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1,092 records
Becal
(More fully, Jakub Becal, son of Natan; Heb., Ya‘akov Betsal’el ben Natan), factor of Polish King Jan III Sobieski (1629–1696). Probably hailing from Ruthenia, Jakub Becal is said to have lost his father in the Khmel’nyt…
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Beck, Karl Isidor
(1817–1879), poet and promoter of German-language culture. Karl Beck was born in Baja, a large Jewish community in southern Hungary; his father was a businessman. Beck was a medical student in Vienna until illness forced…
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Beck, Moritz
(1845–1923), rabbi, biblical scholar, and educator. Moritz (Me’ir) Beck was born in Pápa, Hungary, where he attended Jewish elementary school, Catholic secondary school, and Protestant high school. At the same time, he s…
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Beer, Peter
(ca. 1758–1838), educator, historian, and religious reformer. Peter Beer was born in Nový Bydžov (Neu-Bidschow), Bohemia, to a middle-class family. He received a traditional Jewish education, attended yeshivas in Prague …
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Beider, Khayim
(1920–2003), Yiddish poet, journalist, and literary historian. The son of an artisan, Khayim (Efim in Russian publications) Beider was born in the shtetl of Kupel, near Proskurov (mod. Khmel’nyts’kyi), Ukraine. After fin…
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Beilis, Mendel
(1874–1934), chief protagonist of the 1911–1913 Kiev blood libel case, referred to as the Beilis Affair. Little is known about Mendel Beilis beyond the fact of his association with the case. Raised in a village, he serve…
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Belmont, Leo
(1865–1941), writer, poet, and translator. Leo Belmont (Leopold Blumental) graduated from the University of Warsaw and practiced law in Saint Petersburg and Warsaw. A well-known publicist before World War I, he was haras…
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Ben-Adir
(pseudonym of Avrom Rozin; 1878–1942), socialist leader. A leading figure first in the Jewish Socialist Workers Party (known as SERP, the party’s initials in Russian, or the Sejmists in Yiddish usage), later in the Unite…
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Ben-Ami
(pseudonym of Mark [Mordechai] Iakovlevich Rabinovich; ca. 1854–1932), writer, publicist, and early Zionist theorist. Ben-Ami’s life is a particularly representative example of the world of the shtetl. His articles and m…
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Benador, Ury
(1895–1971), writer, playwright, and journalist. Ury Benador (Simon Schmidt) was born in southern Bucovina in the village of Milişăuți; his father was an impoverished tailor and the family had many children. As a teenage…
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Ber of Bolechów
(in some sources, Ber Birkenthal; 1723–1805), wine merchant, Hebrew writer, and memoirist. Born in the Polish province of Ruthenia (later Galicia), Ber of Bolechów proves the existence of a class of men within the eighte…
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Bercovici, Israil
(1921–1988), Yiddish poet, playwright, translator, literary historian, and journalist. Israil Bercovici (Yid., Yisroel Berkovitsh) was born in Botoşani to a poor family and had to earn his own living as a teenager. He wa…
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Berdyczewski, Mikhah Yosef
(1865–1921), writer and thinker. Mikhah Yosef Berdyczewski (or Berdichevsky) was born in Międzyboż (Medzhibizh), Ukraine, in the cradle of Hasidism, to a family descended from generations of rabbis. He received a traditi…
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Beregi, Ármin
(1879–1953), engineer and Zionist leader. Growing up in the house on Dob Street in Budapest where Theodore Herzl’s uncle lived, Ármin Beregi knew Herzl personally. Beregi studied at the Technical University of Budapest a…
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Beregovskii, Moisei Iakovlevich
(1892–1961), Jewish folklorist and ethnomusicologist. Born in Ukraine into the family of a melamed (itinerant teacher), Moisei Beregovskii was given a traditional Jewish heder education. In 1905 he went to Kiev, where he…
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Berekhyah Berakh ben Yitsḥak
(d. after 1665), prominent preacher in Kraków. Berekhyah Berakh ben Yitsḥak was a student of the noted kabbalist Natan Spira; Berakh’s wife’s brother was the son-in-law of the celebrated Talmudist and communal leader Yom…
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Bergelson, Dovid
(1884–1952), Yiddish novelist and dramatist. Born in Okhrimovo, Ukraine, to a wealthy family, Dovid Bergelson received a traditional Jewish education in heder and a general education through private tutors. His parents d…
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Berger, Lili
(1916–1996), Yiddish novelist and critic; resistance fighter. Lili Berger (née List; “Lili Berger” is a pseudonym) was born in Malkin, in the Białystok region of Poland. Brought up in an Orthodox Jewish family, she atten…
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Bergmann, Hugo
(1883–1975), philosopher and early Zionist. Hugo Bergmann (also Shemu’el Hugo Bergman) was a member of the German-speaking Jewish minority of Prague in the generation most closely associated with his classmate and friend…
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Bergson, Temerl
(surname also Sonnenberg or Berekson; d. 1830), patron of Polish Hasidism and benefactor of Warsaw Jewry. Little is known about Temerl’s background and early years, although her father, Avraham of Opoczno, is described a…
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