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2,144 records
Ballagi, Mór
(1815–1891), advocate of Magyarization, Protestant theologian, and Hungarian linguist. Born Moritz (Mordekhai) Bloch, Mór Ballagi’s first memories were of his father, a tenant farmer, imprisoned a year for debt, and of h…
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Bally Family
Romanian Sephardic bankers from the Ottoman Empire; descendants included scholars, educators, and writers. Celebi Mentes Bally, a banker from Constantinople, supported the Greek aristocrat Neculai Mavrocordat in becoming…
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Balázs, Béla
(1884–1949), film theoretician and screenwriter. Balázs was born Herbert Bauer, the son of assimilated German Jewish parents, both school teachers, in Szeged, Hungary. After studying at the Budapest University of Arts, h…
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Banat
Region in the southwestern section of Romania, between the Mureş and Danube Rivers. The oldest traces of a Jewish presence in the area date to the Roman period in the second through fourth centuries. A second-century coi…
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Banet, Mordekhai ben Avraham
(1753–1829), chief rabbi of Moravia. Mordekhai ben Avraham Banet (Markus Benedikt) achieved great fame during his 40-year tenure (1789–1829) as rabbi of Nikolsburg (Mikulov), head of its large yeshiva, and chief rabbi of…
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Banking
From the beginning of Jewish settlement in Eastern Europe, moneylending and money dealing in its various forms represented—alongside commerce, tax farming, and leasing—a central area of their economic activities. Into th…
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Banking and Finance
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Bar Kochba Association
A student organization that played a decisive role in shaping the Zionist movement in the Czech lands before World War I. The history of the group can be traced to 1893, when the Maccabi Association was founded at the Ge…
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Barasch, Iuliu
(1815–1863), physician, philosopher, writer, and popularizer of science. Born in Brody, Galicia, Iuliu (Julius; Yehudah) Barasch received a traditional education and prepared for a rabbinical career. However, he came und…
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Barash, Asher
(1889–1952), Hebrew writer and editor. Born in Lopatyn, near Brody in Galicia, Asher Barash was the son of Naftali Herts Barash, a grain merchant who was descended from a rabbinical family. Barash received both a traditi…
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Barash, Efrayim
(1892–1943), community leader and head of the Białystok ghetto during the Holocaust. Born in Volkovysk, Efrayim Barash was an engineer who had studied in Germany. He was a member of the town council and Jewish community …
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Barbash, Shemu’el
(1850?–1922?), banker, Zionist activist, and philanthropist. Nothing is known of Shemu’el Barbash’s childhood beyond the fact that he was given a traditional Jewish education. He also was familiar with modern Hebrew lite…
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Baron, Devorah
(1887–1956), Hebrew writer. Born in Uzda, a shtetl near Minsk, Devorah Baron received the type of religious education generally offered only to boys, in the heder of her father, Rabbi Shabetai (Shepsl) Eli‘ezer Baron. Gr…
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Barukh ben David Yavan
(d. 1770s), Polish communal leader and lobbyist. Barukh ben David Yavan was born at the beginning of the eighteenth century in Konstantynów, Volhynia. He came from an eminent family that descended from Rabbi Shalom Shakh…
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Barukh ben Yeḥi’el of Mezhbizh
(ca. 1756–1811), Hasidic leader in Podolia. Barukh was the younger son of Odl, the Ba‘al Shem Tov’s daughter, and the brother of Mosheh Ḥayim Efrayim of Sudilkov. As a child Barukh knew his famous grandfather, and after …
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Bass, Shabetai ben Yosef
(1641–1718), biblical exegete, bibliographer, printer, and cantor. Shabetai ben Yosef Bass was born in Kalisz, Poland. His parents were murdered in wartime violence in 1655; Bass and his older brother, Ya‘akov Strimmers …
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Bassevi of Treuenberg, Ya‘akov
(1570–1634), financier, merchant, and court Jew. Born in Italy (likely in Verona), Ya‘akov Bassevi of Treuenberg (also known as Bazzevi, Passeni, Bashe [from Heb., Bat Sheva], and Jakob Schmiles) went to Prague with his …
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Bastomski, Shloyme
(1891–1941), Yiddish pedagogue, folklorist, writer; and editor; pioneer of Yiddish secular schooling. Born in Vilna to a poor family, Shloyme Bastomski was orphaned at an early age. After attending a Talmud Torah school,…
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Bat-Miriam, Yokheved
(1901–1979), Hebrew poet and one of the most influential female figures in Hebrew modernism. Yokheved Bat-Miriam (born Zhelezhiak) completed pedagogical courses in Kharkov and then studied at universities in Odessa and M…
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Baum, Oskar
(1883–1941), prose writer and poet. The blind poet Oskar Baum was a member of the Prague Circle of German-speaking Jewish writers in the first decades of the twentieth century as well as a particularly close friend of Fr…
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