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Baumhorn, Lipót
(1860–1932), architect and designer of synagogues. Lipót (Leopold) Baumhorn was born in Kisbér (near Győr, Hungary), and graduated from the Technische Hochschule in Vienna in 1883. Working in the office of the architect …
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Bałaban, Majer
(1877–1942), historian and educator. Majer Bałaban was a founder and architect of modern Polish Jewish historiography and the first to synthesize both Polish archival sources and Jewish communal records and rabbinic resp…
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Ba‘al Shem Tov
(Yisra’el ben Eli‘ezer, “the Besht”; ca. 1700–1760), healer, miracle worker, and religious mystic; leader of Hasidim in Międzyboż (Yid., Mezhbizh; mod. Ukr., Medzhibizh); recognized as founder of the modern Hasidic movem…
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Ba‘ale Shem
Literally, “masters of [God’s] name” (sg., ba‘al shem); alternatively, ba‘ale shem tov, or “masters of good name.” The terms, which are often interchangeable, signify the ability to manipulate “holy” names, including bot…
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Beards
In his autobiography, the philosopher Salomon Maimon (d. 1800) recalled that the concept of beards “especially gave me trouble.” In reading the Zohar and other kabbalistic works, Maimon explored the image of “God’s Beard…
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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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Before the Apostasy
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Before World War I
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Beggars and Begging
In Poland–Lithuania, the emergence of Jewish beggars as a large group with its own subculture can be traced to the Khmel’nyts’kyi massacres of 1648, which destroyed much of the Jewish communal wealth and infrastructure. …
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Beginnings
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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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Belarus
Established in 1991, Belarus (Yid., Raysn, Vaysrusland) is the successor state of the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, with the same borders. The Jews of Belarus belong historically to the branch of Jewry known as …
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Belarusian Literature
Translations of books of the Hebrew Bible (most frequently Psalms) and other religious texts into the Old Belarusian language and into a Belarusian version of Old Church Slavonic marked the beginnings of Jewish participa…
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BELARUSIAN WRITERS
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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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Belz Hasidic Dynasty
A Hasidic sect originally located in the town of Belz (Pol., Bełz) in eastern Galicia. The Belz Hasidic Dynasty was founded by Rabbi Shalom Rokeaḥ (1783–1855), a devoted disciple of Ya‘akov Yitsḥak Horowitz, the so-calle…
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