of Nineveh''. Genealogy of the House of David- Salome Alexandra Hasmonean dynasty Ancient queens regnant