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ENCYCLOPAEDIA

JUDAICA

ENCYCLOPAEDIA

JUDAICA

SECOND EDITION

VOLUME 19

Som-Tn

Fred Skolnik, Editor in Chief
Michael Berenbaum, Executive Editor

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Entries Som-Tn

Abbreviations
General Abbreviations

753

Abbreviations used in Rabbinical Literature

754

Bibliographical Abbreviations

760

Transliteration Rules

773

Glossary

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Illuminated initial letter "5" q/*
t/?e word Salvus af f/ie opening of
Psalm 68 (Vulgate; 6$ according
to the Masoretic text) in the Bo-
hun Psalter, 14 th century. The four
scenes from the story of David
are, top left, the Ark being car-
ried up to Jerusalem (11 Sam. 6:1-
15); right, Michal watches David
dancing before the Ark (ibid.,
16); bottom left, David reproves
Michal for her criticism of him
(Ibid., 20-23); fight, the prophet
Nathan assures David of the en-
durance of his kingdom (11 Sam.
16). London, British Museum, EG
3277, fol 46V.

Som-Sz

SOMARY, FELIX (1881-1956), Austrian banker and econo-
mist. Born in Vienna, Somary began his career with the Anglo-
Austrian Bank under Charles *Morawitz. During World War 1
he took part in the financial administration of the German-
occupied part of Western Europe. From 1919 he was active as a
banker in Zurich and later assisted in drafting the Young Plan
designed to regulate German reparations to the Allied Powers.
During World War 11 he was in the United States on behalf of
the Swiss government and private interests.

He published his autobiography Erinnerungen aus mei-
nem Leben (1955, 1959 3 ). His many publications on interna-
tional economics and finance include Bankpolitik (1915, 1934 3 );
Wandlungen der Weltwirtschaft seit dem Kriege (1929; Changes
in the Structure of World Economics Since the War, 1931); Kri-

senwende! (1933; End the Crisis! 1933).

[Joachim O. Ronall]

°SOMBART, WERNER (1863-1941), German political econ-
omist and sociologist. Born in Ermsleben, Sombart acquired
a reputation through his work Der Moderne Kapitalismus (2

vols., 1902, 1916 2 ) in which he traced the development of cap-
italism from the late Middle Ages. In 1917 he was appointed
professor of political economy at the University of Berlin. He
wrote two works on capitalism and the Jews: Die Juden und
das Wirtschaftsleben (1911; The Jews and Modern Capitalism,
1913, 1951), and Die Zukunft der Juden (1912) which aroused
considerable controversy. In Sombart s view, the Jews were the
principal cause of the disruption of the medieval economic
system and its replacement by capitalism. The Jews, he held,
were foreigners and came up against the hostility of the guilds
which controlled the commerce of the medieval cities. Con-
sequently they sought to break away from the restrictive eco-
nomic framework of city life and, by doing so, became the
pioneers of international trade. In this way they helped to lay
the foundation of the capitalist system. Sombart maintained
that the Jewish intellect, "concrete, stubborn, and systematic,"
was ideally suited to fostering a capitalist economy: "When
Israel appears upon the face of Europe, the place where it ap-
pears comes to life; and when it departs, everything which had
previously flourished withers away." Such statements made for

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOMBOR

the ambivalent reception of Sombart s work among Jews at the
time. Thus, while liberal Jews strongly criticized Sombart as
an antisemite, others, particularly in the Zionist camp, praised
him as a nonpartisan researcher and held up his theses as evi-
dence of Jewish perseverance and as acknowledgement of the
special contribution of the Jews.

Although it has been generally accepted that Jews played
an important part in the early development of capitalism,
Sombart s theories were generally considered to be wildly ex-
aggerated. They provided Nazi Germany with considerable
material for antisemitic propaganda, since he stressed the in-
compatibility of Jewish commercialism with the spirit of the
"nordic farmer," and in Deutscher Sozialismus (1934) favored
the Nazi policy of excluding Jews from German economic
and cultural life.

In 1911, David Ben-Gurion translated Sombart's Sozi-
alismus und Soziale Bewegung im xix Jahrhundert into He-
brew. A Hebrew translation of Sombart's Die Juden und das
Wirtschaftsleben was published in 1912 in Kiev by a group of
young Zionists.

bibliography: Ziegler, in: azdj, 75 (1911), 271-2; I. Taglicht,
Juden und Judentum in der Darstellung Werner Sombarts (1911); J.
Henningsen, Professor Sombarts Forschungsergebnisse zur Juden-
frage (1913 3 ); H. Watjen, Das Judentum und die Anfaenge der moder-
nen Kolonisation; Kritische Bemerkungen zu Werner Sombarts "Die
Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben" (1914); A. Philipp, Die Juden und
das Wirtschaftsleben; Eine antikritisch-bibliographische Studie (1929).
add. bibliography: A. Mitzman, Sociology and Estrangement .. .
(1973); F. Raphael, Judaisme et capitalisme .. . (1982); M. Appel, Werner
Sombart ... (1992); F. Lenger, Werner Sombart 1863-1941... (1995); J.
Backhaus, Werner Sombart (1863-1941) (2000).

SOMBOR (Hung. Zombor), city in N.W. Yugoslavia, in the
district of Backa, province of Vojvodina; part of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire until 1918. The first (registered) Jewish
families came to settle in the mid-i8 th century. By the mid-
dle of the 19 th century, a Jewish school existed where teach-
ing was done in Hebrew and Yiddish, the use of the latter
language eventually being objected to by the authorities and
prohibited. The first synagogue in Sombor was erected in 1825
and the second in 1865. Among the founders of the kehillah
was Jacob Stein. Conservative in doctrine, its first rabbi
was David Kohn (d. 1884). By the end of the 19 th century
there were 200 Jewish taxpayers, and 650 Jews out of a total
population of 25,000. The community had a bikkur holim
society and during the century the town and its kehillah
grew considerably. In 1910 there were 1,000 Jews out of a pop-
ulation of 35,000, and by 1940 there were 1,200 out of 45,000
inhabitants in the city. A talmud torah was founded in 1925.
In the 1920s and 1930s various youth and Zionist organiza-
tions opened chapters in Sombor. The last rabbi before the
Holocaust was Michael Fischer. Like other places in Vojvo-
dina, the Hungaro- German occupation resulted in the exter-
mination of this once active Jewish community. The last Jews
were sent to Auschwitz via Backa Topola on April 5, 1944.
In 1953 a monument to the victims of the Holocaust was

erected. The synagogue was used by a local commercial en-
terprise.

bibliography: S. Guttman, A szombori zsidok tortenete

(1928); Magyar Zsido Lexikon (1929), s.v. Zombor; L. Fischer, in:

Jevrejski Almanah..., 4 (1928/29), 76. add. bibliography: Z.

Loker (ed.), Yehudei Vojvodina be-Et he-Hadashah (1994), with Eng.

summary.

[Zvi Loker]

SOMECK, RONNY (1951- ), Hebrew poet. Someck was
born in Baghdad, Iraq, and came to Israel as a child. He stud-
ied Hebrew literature and philosophy at Tel Aviv University
and sketching at the Avni Art Institute. He worked as a coun-
selor with street gangs, taught literature, and led writing work-
shops. Someck began publishing poetry in 1968 and published
his first collection, Goleh ("Exile"), in 1976. Other collections
include Solo (1978), Asphalt (1984), Sheva Shurot al Pele ha-
Yarkon ("Seven Lines on the Wonder of the Yarkon River"),
Panter (1989), Bloody Mary (1994), Gan Eden le-Orez ("Rice
Paradise," 1996). The bustling life and alienating effect of the
modern city, primarily Tel Aviv, figures prominently in his
poetry, which addresses collective Israeli concerns, the ethnic
issue as well as private experience. In 1997 Someck recorded
with the musician Elliot Sharp the cd Revenge of the Stuttering
Child. In 1998, together with artist Benny Efrat, Someck pre-
sented the exhibition "Nature's Factory" at the Israel Museum.
With Shirley Someck he wrote a book for children, Kaftor ha-
Zehok ("The Laughter Button," 1998). Somecks ninth poetry
collection, Mahteret ha-Halav ("The Milk Underground"), ap-
peared in 2005. He received the acum special Jubilee Prize,
and in 2004 was awarded the Yehuda Amichai Prize. A collec-
tion of Selected Poems appeared in English translation (1999)
as well as The Fire Stays in Red (2002).

bibliography: G. Moked, iC Al Sheloshah Meshorerim Ze'irim
(Someck, Bachar, Perez Banai)" in: Yedioth Aharonoth (November
16, 1979); O. Bartana, Teritoriyyiah Hadashah ve-Efsharuyotehah, in:
Yedioth Aharonoth (December 26, 1980); A. Barkai, in: Al ha-Mish-
mar (February 27, 1981); A. Balaban, Erez Tel Aviv, in: Yedioth Aha-
ronoth (January 30, 1981); T. Avgar, Bein Gimgum le-Mahapekhanut
Kevuyah, in: Moznayim, 52:1 (1981), 61-62; Y. Mazor, Al Tomru Lanu
Shalom, in: Iton 77, 183 (1995), 18-23; Y. Ben David, "Shirah - Be-Mil-
lim shel Sedot Teufah" in: Ahavah mi-Mabat Sheni (1997), 206-9;
Y Mazor, "The Silky Vigor of the Boxing Glove: R. Someck in the
Arena of Contemporary Hebrew Poetry," in: World Literature Today,
72:3 (1998), 501-6; M. Forcano, jR. Someck, musica d'Um Kultzum a
Tel Aviv, in: Tamid, 2 (1998-99), 205-8; S. Dayyan and R. Yagil, in:

Maariv (April 29, 2005).

[Anat Feinberg (2 nd ed.)]

SOMEKH, ABDALLAH BEN ABRAHAM (1813-1889),
rabbi and posek of Baghdad. Abdallah was born in ^Baghdad
and was a pupil of Jacob b. Joseph ha-Rofe. At first he en-
gaged in business, acquiring considerable wealth. When he
perceived that the study of Torah was being neglected, how-
ever, he abandoned his business and devoted himself to the
dissemination of learning. He founded the bet midrash Abu
Menashe which was established with funds provided by the

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOMMERSTEIN, EMIL

philanthropist Ezekiel b. Reuben Manasseh, after whom it was
named. In 1840 he founded, with the help of the same phi-
lanthropist, the renowned Midrash Bet Zilkhah. He died in
a plague that swept through Baghdad, and was buried there,
against the orders of the government, in the court of the tradi-
tional tomb of the high priest Joshua. This caused an outbreak
of riots, in consequence of which rabbis and communal lead-
ers were imprisoned. After three months, Somekh's body had
to be exhumed and buried in another cemetery.

Somekh was regarded as the supreme halakhic authority
by communities of Baghdadi origin throughout the Far East.
He was the author of Zivhei Zedek (2 pts., 1899), halakhic de-
cisions on the Yoreh Deah with appended responsa. In man-
uscript are two more parts of the same work; Ez ha-Sadeh on
the tractate Bezah; novellae on most tractates of the Talmud;
a commentary on the Passover Haggadah; Hazon la-Moed, on
the calendar; and responsa.

bibliography: A. Ben-Yaacob, Toledot ha-Rav Abdallah
Somekh (1949); idem, Yehudei Bavel (1965), index.

[Abraham Ben-Yaacob]

SOMEKH, SASSON (1933- ), professor emeritus of Arabic
literature at Tel Aviv University. Born in Baghdad, he immi-
grated to Israel and specialized in modern Arabic literature
and Semitic philology. Research, editing, and translating
characterized his academic career, along with lecturing in
Israeli, Swedish, and U.S. universities. Among his books are
The Changing Rhythm (1973), a monograph on the Egyptian
novelist Naguib Mahfuz; Genre and Language in Modern Ar-
abic Literature (1991); three books (in Arabic) on the novelist
Yusuf Idris; four anthologies of modern Arabic poetry, trans-
lated into Hebrew; and an autobiography (in Hebrew), Bagh-
dad Yesterday (2004). He was awarded the Israel Prize in Ori-
ental Studies in 2005.

SOMEN, ISRAEL (1903-1984), public figure in Kenya. Born
in London, Somen was taken to South Africa when he was a
child, and in 1923 went to Kenya where he joined the colonial
service. Somen was mayor of Nairobi from 1955 to 1957 and
honorary consul for Israel before Kenya's independence. He
was also president of the Nairobi Hebrew congregation.

SOMLYO, ZOLTAN (1882-1937), Hungarian poet. Tried
to earn his livelihood by writing and had a lifelong struggle
against poverty. His lyric poetry is founded on the feeling of
love and the Jewish feeling of loneliness. He wrote Az dtkozott
kolto ("The accursed poet," 1911).

SOMMER, EMIL (1869-1947), Austrian soldier. Born in
Dorna Watra/ Vatra Dornei, Bukovina, Sommer was one of
the top graduates from the cadets' school and served on the
general staff. During World War 1 he commanded a regiment
and was highly respected. In 1923 he retired as a full colonel
and later received the brevet rank of major general. Sommer
was head of the Austrian Jewish War Veterans (Bund jue-

discher Frontsoldaten Oesterreichs) until the organization
split over his strong monarchist views in March 1934. He and
his supporters founded a monarchist-oriented War Veterans
Organization (Legitimistische Juedische Frontkaempfer). Fol-
lowing the Anschluss newspapers reported that he was forced
to sweep the streets in his general's uniform with all his deco-
rations. This false report was a pure invention; he was, how-
ever, arrested. In 1942 he and his wife, Anna, nee Mittler, were
deported to Theresienstadt. He managed to survive and after
the liberation returned to Vienna. Sommer immigrated to the
United States, where he died.

add. bibliography: E.A. Schmidl, Juden in der K. (u.)
K. Armee 1788-1918 (1989), 148; The National Jewish Monthly (Nov.
1946), 90-91.

[Mordechai Kaplan / Albert Lichtblau (2 nd ed.)]

SOMMERSTEIN, EMIL (1883-1957), Zionist leader in Gali-
cia and Polish Jewish leader. Born in the village of Hleszczawa
in the district of Tarnopol, Galicia, Sommerstein practiced
law in Lvov. His Zionist activities began during his student
years, when he founded the Zionist Students' League in Galicia
(1906). He later played a leading role in the Galician Zionist
Federation, of which he became chairman. He was a member
of the Polish Sejm from 1922 until 1939 (with a break from
1927-29). He was active in several Jewish institutions and or-
ganizations, especially economic ones. Due to him, the Jew-
ish Academic House, the first of its kind in Europe, was es-
tablished in Lvov in 1910. He specialized in economic and
financial law and published several books on these subjects
in Polish (1924-28). Sommerstein took part in the establish-
ment of the * World Jewish Congress. At the end of Septem-
ber 1939, with the entry of the Soviet army into Lvov, he was
arrested and taken to Kiev. He was transferred from prison
to prison until he was liberated at the beginning of 1944 in a
general amnesty.

In spring 1944 Sommerstein was invited by the Soviet
authorities to represent Polish Jewry in Moscow and was
even received by Stalin. Together with the Soviet- sponsored
Association of Polish Patriots, he followed in the wake of the
Soviet army's advance into Polish territory. He was co-opted
onto the Polish Committee for National Liberation, which was
established in Chelm in July 1944 and became the provisional
government of liberated Poland. He moved to Lublin with
the government and then to Warsaw (February 1945). Som-
merstein was among the founding members of the Central
Committee of Polish Jewry and also served as its president.
He played an important role in arranging for the repatriation
of 140,000 Polish Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union. He
was a member of the editorial board of the central Jewish or-
gan, Dos Naye Lebn y which commenced publication in liber-
ated Poland. In April 1946 he headed a delegation of Polish
Jews to the U.S., where he suffered from a paralytic disease
from which he never recovered. He died in New York and his
remains were taken to Israel and buried in Tel Aviv (See also
^Poland, Contemporary).

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOMMO, JUDAH LEONE BEN ISAAC

bibliography: N.M. Gelber, Toledot ha-Tenuah ha-Ziyyonit
be-Galizyah, 2 vols. (1958), index; ajyb, 59 (1958), 477.

[Nathan Eck]

SOMMO, JUDAH LEONE BEN ISAAC (also known as
Leone De Sommi Portaleone, Leone di Somi, Leone Ebreo
de Somi, Leone de' Sommo Portaleone, Yehuda Sommo;

1527-1592), dramatist, theater director, and poet in Hebrew
and Italian. An outstanding contributor to the development
of the theater during the Renaissance, Sommo, born in Man-
tua, was a descendant of the aristocratic * Portaleone family.
He was educated in the spirit of the Renaissance in general
and in Jewish subjects by Rabbi David b. Abraham ^Provencal
who planned to found a Jewish academy of sciences at Man-
tua. Provencal, however, opposed Jewish participation in the
theater. In his youth Sommo served as tutor and copier and
invented a method for manufacturing ink, which is mentioned
in Shiltei ha-Gibborim (Mantua, 1612), authored by his relative
Abraham Portaleone. At the age of 23 he wrote a five-act prose
play, Zahut Bedihuta de-Kiddushin ("An Eloquent Marriage
Farce"), which is the oldest Hebrew *drama extant. In 1557 he
participated in a satirical literary competition on the subject
of women, in their praise or censure. He submitted a long
macaronic poem, Magen Nashin ("In Defense of Women"),
with alternate stanzas in Hebrew and Italian, which he dedi-
cated to Anna *Rieti.

Sommo seems to have been active from an early age in
writing and staging plays for the Gonzaga court theater where
European dignitaries were often in attendance. Each year the
Jewish community of Mantua was obliged to present a play
before the duke; Sommo was placed in charge of these per-
formances. In 1565 he submitted to Cesare Gonzaga, patron
of the literary school Accademia degP Invaghiti ("Academy
of the Lovesick"), Dialoghi in materia di rappresentazioni sce-
niche ("Dialogues on the Art of the Stage" ed. F. Marotti, Mi-
lan, 1969). In recognition of this work Sommo was admitted
a year later as the only Jewish scrittore ("writer") in the acad-
emy. He ultimately became renowned throughout Europe as
a dramatist and director, as well as an expert in stage design,
make-up, and lighting effects. Sommo pioneered in the use
of lighting by placing torches around the hall or on the stage.
The torches were brightened or dimmed at appropriate times
to heighten the emotional atmosphere of the play. The famous
playwright Manfredi insisted that Sommo was the only direc-
tor capable of staging his Semiramis. He befriended many fa-
mous actors and actresses who came to Mantua.

Although Sommo reached the height of fame in Euro-
pean theater, he did not neglect his activities in the Jewish
community. In 1574 he aided Azariah dei * Rossi in publishing
his controversial book Mebr Einayim. Like other famous Jew-
ish artists and performers granted similar privileges, Sommo
was exempted in 1580 from wearing the yellow *badge re-
quired of the Jews. In 1585 he was allowed to buy property in
Mantua upon which he built a synagogue. In the same year
Sommo was involved in an unsuccessful attempt to have the

duke of Mantua crowned king of Poland after the former king
died leaving no male heir. In 1588 he submitted to the first
duke of Vincenzo a prose comedy, Le tre sorelle ("The Three
Sisters," ed. F. Marotti, Milan, 1970).

Sommo's literary output, which remained in manuscript
until the 20 th century, comprised 16 volumes. Those works
composed in Italian included 13 plays (comedies in prose
and rhyme, pastorales, intermezzos), the Dialoghi in mate-
ria di rappresentazioni Sceniche, 45 Salmi Davidici ("Psalms
of David"), poems, canzones, and satires. However, 11 of
the Italian volumes, stored in the National Library of Tu-
rin, were destroyed by a fire in 1904. Only Le tre sorelle y the
rhymed pastorale L'Hirifile> and a few Italian poems survived.
Numbered among his Hebrew works are the first Hebrew play
(four copies), two short dialogues (one of which, Shetei Sihot
Tinok Omenet ve-Horim, is the earliest piece of ^children's
literature in Hebrew), and several poems. J. *Schirmann
discovered Zahut Bedihuta de-Kiddushin in 1930 and it was
subsequently printed for the first time in 1946, some 400
years after it was written. In 1937, Dialogues on the Art of the
Stage first appeared in print in A. Nicolls English translation
and in 1969 it was first printed, together with Le tre sorelle y
in Italian.

Sommo's greatest works are the Dialoghi and his Hebrew
comedy of betrothal. The Dialoghi y among the most valuable
discussions on Renaissance theater, are written in a lively and
humorous style. Four in number, the Dialoghi are conducted
by Veridico, a Jewish embroiderer of Mantua who directs per-
formances at the ducal court, like Sommo himself, and two
Italian devotees of the theater. Veridico tells his friends how
he selects, rehearses, and readies a play for performance. Som-
mo's writings, although echoing the style of Aristotle and Hor-
ace who were very popular in Italy at that time, ventures the
original opinion that it was the Jews who contributed drama
to world literature. He maintains that the Book of Job, whose
authorship Jewish tradition ascribes to Moses, was the first
drama in history and influenced Plato to write in dialogue
form, which, in turn, inspired the Greek dramatists. In the
second dialogue Sommo asserts that dramatists divide their
plays into five acts and limit the number of actors appearing
on the stage at any time to five in order to correspond to the
number of books in the Pentateuch. To prove the antiquity
of Jewish drama he cites the Aramaic dramatic allegory "The
Current of Life" ("Corso della Vita") y and traces the origin of
the Italian word scena ("scene") to the Hebrew shekhunah
("street" or "neighborhood"). Much of interest is to be found
in his detailed discussion of various aspects of theatrical pro-
duction (acting, costuming, makeup, and lighting); his advice
on the method of acting resembles Hamlet's monologue on
the same theme.

Written mainly in biblical Hebrew, Zahut Bedihuta de-
Kiddushin is cast into the characteristic style of Renaissance
comedy. The heroes are based on the stock figures of comme-
dia delVarte and the plot is taken from an aggadah of Midrash
Tanhuma: a father on his deathbed bequeaths all his property

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

§OMREI SABAT

to his slave, leaving to his only son, who is abroad, the right to
choose only one article from the estate as his own. The plan
is based on the assumption that the son, upon his return, will
choose the slave and thus, since a master automatically ac-
quires all that belongs to his slave, he will obtain the whole
estate. Until the sons return the inheritance will be safely
guarded by the slave. However, the parents of the son's fiancee,
believing that their intended son-in-law has been disinherited,
cancel the engagement. The youth then plans to seduce his
beloved in a vineyard and marry her by nissuei bi'ah ("mar-
riage by intercourse"). In the finale, Rabbi Amittai ("speaker
of truth," the counterpart of Veridico in the Dialoghi) solves
the predicament and the youth regains both his fiancee and his
inheritance. The comedy was designed not only to amuse the
audience but also to criticize contemporary Jewish behavior
in matters of betrothal and marriage and to demonstrate the
literary potential of Hebrew. The play was apparently staged
in Sommo's lifetime and later during the 17 th century in Italy.
It was produced for the first time in Israel in 1963 by a Hebrew
University troupe and in 1968 by the Haifa Theater, which per-
formed it two years later at the Venice Festival.

bibliography: J. Schirmann (ed.), Zahut Bedihuta de-Kid-
dushin (1965 2 ), 173-6 (bibliography); A. Nicoll, The Development of the
Theatre (1966 5 ), 253 (bibl.); A. Holtz, in: Tarbiz, 36 (1967); I. Gour, in:
Bamah, 31 (1967), 14-25; Judah Leone ben Isaac Sommo, Dialoghi in
materia di rappresentazioni sceniche (1969); idem, Le tre sorelle (1970).
add. bibliography: D. Namery, in: husl, 9:2 (1981), 147-74;
Tre sorelle: comedia, ed. G. Romeo (1982); A Comedy of Betrothal =
Tsahoth Bdihutha D'Kiddushin, transl. A.S. Golding (1988); The Three
Sisters: Le tre sorelle, transl. D. Beecher and M. Ciavolella (1988); W.S.
Botuck, Leone de'Sommi: Jewish Participation in Italian Renaissance
Theatre (1991); Y. David, in: rmi, 61:1-2 (1995), 119-128; J. Guinsburg,
in: Iberia Judaica (1996), 307-15; A. Belkin (ed.), Leone de'Sommi and
the Performing Arts (1997); K. Werchowsky, in: reeh, 5 (2001), 171-81;
A.L. Benharrosh, in: Cahiers du Judai'sme, 14 (2003), 25-43.

[Dan Almagor]

SOMOGYI, BELA (1868-1920), Hungarian political journal-
ist. Born in Halasto, he taught in secondary schools and edited
the social-democrat organ Nepszava, as well as the German
language organ Volksstimme. After the October Revolution
(1918), he became director- general of the Ministry of Educa-
tion. Under the brief Communist regime, he resigned. Nev-
ertheless, when Somogyi protested against the murders of
the White Terror (see * Hungary), he was kidnapped and with
his companion, a non- Jewish author, B. Bacso, murdered and
his body thrown into the Danube. Somogyi wrote A francia
nepoktatds (1905) and Az ipari szovetkezetek (1905).

bibliography: Magyar Zsido Lexikon (1929), 796; Magyar

Irodalmi Lexikon, 3 (1965), 77.

[Baruch Yaron]

§OMREI SABAT, Christian sect in * Transylvania; though
chronologically the latest, it was the most extreme faction in
the Reformation in Hungary. Founded in the 1580s in central
Transylvania, the sect had distinct anti-Trinitarian trends.

During its long history the sect passed from denial of the Trin-
ity to rejection of the New Testament until it approached very
close to Judaism. The inhabitants of the Transylvanian village
*Bezidul Nou, the majority of whom were adherents of the
sect, converted to Judaism in 1868-69, an d their descendants
were completely absorbed in Judaism.

Ideologically, the history of the sect, which in 1971 still
had a small number of followers in Transylvania, may be di-
vided into two periods. In the first period, on the instructions
of the sect's founder, the Transylvanian nobleman Andras
Eossi (d. c. 1602), the §omrei Sabat almost completely aban-
doned the principles of Christianity, though they still recog-
nized Jesus as the messiah to reappear. But by that time, in
religious as well as everyday life, they behaved according to
the biblical precepts, observing "the Jewish Sabbath" as the
day of rest instead of Sunday, and celebrating Jewish festivals
according to the Jewish calendar: Passover, the New Moon,
etc. In that early period the prayer rite of the sect was already
influenced by Jewish liturgy. The §omrei Sabat also refrained
from eating ritually unclean food.

The second period, beginning in 1630, was marked by
the outstanding personality of Simon *Pechi (c. 1575-1642),
the adopted son of Eossi. A scholar with a command of the
classical languages as well as Hebrew, Pechi performed im-
portant functions in the political administration of indepen-
dent Transylvania and was chancellor at the princely courts.
In 1621 Pechi was dismissed from all his posts, probably in
connection with his religious views. Thereafter he devoted
himself to the organization and development of the §omrei
Sabat sect and also became involved in clandestine activities.
In this period the sect deviated even more from Christianity
and came conspicuously close to Judaism. The leader of the
sect as well as his disciples translated into Hungarian many
Hebrew prayers of the Sephardi rite. At that time the §omrei
Sabat based themselves only on the Old Testament, observing
the Jewish precepts and completely rejecting the principles of
Christianity. It is estimated that the membership of the sect
was then about 20,000.

In 1638, on instructions from the prince, the Transylva-
nian authorities started to persecute the members of the sect
and its leaders. Some emigrated to ^Turkey where several of
them converted to Judaism. Those who had remained in Tran-
sylvania were put on trial, their property was confiscated, and
some were sentenced to death. The leader of the sect also be-
came impoverished as a result of the confiscations and spent
the last years of his life in his rural home under house arrest.
As a result of the persecutions the membership of the sect
greatly diminished.

The spiritual leaders of the sect created a varied literature,
including prayers, religious poems, etc., partly independent
original literary creations but most of them showing Jewish in-
fluence. The outstanding Hungarian author, Zsigmond Kemeny
(1814-1875), gives a vivid description of the life of the sect, the
persecutions, and the life of its leader, Pechi, in his historical
novel A rajongok ("The Devoted"; first published in 1858).

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SONCINO

bibliography: S. Kohn, A szombatosok (1889) = Die Sab-

batharier in Siebenbuergen (1894); M. Guttmann and S. Harmos,

Pechi Simon szombatos imddsdgos konyve (1914); A. Pirnat, Die Ide-

ologie der Siebenbuerger Antitrinitarier (Budapest, 1961); B. Varjas,

Szombatos enekek (1970).

[Yehouda Marton]

SONCINO, family of Hebrew printers active in Italy, Tur-
key, and Egypt in the 15 th and 16 th centuries. The Soncino
family originated in Germany and claimed among their an-
cestors Moses of Speyer, mentioned in the tosafot by * Eliezer
of Touques (13 th century). Five generations later another
moses, resident at Fuerth, succeeded in driving the wander-
ing Franciscan monk and rabble-rouser John of Capistrano
(1386-1456) out of the town (see title page of David Kimhi's
Mikhlol, Constantinople, 1532-34). His sons samuel and si-
mon left Fuerth for Italy, where in 1454 they obtained per-
mission from Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, to settle in
Soncino near Cremona, from which they took their surname.
Samuel's son Israel nathan (d. 1492?), a physician, was
renowned for his talmudic scholarship and piety; he died in
Brescia. Printing had taken place in Italy from 1465, and it
was, no doubt, under the influence of Israel Nathan and in
partnership with him and his other sons (Benei Soncino) that
his son joshua solomon (d. 1493) set up a Hebrew printing
press which in 1484 produced its first book, the Talmud trac-
tate Berakhoty with commentaries in the arrangement which
became standard. This was followed by a complete, voweled
Hebrew Bible (1488), the Mahzor Minhag Roma (Soncino and
Casalmaggiore, i486), and 15 other works (to 1489). His were
the first printed editions of the Hebrew Bible and Talmud
tractates. From 1490 to 1492 Joshua Solomon printed at least
nine works in Naples, and altogether more than 40 works are
ascribed to his press.

His nephew gershom ben moses (d. 1534), also called
Menzlein - perhaps for having learned the art of printing in
Mainz - became one of the most successful and prolific print-
ers of his time - and one of the finest of all times - printing
from 1489 to 1534, not only in Hebrew (and Judeo-German?),
but also in Latin, Greek, and Italian and using for non-He-
brew literature the names Hieronymus, Geronimo, or Gi-
rolamo. During his extensive travels, to France in particular,
he obtained valuable manuscripts for publication, e.g., the
tosafot of Eliezer of Touques which he was the first to pub-
lish. He was also the first to use woodcut illustrations in a He-
brew work (Isaac ibn Sahula's Meshal ha-Kadmoni, Brescia,
c. 1491), and to produce secular Hebrew literature (Immanuel
of Rome's Mahberot, Brescia, 1492). Soncino also printed in
small, pocket-size format, assembling an expert staff of liter-
ary advisers, typesetters, and proofreaders. His letters were
cut by Francesco Griffo da Bologna, who also worked for the
well-known Aldus Manutius.

Apart from Soncino and Casalmaggiore, Soncino also
printed in Brescia, Barco, Fano, Pesaro, Ortona, Rimini, An-
cona, and Cesena; both his Hebrew and non-Hebrew pro-
ductions exceeded 100 volumes each, of which about 20 were

SONCINO FAMILY

Hebrew ^incunabula (before 1500). His constant wanderings
were due as much to the chicaneries of the local overlords as
to fierce and perhaps unfair competition, though in the de-
cade 1494-1504 (with an interval from 1499 to 1502) he was
the world's only Hebrew printer. Eventually Soncino had to
leave Italy for Turkey, where he continued to print in ^Salonika
(1527) and ^Istanbul (from 1530), assisted by his son eliezer
(d. 1547). Gershom Soncino exerted himself in bringing re-
lief to the victims of the Spanish and Portuguese expulsions
of 1492 and 1497.

His brother solomon is mentioned as printer in only
one work: Jacob b. Asher's Arbaah Turim (1490?), though he
belonged no doubt to the collective Benei Soncino. His son
moses printed a number of books in Salonika from 1521 to
1527. Eliezer b. Gershom Soncino continued printing after his
father's death, and after he died the press was taken over by his
partner Moses b. Eliezer Parnas. His son gershom printed in
Cairo, Egypt, in 1557, being the last of the known Soncino print-
ers, joshua *soncino (d. 1569) of Istanbul was the author of
a volume of responsaand novellae (Nahalah li-Yhoshua y 1531).
It is believed that the Hebrew press in Prague, where printing
began in 1512, was founded by the Soncino family.

bibliography: A.M. Habermann, Ha-Madpisim Benei
Soncino (1933); A. Yaari, in: ks, 13 (1936/37), 121-30; idem, Ha-De-
fus ha-Ivri be-Kushta (1967), 21-22; D.W. Amram, Makers of Hebrew
Books in Italy (1909), index; M. Marx (Hieronymus) in: huca, 7
(1930), 427-50; C. Roth, Jews in the Renaissance (1959) index.

[Abraham Meir Habermann]

SONCINO, JOSHUA (d. 1569), rabbi and halakhic author-
ity; a scion of the famous *Soncino family from Italy, some of

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SONDERKOMMANDO, JEWISH

whose descendants settled in Turkey. Soncino was the rabbi of
the Sephardi Great Synagogue (Sinagoga Mayor) in Constan-
tinople. In one of his responsa he intimates that his Ashkenazi
friends disapproved of his holding that post. He maintained
contact with R. Isaac *Luria and R. Bezalel *Ashkenazi, and
was a close friend of R. Moses *Almosnino. His responsa and
his commentaries on the tractates Eruvin and Shevubt were
published by his grandson R. Joshua b. Menahem Soncino, un-
der the title Nahalah li-Yhoshua (Constantinople, 1731). One of
his responsa can be found in Divrei Rivot by R. Isaac *Adarbi
(Salonika, 1582, no. 60). He was asked by Dona Gracia *Nasi
to render halakhic decisions on business matters (responsa 12,
20). At the time of the proposed *Ancona boycott in 1556-57,
which caused a great stir among Turkish Jews, Soncino origi-
nally favored the proposals, but later took up an attitude of
vehement opposition. As the representative of Italian Jews
who had settled in Turkey, he was of the opinion that pres-
sure on the city by Turkish Jewry would further imperil the
situation of Ancona's Jews (responsa 39-40). He thought that
the solution to the difficulties facing Italian Jewry lay in their
migration to the East.

bibliography: Rosanes, Togarmah, 2 (1937/38), 79fT.; C.

Roth, The House of Nasi (1947), 134-74; I. Sonne, Mi-Paulus ha-

Revi'i ad Pius ha-Hamishi (1954), 146-59; A. Yaari, Mehkerei Sefer

(1958), 309-11.

[Abraham David]

SONCINO GESELLSCHAFT DER FREUNDE DES JU-
EDISCHEN BUCHES, Jewish bibliophile society, founded
in Berlin in 1924, and liquidated by order of the Nazi govern-
ment of Prussia in 1937.

The Society aimed at the typographic improvement of
the Jewish and Hebrew book; 15 regular publications were
primarily intended to introduce to the Jewish book-world
suitable models to be imitated by the commercial produc-
ers. The Society, therefore, commissioned all the different
types of literary products likely to appear in print, such as
scholarly works and periodicals, novels, short stories, plays,
texts illustrated by modern artists, and reprints of interesting
rare books. The texts were chosen from Jewish literature of
all periods and languages. Leading master- printers selected
the printing type, size, and paper of each individual publica-
tion in order to design an external appearance in accordance
with its contents.

The most ambitious enterprise of the Society was the
creation of a new Hebrew printing type, a task not attempted
for many generations. The letters were designed by Markus
Behmer, who based his work on the script used by Gershom
*Kohen in his Haggadah, printed in 1527 in Prague. The
"Behmer type" appeared for the first, and last, time in the Pen-
tateuch printed for the Society in 1930-33 by E.W. Tieffenbach
at his "Officina Serpentis" printing press in Berlin.

The Society published Soncino Blaetter; Beitraege zur
Kunde desjuedischen Buches y edited between 1925 and 1937 by
Herrmann Meyer, the founder and honorary secretary of the

Society. In addition, Mitteilungen der Soncino G es ells ch aft ap-
peared between 1928 and 1932 with A. Horodisch as editor.

bibliography: J. Rodenberg, Deutsche Bibliophilie in drei
Jahrzehnten (1931), 199-210; F. Homeyer, Deutsche Juden als Bibli-
ophilen und Antiquare (1963), 67-69; 128-34. add. bibliogra-
phy: A. Horodisch, in: Bibliotheca docet: Festgabefuer Carl Wehmer
(1963), 181-208; idem, in: Imprimatur Neue Folge 8 (1976), 243-54; M.
Brenner, The Renaissance of Jewish Culture... (1996) 173-77.

[Herrmann M.Z. Meyer]

SONDERKOMMANDO, JEWISH. In May 1942, in the
framework of the clandestine plan known as the "Final So-
lution of the Jewish Question," the mass -annihilation of the
European Jewry began in the biggest extermination camp -
Auschwitz- Birkenau. The killing process, which was charac-
terized by its technical and industrial methods, was executed
in the form of a production line run by ss personnel. Staff
members were rewarded for their murderous activities with
special rations, additional vacation, and a personal promo-
tion.

To operate the crematoria and remove all traces of their
crimes, the ss selected prisoners for a special squad shortly
after their arrival without knowing the real aim of the work.
For practical and ideological reasons the ss selected for this
purpose mostly Jews, who from the middle of 1942 were the
majority of the new prisoners coming to the camp. Ideologi-
cally, this was one the Germans' crudest ways to humiliate the
Jews and stamp them as sub-humans ("Untermenschen"). The
inevitable death of these prisoners was a continuation of their
spiritual death, which occurred during their horrible work in
the death installations. The squad of prisoners thus symbol-
ized the double death of the Jews: the mental and the physical.
Another reason for choosing Jews for this squad could have
been the desire to blur the distinction between the criminals
and their victims, and to forcibly involve Jewish slave laborers
in the process of mass killing and impose on them the onus
of crimes committed solely by the Germans.

The ss euphemistically called these Jewish prisoners
"Sonderkommando? "special squad." The members of the
squad were given several privileges, which helped those who
remained the professional core of the Sonderkommando sur-
vive. These prisoners got better food, improved living condi-
tions, medical treatment from their own doctors, and from
1944 exemption from bodily punishment. They were always
kept in isolated barracks, guarded day and night, and were not
allowed to contact other prisoners. By giving them privileges,
the administration of the camp achieved an additional moral
separation of the Sonderkommando members from the other
prisoners, who tended to accuse them of being collaborators.
As a matter of fact these miserable and abused Sonderkom-
mando prisoners had no choice at all. Anyone who refused to
obey the orders or claimed that he was incapable of working
was immediately shot by the ss.

The members of the Sonderkommando were orga-
nized in a hierarchic structure. At the base were the major-

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SONDERKOMMANDO, JEWISH

ity of ordinary workers. A few were "functionaries," e.g., the
"Vorarbeiter" (foreman) and "Kapo" (head of work unit). The
"Oberkapo" (head Kapo) and the "Blockaelteste" (head of the
barrack) stood at the top of the Sonderkommando hierarchy.
Orders, however, always came from the ss men, and through
the functionaries were delivered to all members of the unit.
The first Sonderkommando started to work in May 1942, in the
old crematorium in the main camp (Stammlager- Auschwitz),
as well as in the provisional gas chambers on the outskirts of
the Birkenau camp. Parallel to this there operated from Au-
gust 1942 the so-called "Krematorium-Kommando" in the
main camp.

Between March and July 1943 four multifunctional cre-
matoria were put into action in Birkenau. The work in the
old crematorium at the main camp was stopped completely
in July 1943. From May 1942 to January 1945 about 2,200 pris-
oners were recruited into the Sonderkommando. The number
of members depended on the killing potential and the policy
of extermination, as decided by the camp administration. The
number at any one time ranged from 100 to 874 men.

As so-called "secret bearers," these direct witnesses to the
genocide of the Jewish people were doomed to death by the
ss and were usually murdered after the completion of the big-
ger killing actions, on December 9, 1942; February 24, 1944;
December 23, 1944; October 7, 1944; and November 26, 1944.
As it was desired that the skilled and experienced workers
in the commando should stay alive until the end, there was
only one complete liquidation of the whole squad, on De-
cember 9, 1942.

The members of the commando were forced by their tor-
mentors to welcome the Jews who were entering the dressing
room, to calm them, to carry those who were not able to go
to the gas chambers by themselves, to ensure a quick undress-
ing process and fast movement into the gas chambers. After
the killing by gas the prisoners were obliged to evacuate and
clean the gas chambers, to inspect the bodies of the victims
for valuables, to cut their hair (mainly women's hair), to clean
hair earmarked for industrial uses, to pull out gold teeth, and
to remove prostheses. Subsequently, the prisoners were forced
to burn the bodies of those murdered in the crematoria ovens
or in the burning pits, to crush the remaining bones, and to
spread the ashes. In the dressing room they were forced to col-
lect all the belongings of the victims and to prepare these for
dispatch by train. In the case of killing by shooting, they were
obliged to distract the victims and hold them by force.

The total hopelessness and overwhelming helplessness
in this extreme situation paralyzed almost every form of re-
sistance and created an atmosphere of apathy and a loss of
moral values among some of the members. Nevertheless,
and amazingly, the will to survive remained in the hearts of
many prisoners in the squads, who even developed an opti-
mistic attitude.

Not only the contact with death was traumatic but
also meeting the victims shortly before their deaths, includ-
ing friends and relatives, not to mention the accusations by

other prisoners. All this exacerbated the moral dilemma of
Sonderkommando prisoners and their mental suffering. The
prisoners found themselves in an extreme psychological situ-
ation, full of self- contempt and self-reproach. As the sole eye-
witnesses to the killing process, these prisoners were the last
to have contact with the victims before they were murdered.
For this reason, the Germans preferred to choose prisoners
for the Sonderkommando who spoke the same language as the
victims, especially before big killing actions. The members of
the unit, in the age range from 16 to 54, came from 18 coun-
tries altogether, mostly from Poland, Slovakia, France, Hol-
land, Greece, Romania, and Hungary, and communicated in
11 languages. Despite the common fate that awaited them, the
society of the Sonderkommando members could not achieve
complete solidarity, mainly because of differences in social
and cultural backgrounds.

Motivated by a historical conscience, several members
of the Sonderkommando clandestinely wrote the history of
the mass murder of the Jews and their own histories of the
Sonderkommando. These manuscripts were buried in the
grounds of Birkenau, discovered in part between February
1945 and October 1980, and later published.

Wishing to warn the still living Hungarian Jews be-
fore their deportation to Auschwitz, the Sonderkommando
men supplied the four Jewish prisoners Vrba, Wetzler, Rosin,
and Mordowicz who escaped from Auschwitz successfully
in spring 1944 with important information and evidence of
the crimes committed in the camp. Unfortunately this infor-
mation could not prevent the mass murder of the Hungar-
ian Jews.

With the completion of four new crematoria in Birkenau
between March and July 1943, the living and working condi-
tions of the Sonderkommando improved significantly. This en-
abled the creation of an underground movement of prisoners
within the Sonderkommando, which initially was part of the
general underground movement in the camp. This movement
planned a general armed uprising of prisoners. Because of ba-
sic misunderstandings and incompatible interests, the general
plan for an uprising was canceled, and only the Sonderkom-
mando continued to plan an uprising of its own. The prepara-
tions for such an action took place in the months of spring and
summer 1944. During the preparation period, young Jewish
female prisoners smuggled explosives from the Union Metall-
werke for the use of the Sonderkommando fighters. Four of
these women were publicly hanged on January 6, 1945.

The uprising, an act of despair, was launched on Oc-
tober 7, 1944, in an attempt to destroy the killing installa-
tions, to avenge the crimes against the Jews committed in
the camp, and to ensure that at least someone remained alive
from the commando to bear witness to what had occurred
in the camp.

The uprising was crushed after few hours, ending in
a bloodbath of 451 Sonderkommando prisoners who fell
in the battle or were shot in retaliation. The fighters of the
Sonderkommando succeeded in burning one of the crema-

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SONDHEIM, STEPHEN

torium buildings (No. iv), killing three ss members, and
wounding probably 12 others. After the uprising was crushed,
the remaining prisoners of the commando were obliged to
burn the bodies of their fallen comrades and destroy the re-
maining crematorium buildings.

By the end of October 1944, after the gas chambers in
Auschwitz-Birkenau were used for the last time, more than
1,100,000 Jews had already been murdered in the death factory
of Auschwitz. The last surviving members of the commando
left the camp on January 18, 1945. On the long death marches
they were first deported to Mauthausen.

Altogether, about 110 men of the Sonderkommando sur-
vived the Shoah. Sixty years after the evacuation of Auschwitz
18 former Sonderkommando prisoners were still alive, most of
them in Israel and the United States.

[Gideon Greif and Andreas Kilian (2 nd ed.)]

SONDERLING, JACOB (1878-1964), rabbi. Sonderling was
born in Lipine, Silesia. His mother was a descendant of the
Yismah Moshe, the founder of Hungarian Hasidism. An ar-
dent Zionist from youth, Sonderling was referred to as "my
fighting rabbi" by Theodor Herzl.

After studying at the University of Vienna and Breslau as
well as at seminaries in Vienna, Breslau, and Berlin, Sonder-
ling received his Ph.D. from the University of Tuebingen in
1904. In 1908, he became rabbi of Hamburg's celebrated Isra-
elitischer Temple Verein, the birthplace of Reform Judaism
but in his congregation, the bastion of Reform Judaism, men
and women sat separately. He was such an eloquent orator
and prominent rabbi that the Hamburg synagogue offered
him the position despite its well known anti- Zionism and his
advocacy of Zionism. His tenure there was interrupted when,
during World War 1, he served as a German Army chaplain
on the staff of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, who was
later the president of Germany. He was the chief Jewish chap-
lain on the German Eastern front and spent the war years in
Russia, Poland, and Lithuania, where he ministered not only
to German soldiers but to Eastern European Jews he encoun-
tered. He looked like the embodiment of a rabbi, with a long
beard and distinguished face that as he aged became ever
more impressive. His picture appeared on postcards of the
Kaisers Army. He was called "God's word on a horse." At the
war's conclusion, he returned to his pulpit and remained until
1923, when he immigrated to the United States. Within weeks
of his arrival in the United States he was lecturing on Zionism
and drawing large audiences to hear his passionate advocacy.
He then held pulpits in Chicago, New York, and Providence,
where he developed what his Los Angeles colleague called
new approaches to an old tradition. Religion must appeal to
the senses - all five senses - not only to the ear and to the
mind.

Upon moving to Los Angeles in 1935, he founded the
Center for Jewish Culture (Fairfax Temple). Where else but
in Hollywood could one combine art and religion? While liv-
ing and working in Los Angeles, he collaborated with many

well-known musicians. He inspired Eric Zeisl to compose his
requiem and Maria Jeritza to perform it. During World War
11, he discovered that Arnold Schoenberg, then a refugee from
Nazi Germany, needed some money, so he commissioned him
to write the Kol Nidre service. He also worked with Ernst Toch
in writing the text for "Cantata of the Bitter Herbs." In 1941,
he commissioned Erich W Korngold to write the "Passover
Psalm," Opus 30.

Earlier in his career he inspired Freidrich *Adler (1878-
1942), who died in Auschwitz and had been a member of his
congregation, to make Jewish ceremonial objects. Adler was
a master of applied art who worked with furniture, architec-
ture, and functional ware. For the Cologne Werkbund of 1914,
Adler designed a synagogue interior and To rah ornaments as
well as an entire group of ceremonial objects for Sabbath and
holiday home observances. The remaining part of that col-
lection is the eternal light, which is in the collection of the
Spertus Museum. The first piece of ceremonial art that Adler
created was a seder plate of pewter and embossed and cut-
out glass. Incorporated onto the seder plate is a lid that lifts
up to hold the matzot y and when the lid is closed the cup of
Elijah fits on top in the center of the plate. It is on loan to the
Skirball Cultural Center from the family of Jacob Sonderling
363 days a year and returned each year just in time for the
seder.

His colleague, Hollywood Rabbi Max Nussbaum, com-
mented that in Los Angeles Sonderling "initiated the Seder in
drama and music and the dramatization of the Bible at Friday
evening services. Basically, Sonderling himself was a fusion
of religion and art."

His colleagues considered him more a teacher of teach-
ers, a rabbi of rabbis, and he held his own with some of the
most dominant personalities in the Los Angeles rabbinate.
He considered himself an Orthodox rabbi among the Re-
form and a Reform rabbi among the Orthodox. Nussbaum
said, "He represented the totality of our Jewish heritage at its
best."

bibliography: M. Nussbaum, "J ac °b Sonderling," in: Pro-
ceedings of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (1965.); J.
Sonderling, "Five Gates: Casual Notes for an Autobiography," in:
American Jewish Archives (1964).

[Michael Berenbaum (2 nd ed.)]

SONDHEIM, STEPHEN (Joshua) (1930- ), U.S. composer
and lyricist born in New York. His meeting with his neighbor
Oscar *Hammerstein 11 in Pennsylvania (where he moved
with his mother) led him to write lyrics for stage shows. Win-
ning the Hutchinson Prize for music at Williams College en-
abled him to study privately with Milton *Babbitt. Sondheim
leapt to the forefront of Broadway lyricists while still in his
twenties when he coauthored the songs (with Leonard *Bern-
stein) for West Side Story (1957). He followed this hugely suc-
cessful musical with another lyrical triumph, Jule Styne's Gypsy
(1959), and then wrote both the music and lyrics for A Funny
Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962). Company

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SONDHEIMER, FRANZ

(1970) revolutionized the art form, and Follies (1971) marked
the start of Sondheims collaboration with Hal Prince. A Little
Night Music (1973) contained his most popular song "Send in
the Clowns," while Pacific Overtures (1976) broke new ground
with its use of Japanese kabuki theater techniques. Sweeney
Todd (1979) is his biggest work. In Sunday in the Park with
George (1984), Sondheim, inspired by a painting by Seurat,
conveyed his images of the pointillist style through use of
musical minimalism. His later works include Into the Woods
(1987), Assassins (1991), and Passion (1994), his most sym-
phonic score. He also wrote film scores. Sondheims musical
language, in which melody and harmony are closely argued,
retains strong affinities with Ravel and ^Copland, while mak-
ing sophisticated use of jazz and dance idioms; it is intensely
personal. His use of counterpoint is the anchor which sepa-
rates him from most of todays theatrical composers. Sond-
heim is on the Council of the Dramatist Guild, having served
as its president from 1973 to 1981. In 1983 he was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was appointed the
first Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Oxford
University (1990) and was a recipient of the Kennedy Center
Honors (1993), a National Medal of Arts Award (1997), and
the Praemium Imperiale, Japan's highest honor, for a life-
time of artistic achievement (2000). In 2002 he received the
ascap Richard Rodgers Award. Most of his scores have won
Tony and New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards. "Sooner or
Later" from Dick Tracy won an Academy Award, and Sunday
in the Park with George was awarded the 1985 Pulitzer Prize
for Drama. The Sondheim Review is a quarterly magazine
dedicated to his works. Sondheim productions in translation
have also spread to Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and
elsewhere.

bibliography: Grove Music Online; J. Gordon (ed.), Stephen
Sondheim: A Casebook (1997); M. Secrest, Stephen Sondheim: A Life
(1998); M. Gottfried, Sondheim (2000).

[Jonathan Licht / Naama Ramot (2 nd ed.)]

SONDHEIMER, FRANZ (1926-1981) organic chemist. Born
in Stuttgart, Germany, he was educated at Highgate School,
London (1940-43) before gaining his Ph.D. from Imperial Col-
lege, London. He was a research fellow at Harvard University
(1949-52) and associate director of research at Syntex s.a. in
Mexico City (1952-56) before becoming head of the organic
chemistry department of the Weizmann Institute (1956-64)
and also Rebecca and Israel Sieff Professor of Organic Chem-
istry (1960-64). During this period he retained his associa-
tion with Syntex as vice president of research (1961-63). He
returned to England as Royal Society Research Professor of
Organic Chemistry, first at Cambridge University (1964-67),
where he was also a Fellow of Churchill College, and from
1967 at University College, London. Sondheimer's research
concerned the total synthesis of many natural products and
in particular steroid hormones and their analogues and novel
macrocyclic compounds. His many awards included the Israel
Prize in exact sciences (i960), election to the Royal Society of

London (1967), and the American Chemical Society's Sigma
Award for creative work in synthetic organic chemistry (1976).
His other main interest was classical music.

[Michael Denman (2 nd ed.)]

SONG, ANGELIC. The song of praise which the angels sing
to God is a common theme in the Jewish and Christian apoc-
alyptic and mystic literature. In his vision Isaiah heard the
seraphim uttering (Isa. 6:3) what later became known as the
*Kedushah (in Greek Trishagion). The idea of the angels sing-
ing in the heavenly spheres is very likely an old one; it is the
counterpart of the song which the levites sing in the Temple
(e.g., 1 Chron. 6:16-17). I n the apocalyptic literature the seer
translated to heaven sees, among other things, the throne of
God surrounded by angels singing their perpetual song to God
(11 En. 39-40). This part of the vision may be called the mysti-
cal core of the apocalyptic experience. The angelic song in the
apocalyptic literature is generally a development of Isaiah 6:3
and Ezekiel 3:12. The song of the angels is mentioned often in
11 Enoch, where it is revealed to the seer (Version 11 23:2; cf.
also Test. Patr., Levi 3:8). Particularly rich in its angelic doxolo-
gies, or songs of praise, is the Jewish- Christian Book of Revela-
tion. The Qumran sect had a highly developed angelic liturgy
(see Strugnell, in: vt, Supplement, 7 (1959), 318-45).

The heikhalot literature of the Jewish mystics of the tal-
mudic period is replete with angelic songs. Even the throne of
God sings a special song to God (Heikhalot Rabbati y 24-26).
The angelic songs which the mystic hears are not short dox-
ologies as in the apocalyptic writings, but long lyrical expres-
sions of the divine holiness, appropriately called "numinous
hymns" (R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy (1923), 34). There are sev-
eral references to the angelic song in talmudic and midrashic
literature. The two main ideas expressed there are:

(a) the angels do not repeat their song (which is always
that of Isa. 6:3 and Ezek. 3:12); when they have finished sing-
ing it, they disappear;

(b) there is a special order according to which the angels
divide the song among themselves.

There are also differences of opinion as to when the an-
gels sing their song: during the day only (Lam. R. 3:23; Hul.
91b); during the night, when Israel does not pray (Hag. 12b;
Av. Zar. 3b); or during both day and night (ser 7:34).

bibliography: H. Bietenhard, Die himmlische Welt im Ur-
christentum Spaetjudentum (1951), i37ff. (incl. bibl.); G. Scholem, Jew-
ish Gnosticism.. . (1965), 20-30; Van Unnik, in: Vigiliae Christianae, 5
(1951), 204-48 (Eng.); Flusser, in: Abraham, Unser Vater... Festschrift
Otto Michel (1963), 129-52.

[Ithamar Gruenwald]

SONG OF SONGS (Heb. tTTttfn Ttf), the book of the He-
brew Bible which normally follows Job in the Hagiographa and
precedes the Book of Ruth. It thus stands first among the Five
Scrolls. In Protestant and Roman Catholic Bibles, the book fol-
lows Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, in accord with Jewish (then
later Christian) tradition that Solomon was the author of all

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SONG OF SONGS

three, for the arrangement of the books in the Septuagint has
continued to exert its influence on the Christian canon into
modern times (see *Bible, Canon). The title is derived from
the superscription, shir ha-shirim asher li-shelomo, usually un-
derstood as "the best of Solomons songs," although Hebrew
normally does not form superlatives this way. (Comparisons
with "king of kings," or "slave of slaves," are irrelevant because
these are superlative by function: a king who rules other kings
(= emperor); a slave owned by another slave; see Tur- Sinai,
354-55.) The book is also called the Song of Solomon or Can-
ticles, the latter name being derived from the Latin transla-
tion of the Hebrew title. Fragments of the Song were found
at Qumran.

The Character of the Song of Songs

The Song of Songs is composed entirely of a series of lyric
(Septuagint: asma) love songs which vary in length, often con-
sisting of brief stanzas, in which two lovers express to one an-
other, and occasionally to others, the delights and anguish of
their mutual love. Bold imagery and striking hyperbole char-
acterize the songs, producing extravagant expressions and in-
congruous comparisons:

I have compared thee, O my love,

To a mare in Pharaohs chariots.

Thy cheeks are comely with circlets,

Thy neck with beads (1:9-10; on the mare see M.H. Pope, in

basor, 200 (1970), 56-61).

My beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna

In the vineyards of En-Gedi (1:14).

I am a rose of Sharon,

A lily of the valleys (2:1).

Several songs in chapters 4-7 exhibit qualities that distinguish
them somewhat from the other poems in the book, for they
lavishly praise the physical features of the two young lovers:

The roundings of thy thighs are like the links of a chain,

The work of the hands of a skilled workman.

Thy navel is like a round goblet,

Wherein no mingled wine is wanting;

Thy belly is like a heap of wheat

Set about with lilies.

Thy two breasts are like two fawns

That are twins of a gazelle (7:2^4).

Because such poems belong to the same literary genre as a
similar type of Arabic love poetry, they are called wasfs> after
the Arabic technical term meaning "description." Such lyrical
imagery and forthright expression are admittedly sensual and
suggestive, but the poems are never coarse or vulgar. (Similar
seductive language is employed by the married seductress of
Prov. 7:16-17, but there it leads to a bitter end.) The composer
has employed vivid imagery to set a mood and create an aura
of emotion, which invites the hearers to participate and share
his joy and delight. Such poetic finesse in part accounts for
the timeless appeal and lasting popularity of these songs. The
flickering flames of love that rise and fall throughout the book
leap to a final crescendo in 8:6-7:

Set me as the seal upon thy heart,

As the seal upon thine arm;

For love is strong as death,

Jealousy is cruel as the grave;

The flashes thereof are flashes of fire;

A very flame of the Lord [or "mighty flame"],

Many waters cannot quench love,

Neither can the floods drown it.

The Bible, because of its primary concern with religious
themes, contains poetry which deals principally with sacred
topics in hymns, laments, songs of praise and thanksgiving,
etc. There are also a number of songs with a secular flavor
and dealing with the more mundane affairs of life scattered
through its pages, but the Song of Songs is unique in the Bible,
for nowhere else within it can be found such a sustained paean
to the warmth of love between man and woman. It is com-
pletely occupied with that one theme. No morals are drawn;
no prophetic preachments are made. Perhaps more than any
other biblical book, the Song presents a picture of "gender
mutuality" (Meyers). The female lover is given more lines to
speak than the male, and the presence of the "daughters of
Jerusalem" is most prominent. It is likely that several of the
poems originated among women bards.

A remarkable feature of the book is that God receives no
mention, and theological concerns are never discussed. While
the Book of Esther also fails to mention God, an unmistakable
spirit of nationalism permeates its pages; but the Song lacks
even this theme. Another unique feature of the book is the
extended description of the woman's dreams (3:1-5; 5:1-6:3).
These are the only biblical examples of dreams not followed
by interpretation.

While the Song of Songs appears unique in the Bible, it is
quite at home in the literature of the Ancient Near East. Nu-
merous texts recovered from both Egypt and Mesopotamia
have brought to light the long history of love poetry in the an-
cient world. Even the earliest civilization of ancient Mesopota-
mia, that of Sumer, produced passionate love songs that reflect
a remarkable similarity of expressions, implications, situations,
and allusions to parts of the Song of Songs, even though the
latter are "far superior to their stilted, repetitive, and relatively
unemotional Sumerian forerunners" (S.N. Kramer, in Expedi-
tioriy 5 (1962), 31; Cooper, 1970). Fox has demonstrated close
parallels in Egyptian love songs, and Held has called attention
to a dialogue between lovers in an Akkadian work of the Old
Babylonian period. Still others have compared Greek love lyr-
ics. Upon reflection it is only natural to expect that such songs
existed in the culture of ancient Israel. Song, music, and dance,
both sacred and secular, have been vehicles for expressing the
deepest human emotions from time immemorial, and it is
doubtful that the line dividing the one from the other was as
clear to the ancients as it appears to moderns.

The Song of Songs consists of only eight chapters num-
bering 117 verses, yet in it occur 49 words peculiar to itself
and an additional number of unusual words. The syntax of
the Song is also marked by oddities. The vav consecutive of

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SONG OF SONGS

biblical Hebrew is completely lacking; frequent incongruities
exist, with masculine forms of verbs, pronouns and suffixes
often appearing rather than the expected feminine forms; the
personal pronoun is used pleonastically with finite verbs with
no apparent emphatic connotations; the infinite absolute is
never used and the infinitive construct only rarely; and what
appears to be an Aramaic construction occurs at 3:7 (mittato
she-li-ShelomOy literally, "his bed, Solomons").

The Song exhibits characteristic features of Hebrew *po-
etry - parallelism, meter based on stress, repetitive patterns of
structure, the use of chiasmus and ballast variants, assonance,
and occasionally paranomasia. A variety of repetitive patterns
may be found including a number with archaic features.

The diverse features of the Song, which support the view
that the work is a collection, are somewhat muted by the uni-
formity of language, representing a late stage of biblical He-
brew along with features that are regular in Aramaic and in
later Mishnaic Hebrew. This uniformity is apparently the re-
sult of linguistic leveling which was arrested by the final re-
daction of the book, leaving it essentially as it now exists in
the Masoretic Text.

The Interpretation of the Song of Songs

Despite its brevity, the Song of Songs has been the inspiration
for more literature about itself than any other book of its size
in the Bible. It holds a magnetic attraction for those who feel
compelled to explain its inclusion in the Bible, its meaning,
and the linguistic peculiarities in it. Near the close of the first
century c.e., when the book had long been a part of the Jewish
national literature, arguments against its inclusion among the
books that were to be considered canonical were suppressed
by no less an eminent and vociferous advocate than R. Akiva.
The rabbis and the early Church Fathers quoted, paraphrased,
and sermonized from it. In medieval Europe, Bernard of Clair-
vaux produced 86 sermons extracted from its imagery. Still,
despite the voluminous writings of Jewish and Christian ex-
egetes, in the 17 th century the Westminster Assembly's anno-
tations on the Song of Songs state, "It is not unknown to the
learned, what the obscurity and darknesse of this Book hath
ever been accounted, and what great variety of Interpreters,
and Interpretations have indeavoured to clear it, but with so
ill successe many times, that they have rather increased, then
removed the cloud" (Annotations upon all the Books of the Old
and New Testament (1951 2 )). Advances in biblical scholarship
have been made since then, but scholars are still divided on
such important matters as the unity of the book, its origin, its
divisions, its purpose, the number and identity of its charac-
ters, and its date.

The Song as an Allegory

The history of the interpretation of the Song of Songs neces-
sarily begins with its interpretation as an allegory in which
the love of God for His people was expressed. By this means a
mystical message of comfort and hope could be derived from
the text. The lover in the songs, operating under the guise of
Solomon and the shepherd youth, was now recognized as the

Lord God of Israel, and His beloved was the people Israel.
Thus a literary product which seemed devoid of any apparent
religious connotations was transformed into a vehicle for ex-
pressing the very deepest kind of spiritual relationship existing
between God and His people. (The development of Jewish al-
legorization is generally traced to Greek influence. Though the
term allegory is Greek in origin, the assumption of borrow-
ing the method is gratuitous, however, for the germinal con-
cepts and interpretative tendencies possessing the potential for
allegorization existed in Jewish schools of thought and in
the Bible. Noteworthy in this respect are for example the mar-
ital images found in Hos. 2; Jer. 2:2; and Isa. 50:4-7.) The al-
legorical view of the book had gained widespread currency
among the rabbis by the first century c.e., and it was doubt-
less the predominant view of the populace as well; there is
evidence in the Mishnah, however, that the allegorical inter-
pretation was not universally accepted. The Tosefta (Sanh.
12:10) records the famous admonition of R. Akiva: "He who
trills his voice in the chanting of the Song of Songs in the
banquet-halls and makes it a secular song has no share in the
world to come."

It is difficult to determine with any degree of accuracy
when the allegorization of the Song of Songs began, but the
disturbing conditions imposed by Rome upon Jewish life in
the first century c.e. were advantageous to its expansion. In
light of this and of the unusual features of the work, there
can be little wonder that arguments arose among the rabbis
over the retention of the Song among the books that "defile
the hands," that is, that were considered canonical. At the
Council of Jabneh, c. 90 c.e., the matter was discussed, but
we know little of the details. In any event, current scholarly
opinion does not attribute authoritative canonization of bib-
lical books to the Jabneh council. It is clear that the songs had
an innate popular appeal, and they had been ascribed to King
Solomon because of the several occurrences of his name in the
text and the association of the references to a king with him.
A generation after Jabneh, R. Akiva denied that there had ever
been any controversy about the sacred character of the Song:
"God forbid that it should be otherwise! No one in Israel ever
disputed that the Song of Songs defiles the hands. For all the
world is not worthy as the day on which the Song of Songs was
given to Israel, for all the Writings are holy, but the Song of
Songs is the Holy of Holies" (Yad 3:5; cf. Eduy. 5:3; Tosef., Yad
2:14). R. Akivas defense of the work was most certainly based
on the mystical allegorical interpretation, and it is significant
that he had attained a certain fame as a mystic (Tosef, Hag.
(ed. Lieberman), 2:3-4). According to another tradition the
Song along with Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, the other "Solo-
monic" works, though holy, had at first been kept out of the
public curriculum (genuzim) but were made accessible to the
public thanks to the exegesis of the men of the Great Assem-
bly (adrn (ed. Schechter), 2; Zakovitch, 31).

The mystical emphasis was in time displaced by histori-
cal and eschatological allegories. The Targum interpreted the
Song as an allegory of the history of Israel from the Exodus

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SONG OF SONGS

to the age of the Messiah and the building of the Third Tem-
ple. Allegory was an extension of a general interpretative ten-
dency which sought to discover the supposed deeper mean-
ing of the sacred texts with a consequent de-emphasis of the
literal meaning. This permitted every generation to find con-
solation, solace, and hope appropriate to its own time and
circumstances. Later Jewish exegetes such as Saadiah Gaon,
Rashi, Samuel b. Meir, and Abraham ibn Ezra found in the
symbolism of the Song words of consolation and strength for
their contemporaries. A particularly interesting interpretation
advocated by a few medieval and later commentators was the
view that the bride represented wisdom.

When the Christian Church included the Hebrew Bible
as a part of its canon, the allegorical interpretation of the
Song of Songs was taken over with it, but the allegory was
modified so that it conformed to the doctrinal needs of the
Church. The Song was now understood as a portrayal of the
love of Christ for his church and as speaking of his dealings
with it. Modern scholarship has largely abandoned the alle-
gorical interpretation.

The Song as a Drama

The popularity in scholarly circles of the allegorical interpre-
tation began to decline during the late 18 th century, thereby
giving rise to other interpretative views. An early contender
was the view that the Song of Songs was best explained as a
drama, complete with characters, a plot, and a moral to be
drawn. The two-character version identified Solomon and the
Shulammite of 7:1 as the leading dramatis personae. The king
is attracted to the beautiful country girl, and he takes her from
her rustic surroundings to his capital for his bride. Through
a series of romantic interludes, however, she enables him to
rise above mere sensual infatuation and attain a higher and
nobler form of love. This version lacked drama and any con-
vincing moral purpose; the three-character version, however,
finds Solomon vying with a youthful shepherd for the love of
the maiden. Despite the concerted efforts of the king to win
her affections (which included carrying her off to his harem
in Jerusalem), she adamantly rejects his amorous endeavors.
Her constant longing for her shepherd lover ultimately damp-
ens the king's ardor. In the end he graciously allows her to
return to her home and a happy reunion with her true love.
The obvious moral of virtue triumphant, unfortunately, de-
means Solomon.

The conception of the Song as a drama was not a new in-
vention of i8 th -century scholars. As early as the third century
c.e. the Christian scholar, Origen, had described the book as
a nuptial poem in dramatic form, and two important manu-
scripts of the fourth and fifth centuries, Codex Sinaiticus and
Codex Alexandrinus, indicate in their margins the identity
and order of speakers. The popularity of the theory could
not be sustained, because of its inherent weaknesses. When
approached without bias, the Song of Songs obviously lacks
the elements of a drama. The identification of the speakers,
stage directions, appropriate divisions into acts or scenes, a

plot - all these must be imposed upon the text to sustain the
dramatic theory. A further drawback to the theory is the fig-
ure of Solomon, for while he is made central in the drama he
does not appear so in the text itself, and he is actually absent
in the supposed climax (8:11 ff.).

The Song as a Cultic Liturgy

Early in the 20 th century a new theory was suggested in which
the Song of Songs was understood as a Jewish liturgy which
was derived ultimately from the pagan rituals of the Tammuz
(Adonis) cult. This cult, mentioned specifically in the Bible
only in Ezekiel 8:14 and alluded to elsewhere (some compare
Isa. 17:10-11), reenacted annually the myth of Tammuz, the god
of fertility. The lover of the Song is seen as the dying-rising
god, and the maiden is the goddess who laments him until his
return, whereupon a sacred marriage (see Klein) ensues. It is
suggested that much of the poetic material in the Bible came
from cultic backgrounds, and that the liturgy that underlies
the Song of Songs came into Israelite traditions through the
celebration of a ritual marriage at the annual New Year's fes-
tival. The old Tammuz liturgy was revised in order to make it
acceptable to the monotheistic ideas of Israel, or the liturgy
may simply have been reduced to folk poetry. Proponents of
the theory call attention to the reading of the Song of Songs
during Passover to bolster their case, but the practice was not
regularly followed until the medieval period.

As intriguing as the theory appears at first glance, it can-
not explain the wholly secular character of the existing Song.
The Song may very well contain mythological allusions, but
it is unlikely that these would have been known outside of a
small circle of bookish savants.

The Literal Interpretations

Two interpretations of the Song of Songs existed in the first
century c.e. - the allegorical and the literal. The rabbis sup-
pressed the latter while the allegorical view in its manifold
variations dominated the interpretation of the Song for cen-
turies. The literal view was never completely suppressed, how-
ever, for the discussions on canonization were retained and
transmitted through the Mishnah, and the natural view of the
Song subtly surfaced in a later rabbinic discussion on the order
in which Solomon wrote Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song
of Songs. R. Jonathan argued on the basis of human behavior:
"When a man is young, he sings songs. When he becomes an
adult, he utters practical proverbs. When he becomes old, he
speaks of the vanity of things" (Song R. 1:1, no. 10). The literal
interpretation, however, was advocated only rarely until the
late 18 th century when J.G. Herder interpreted the book on the
basis of the plain meaning of the words, understanding it as
a collection of love songs.

A variation of the literal view was initiated when in 1873
J.G. Wetzstein drew attention to the wedding customs of the
peasants of Syria. The bride and groom are treated as king
and queen during a seven-day round of festivities which in-
clude songs sung by the guests, praising the physical beauty
of both bride and groom, and a "sword dance" performed

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SONG OF SONGS

by the bride before the groom. In 1893 the proposal was ad-
vanced by K. Budde that the book is actually a collection of
Palestinian wedding songs. This fascinating theory held the
attention of scholars for a generation thereafter, but it left
disturbing problems unresolved. Not all the songs could so
easily be identified with nuptial ceremonies, nor even with
marital love. The division of the Song into seven sections for
the seven feast days proved unconvincing. It was also illusory
to assume that marriage customs of modern Syrian peasants
who are composed of mixed ethnic origins could be realisti-
cally projected back over two millennia and imposed on a Jew-
ish milieu, particularly when it was uncertain that the Syrian
wedding customs described in the theory actually obtained
even in modern Palestine.

The predominant trend of modern scholarship is to take
the Song of Songs literally, as a collection of lyric love songs.
The anthology includes songs appropriate for use at wedding
feasts and others that simply celebrate the joys of youthful love.
The redeeming value of this view, if one is needed, is that love
in all its manifestations is the work of the Creator who made
all things and pronounced them good.

Authorship, Date, and Origin

Tradition ascribed the Song of Songs to Solomon, but Solo-
monic authorship has been rejected for the most part by mod-
ern scholars. The diverse poems and variety of poetic elements
preclude, too, the unity which the traditional view assumes.
The language of the book indicates a relatively late date. The
shape of the verb, natar ( Song 1:6, 8:11, 12) replacing earlier
ndzar, "guard," for example, shows that it was borrowed from
Aramaic after the internal Aramaic sound shift from the pho-
neme preserved in Arabic as [Ja], to [t] sometime in the seventh
century b.c.e. The Persian loanword pardes, "orchard" (4:13) is
well post-Solomonic as is the hapaxlegomenon egoz, "walnut"
(6:11). The aperion, "palanquin," in 3:9 maybe of Greek origin.
There are sufficient archaic elements in the book (Albright),
however, to suggest that some of the songs are pre-Exilic.

The mention of Tirzah in 6:4 has been used to support a
date for 6:4-7 before Omri moved the capital of the Northern
Kingdom to Samaria (c. 800 b.c.e.). The geographical hori-
zons of the Song include North Israel, Syria, Transjordan, and
Judah, with northern places predominant so that several of the
songs may have originated in that area. The destruction of the
Kingdom of Israel in 722 b.c.e. did not necessarily mean the
loss of that literary heritage. Ample opportunity existed for
the preservation in Judah of the literary and oral traditions of
the north when the Kingdom of Judah stood alone. It may be
assumed that older songs, carried into Exile with the people,
were brought together with later compositions and were ed-
ited, probably during the fifth century b.c.e. Older parts of
the Song may have undergone minor changes in vocabulary
through the replacement of older words with those more fa-
miliar before a final editing.

The discovery since 1929 of the Ugaritic texts has pro-
vided an important new research tool for biblical scholars.

Through comparative linguistic studies several grammati-
cal and syntactical problems in the Song of Songs have been
partially clarified, and a number of archaic features have been
identified in its text (Avishur). The direct value of the Ugaritic
texts for the study of the Song of Songs is limited, however,
because no work of a comparable theme has yet been discov-
ered at Ugarit.

[Keith N. Schoville / S. David Sperling (2 nd ed.)]

In the Liturgy

The Song of Songs is included in the liturgy of Passover. It is
read on the Intermediate Sabbath where there is one; when
the first day of Passover falls on Sabbath it is read in Israel on
the first day and in the Diaspora on the eighth. Under kab-
balistic influence it was instituted as a voluntary reading be-
fore the Friday evening service, being observed by Sephardi
Jews, particularly during the Sabbaths between Passover and
Shavuot.

In the Arts

Like the Book of Psalms, the Song of Songs has been a major
influence in literature, art, and music - largely as a result of its
mystical interpretation in Jewish and, even more, in Christian
tradition. In early medieval times there were notable trans-
lations by Notker Labeo and Williram in Old High German;
others appeared during the Renaissance era in various lan-
guages, including one in Spanish (c. 1561) by the New Chris-
tian humanist Luis de *Leon which may have been based on
the original Hebrew; and, in more recent times, there were
translations by Moses ^Mendelssohn, *Goethe, and *Herder
(in German), and by *Bossuet and *Renan (in French). In po-
etry, drama, and fiction the Song of Songs figures mainly in
works of the 19 th and 20 th centuries. The French poet Victor
Hugo, who first skirted the theme in his "Salomon" (La legende
des siecles, 1877), developed it more fully in his "Cantique de
Bethphage," a poem contained in his posthumous collection,
La Fin de Satan (1886). Treatments of the theme by Jewish
writers include Heinrich ^Heine's poem "Salomo" (in Roman-
zero^ 1851), inspired by Song 3:7 If.; Abraham *Goldfaderis Yid-
dish operetta, Shulamit (1880); Julius *Zeyer's Czech drama,
Sulamit (1883); and Die Weisheit Salomos y a German drama
by Paul *Heyse, which S.L. ^Gordon published in Hebrew as
Shulamit; o Hokhmat Shelomo (1896).

The Song of Songs has continued to appeal to many writ-
ers of the 20 th century, as well. In Russia, for example, Alexan-
der Ivanovich Kuprin published the romance, Sulamif (1908;
Eng. trans. 1923); in Argentina, Arturo Capdevila was the au-
thor of La Sulamita (1916), a play about the Song of Songs; and
the French dramatist Jean Giraudoux wrote Cantique des can-
tiques (1938). A number of modern Jewish authors have also
turned to the subject, including the Russian Samuel *Mar-
shak, whose poem on the theme dates from his early, pre-So-
viet, "Jewish" period, and the Romanian poet Marcel Breslasu
(Cintarea Cintarilor y 1938).

In art the subject was chiefly popular in the Middle Ages,
when it was given a symbolic interpretation. Thus, in Byzan-

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SONG OF SONGS

tine miniatures, illustrations to "Behold, it is the litter of Solo-
mon; Threescore mighty men are about it, Of the Mighty men
of Israel" (3:7) sometimes show Jesus in place of Solomon, the
"mighty men" being depicted as angels with lances. The sub-
ject appears in n th -century Byzantine miniatures such as the
Homilies of the Monk James (Vatican Library, Bibliotheque Na-
tionale, Paris) and in the n th -century Hortus Deliciarum. The
Shulamite or Beloved symbolized the Church (i.e., the bride
of Jesus), and hence the virgin Mary (the Church is represen-
tative). In the Hortus Deliciarum the Beloved is shown as the
virgin flanked by monks and laity with the daughters of Zion
at her feet, and the Beloved is also shown as Mary in the 16 th
century Story of the Virgin tapestry in Rheims Cathedral. Fig-
ures of the madonna from medieval France and Spain some-
times have blackened heads. These "black madonnas" have
been thought to derive from the description of the Beloved
who is "black, but comely" (1:5). The metaphors for the Be-
loved, such as the "rose of Sharon" (2:1), the "garden shut up"
(4:12) and the "fountain of gardens" (4:15) became attributes
of the virgin.

Two representations of the 19 th century are "The Shu-
lamite," by the English painter Albert Joseph Moore (1841-
1893; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), and "The Song of Solo-
mon" (1868), a drawing by the English pre-Raphaelite artist
Simeon *Solomon (1840-1905; Municipal Gallery of Mod-
ern Art, Dublin). Modern Jewish works include a series of
paintings by Marc * Chagall, illuminations (1923) by Ze'ev
Rabban (1890-1970), illustrations by the Israel artist Shraga
Weill (1918), and engravings by the Canadian David Silver-
berg (1961).

In the music of the 15 th , and more frequently of the 16 th ,
century settings of the (Vulgate text of the) Song of Songs
were generally composed for liturgical purposes, since the
verses and sections form part of many Marian celebrations.
Early examples are Quam pulchra es by John Dunstable and
by King Henry vin of England. Sixteenth-century compos-
ers of motets and motet-cycles on the text include most of
the great "Netherlanders" and their Italian successors. In the
17 th century, the functions and forms of the settings became
more diverse. Monteverdi's choral Nigra sum and Pulchra es
were still in use as Marian praises, while his Ego flos campi
and Ego dormio had already been composed as songs for
alto voice and continue Among Schuetz's many settings in
both Latin and German, Ich beschwoere euch (1641) is a dia-
logo approaching the dramatic form. The German Protestant
settings were mostly intended as wedding songs; with the
rise of Pietism they once more assumed a religio-allegorical
function. Meine Freundin du bistschoen by Johann Christoph
Bach, another wedding piece, practically concludes a period
in the musical history of the Song of Songs. The 18 th century
did not favor the text, although one rare exception was Wil-
liam Boyce's Solomon, a Sereneta... taken from the Canticles
( 1 743)> with dialogues between "He" and "She," and choirs. In
the 19 th and 20 th centuries the dramatic, or at least dialogic
potential of the text again appealed to composers. The 19 th -

century works include Tota pulchra es by Bruckner; Chabrier's
cantata, La Sulamite; Leopold *Damrosch's oratorio, Sulamith;
and the oratorios titled Canticum canticorum by Enrico Bossi
and Italo Montemezzi. Twentieth-century composers include
Ralph Vaughan Williams (Flos campi, for viola solo, wordless
voices, and small orchestra); Virgil Thompson (Five phrases
from the Song of Solomon, for soprano and percussion); Ja-
cobo Ficher (Sulamita, symphonic poem); Rudolf Wagner-
Regeny (Schir haschirim, for choir; German text by Manfred
Sturmann); Lukas Toss (Song of Songs, for soprano and or-
chestra); Jean Martinon (Le Lis de Saron, oratorio); Stanislaw
Skrowaczewski (Cantique des cantiques, for soprano and 23
instruments); Arthur Honegger (Le Cantique des Cantiques,
ballet); Natanael Berg (Das Hohelied, for choir); and Mario
*Castelnuovo-Tedesco (The Songs of Songs, scenic oratorio;
also settings of "Set me as a seal upon thine heart," etc., for
Reform Jewish wedding ceremonies).

Among settings by Israel composers the best known are
the oratorio Shir ha-Shirim by Marc *Lavry, and the solo song
Hinakh Yafah by Alexander Uriah *Boscovich (the latter based
on the traditional Ashkenazi intonation of the text). Several
choral settings have also been composed for the introductory
parts of the Kibbutz *seder ceremonies, which traditionally
open with the celebration of Spring. The folk-style settings of
single verses and combinations of verses (often out of their
original sequence) are especially numerous. Their role was
particularly important in the formative years of the Israel folk-
dance movement (during the late 1940s). The need for lyrical
couple-dances - as against prevailing communal dances such
as the *Horah and those derived from it and the "jolly" couple-
dances taken over from Europe - led to an ideological conflict
which was resolved by basing the new, more tender dances on
the "historical" precedent of the Song of Songs.

The Song scarcely appears in traditional Jewish folk mu-
sic outside its liturgical function - no doubt because of the
rabbinic prohibition against singing it "like a folksong" (Sanh.
101a; see The Five ^Scrolls, musical rendition).

[Bathja Bayer]

bibliography: R. Gordis, The Song of Songs (1954); M.H.
Segal, in: vt, 9 (1959), 470-90; W.F. Albright, in: Festschrift... G.R.
Driver (1963), 1-7; H.H. Rowley, in: The Servant of the Lord and Other
Essays on the Old Testament (1965), 197-245; E.M. Yamauchi, in: jbl,
84 (1965), 283-90; G.D. Cohen, in: The Samuel Friedland Lectures
1960-66 (1966), 1-21; R. Soulen, in: jbl, 86 (1967), 183-90; G. Fohrer,
Introduction to the Old Testament (1968); K.N. Schoville, The Impact of
the Ras Shamra Texts on the Study of the Song of Songs (Ph.D. disserta-
tion, University Microfilms, 1970); CD. Ginsburg, The Song of Songs
(1857; 1970 2 with introd. by S.H. Blank), add. bibliography: N.H.
Tur-Sinai, in: Ha-Lashon ve-ha-Sefer, vol. 2 (1959), 351-88; M. Held, in:
jes, 15 (1961), 1-26; J. Cooper, in: jbl, 90 (1970), 157-62; idem, in: I.
Finkel and M.Geller (eds.), Sumerian Gods and their Representations
(1997), 85-97; Y. Avishur, in: Beth Mikra, 19 (1974), 508-25; M. Pope,
Song of Songs (ab; 1977); P. Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality
(1978); W. Hallo, in: L. Gorelick and E. Williams-Forte (1983), 7-17;
idem, in: Bible Review, 1 (1985), 20-27; idem, in, janes, 22 (1993),
45-50; M.V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love
Songs (1985); D. Pardee, in: J. Marks and M. Good (eds.), Love and

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SONG OF SONGS RABBAH

Death in the Ancient Near East Essays... Pope (1987), 65-69; C. Meyers,
Discovering Eve (1991); Y. Zakovitch, Song of Songs (1992); J. Snaith,
Song of Songs (1993); R. Weems, in: nib 5 (1997), 361-434; J. Klein,
in: abd, 5:866-70; R. Murphy, in: abd, 6:15-55 (with bibliography);
E. Matter, in: dbi, 2:492-96; D. Carr, in: jbl, 119 (2000), 233-48; T.
Longman, Song of Songs (nicot; 2001); P. Dirksen, in: Biblia Hebra-
ica Quinta, vol. 18 (critical edition; 2004).

SONG OF SONGS RABBAH, aggadic Midrash on the Song
of *Songs, the product of Palestinian amor aim. In geonic and
medieval rabbinic literature Song of Songs Rabbah is also re-
ferred to as Midrash Hazita or Aggadat Hazita, the name de-
riving from its opening passage: "This is what Scripture states
in the words of Solomon (Prov. 22:29): 'Seest thou (hazita) a.
man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings.'" In
the editio princeps of the work, it is called Shir ha-Shirim Rab-
bati and Midrash Shir ha-Shirim. (For the name Song of Songs
Rabbahy see *Ruth Rabbah.)

It is an exegetical Midrash which expounds the * Song of
Songs consecutively, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, and
sometimes even word byword. In the editio princeps the work
is divided into two sections, the first an exposition of Song of
Songs 1:1-2:7; the second of 2:8 to the end. Later editions, how-
ever, are further subdivided into eight chapters correspond-
ing to those of the biblical book. The Midrash begins with five
proems characteristic of amoraic Midrashim, starting with
an extraneous introductory verse which is subsequently con-
nected with the opening verse of the biblical book expounded
by the Midrash. Here the proems, most of which are anony-
mous, are introduced by verses from the Hagiographa (three
from Proverbs and one from Ecclesiastes, both ascribed, as is
the Song of Songs, to Solomon).

The language of the Midrash is mishnaic Hebrew with
an admixture of Galilean Aramaic and with a liberal repre-
sentation of Greek words.

Song of Songs Rabbah drew from tannaitic literature, the
Jerusalem Talmud, Genesis Rabbahy and Leviticus Rabbah , as
well as *Pesikta de-Rav Kahana in a recension somewhat dif-
ferent from its present form. There is no evidence, however, to
support the suggestion that it also made use of Lamentations
Rabbah y the greater likelihood being that both of these drew
upon a common source. Conversely, Song of Songs Rabbahy
even though in a recension other than that extant, served as
a source for *Pesikta Rabbati. It is employed in the piyyutim
of Meshullam b. Kalonymus and is referred to in Teshuvot ha-
Gebnim (ed. A. Harkavy (1887) 36). This Midrash contains
much original tannaitic and amoraic material. It interprets
Song of Songs as an allegory of the relationship between God
and Israel. It also contains many aggadot dealing with the mes-
sianic redemption, as well as polemical expositions against
Christianity. The work was apparently redacted in Erez Israel
about the middle of the sixth century c.e.

There are several later additions in the Midrash, some of
them the work of copyists. On Song of Songs 1:2, for example,
a copyist added an entreaty that his nephew might acquire a
knowledge of the To rah.

Editions

Songs of Songs Rabbah was first published in Pesaro in 1519 to-
gether with the midrashim on the four other scrolls (although
entirely unrelated to them) and has often been reprinted on
the basis of this edition. There are several extant manuscripts
of the Midrash, the earliest being the Parma manuscript, dated
1270, in which Song of Songs Rabbah occurs in the middle of
Pesikta Rabbati between sections 18 and 19, associated with
the festival of Passover, when the Song of Songs is customar-
ily read. An English translation by Maurice Simon appeared
in the Soncino Midrash (1939).

bibliography: Zunz-Albeck, Derashot, 128; Theodor, in:

mgwj, 28 (1879), 97ff., i64ff., 27iff., 337ff., 4o8fF., 455ff.; 29 (1880),

19 n\; Urbach, in: Tarbiz, 30 (1960/61), 148-70; Sachs, in: jqr, 56

(1965/66), 225-39.

[Moshe David Herr]

SONG OF THE THREE CHILDREN AND THE PRAYER
OF AZARIAH, an apocryphal addition to the ancient ver-
sions (Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Ara-
bic) of the canonical text of the Book of Daniel, inserted be-
tween 3:23 and 3:24. The interpolation, which may have been
composed in Hebrew in the second or first century b. c.e., is
in three sections: (a) the Prayer of Azariah (1-22), praising
God, confessing Israel's sins, and imploring divine deliverance;
(b) details concerning the heating of the fiery furnace (23-27);
and (c) the Song of the Three Children (28-68). The last is in
two parts: the opening liturgy addressed to God (29-34) an d
a series of exhortations addressed to all creatures, animate and
inanimate, to praise the Lord (35-68). The unknown author
of the addition derived much of his inspiration from the an-
tiphonal liturgies in Psalms 136 and 148.

bibliography: See Bibliography in *Susanna and the El-
ders.

[Bruce M. Metzger]

SONNABEND, YOLANDA (1934- ), stage designer and
painter. Yolanda Sonnabend was born in Rhodesia, but stud-
ied at the Academie des Beaux- Arts, Geneva, at Rome Uni-
versity, and at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. She was
a resident of London from 1964. A well-known stage designer
and painter, she collaborated on productions at Sadler's Wells
and the Royal Opera House, London, at the Old Vic, the Stutt-
gart Staatsoper, and the Aldeburgh Festival. These productions
included the Oresteia trilogy by Aeschylus, Monteverdi's Or-
feo, The Maids by Genet, Shakespeare's The Tempest, Othello,
Henry iv. and Benjamin Britten's opera, The Turn of the Screw.
Her work was noted for intensity of vision and an extremely
personal use of color and decoration. Among her finest efforts
have been the plays of Genet, which require fantastic settings.
She held exhibitions of stage designs in London, New York,
and Italy, and her paintings appeared in numerous mixed
exhibitions. She is represented in the collections of the Vic-
toria and Albert Museum, London, and the Arts Council of

Great Britain.

[Charles Samuel Spencer]

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SONNENFELD, BARRY

SONNE, ISAIAH (1887-1960), scholar, historian, and bibli-
ographer. Born in Galicia, Sonne studied at Swiss and Italian
universities and at the Collegio Rabbinico in Florence, where
he later became a lecturer in Talmud, philosophy, and Jewish
history after having taught at the Hebrew high school in Lodz.
In Florence he also taught German in a state high school and
worked in the libraries and archives of the Jewish communi-
ties in Italy. From 1936 to 1939 he headed the rabbinical semi-
nary in Rhodes, and in 1940 became lecturer and librarian at
Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati.

Sonne's scholarly interests extended to history, particu-
larly that of Italian Jewry; biography (Judah Abrabanel, Uriel
d'Acosta, Leone Modena); philosophy (Spinoza, Pascal); He-
brew literature (Immanuel of Rome); bibliography; and Jew-
ish art. He was a scholar of penetrating insights, able to ex-
tract underlying historical theories from seemingly trivial
details, e.g., his article in the Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume
(1950, Hebrew section, 209-32). Sonne discovered a number
of hitherto unknown works and documents, his main work
consisting of articles that he published in learned periodicals
and Festschriften. His books include Avnei Binyan le-Toledot
ha-Yehudim be-Italyah ("Documents in the History of the
Jews in Italy," 1938-40) and Mi-Paulus ha-Revii ad Pius ha-
Hamishi "From Paul iv to Pius v," 1954); among his biblio-
graphical studies is his "Expurgation of Hebrew Books; the
work of Jewish Scholars" (in: Bulletin of the New York Pub-
lic Library , 46 (1942), 975-1013). Of a polemical bent, Sonne
was involved in a number of scholarly controversies. He be-
queathed his collection of books and manuscripts to the Ben-
Zvi Institute, Jerusalem, which published a memorial volume
in his name in 1961.

bibliography: E.E. Urbach, in: Sefunot, 5 (1961), 11-16; N.
Ben-Menahem, ibid., 17-25 (bibl.); A.M. Habermann, in: Haaretz
(Dec. 30, i960); A.S. Halkin, ibid. (July 28, i960).

[Jerucham Tolkes]

SONNEBORN, RUDOLF GOLDSCHMIDT (1898-1986),
U.S. businessman and Zionist leader. Sonneborn was born
in Baltimore, Maryland. He served as a navy pilot during
World War 1. In 1920 he joined his family's oil and chemical
firm, L. Sonneborn and Sons of New York City, with which
he remained associated. He was a director of the Commercial
State Bank and Trust Company of New York, and president of
the American Financial and Development Corporation for
Israel and the Israel American Petroleum Corporation. Son-
neborn was first attracted to Zionism during his student years.
In 1919, when he was 21, he served on the ^Zionist Commis-
sion to Palestine and journeyed alone to Damascus to con-
fer with Emir Feisal. His wide connections in the American-
Jewish community well equipped him as leader of a small
group of prominent American Jews, called the Sonneborn
Institute, who worked secretly with the Haganah in the years
after World War 11 to provide the Palestine yishuv with des-
perately needed arms, ships (including the famous Exodus) ,
and supplies. After the establishment of the State of Israel,

the group continued its activities as Materials for Israel, of
which Sonneborn was president until 1955. In addition to his
business activities on behalf of the Jewish State, Sonneborn
served in executive capacities with the United Jewish Appeal,
the United Israel Appeal, and the Zionist Organization of
America. He married Dorothy *Schiff, owner and publisher
of the New York Post.

add. bibliography: L. Goldstein, The Pledge (2001).

[Hillel Halkin]

SONNEMANN, LEOPOLD (1831-1909), German banker,
newspaper publisher, politician; founder and owner of the
Frankfurter Zeitung. He was born in the town of Hochberg,
Bavaria, to a traditional Jewish family. Following the death
of his father in 1853, Sonnemann successfully turned the fam-
ily's cloth-trade business into an international banking house.
In 1856, at the age of 25, he joined forces with another Frank-
furt banker, H.B. Rosenthal, in establishing a liberal financial
paper, Frankfurter Geschaftsbericht, later renamed Frank-
furter Handelsblatt. In 1859, the paper was transformed into
the Neue Frankfurter Zeitung and, in 1866, into the Frank-
furter Zeitung (fz), by then published in Sonnemanns Frank-
furter Societaets-Druckerei. In 1867, he became sole proprietor
and editor. Under his direction, the fz soon developed
into one of the leading liberal dailies in Germany. Deeply
impressed as a boy by the revolutionary events in 1848/49,
Sonnemann was one of the founders of the Volkswirtschaftli-
cher Kongress (German Economic Congress), to which he
reported on banking and stock exchange systems until 1885.
From 1871 to 1876 and from 1878 to 1884, he was a member
of the Reichstag, representing the Deutsche Volkspartei (South-
ern German Democratic Party). He was also a member of
the Frankfurt city council. In his will, he asked that the
Frankfurter Zeitung remain a liberal voice, and so it contin-
ued until it was closed on the personal instructions of Hit-
ler in 1943.

bibliography: H. Simon, Leopold Sonnemann (Ger., 1931).
add. bibliography: A. Giesen (ed.), Zwolf Jahre im Reichstage.
Reichstagsreden von Leopold Sonnemann (1901); Wininger 5 (1930),
571-2; E. Kahn, in: lbiyb, 2 (1957), 228-35; K. Gerteis, Leopold
Sonnemann (1970); W.E. Mosse, in: lbiyb, 15 (1970), 125-39; B.B.
Frye, in: lbiyb, 22 (1976), 143-72; A. Estermann, Dokumente zu Le-
opold Sonnemann (1995).

[Lawrence H. Feigenbaum / Johannes Valentin Schwarz (2 nd ed.)]

SONNENFELD, BARRY (1953- ), U.S. director-producer.
Born in New York City, Sonnenfeld grew up in Washington
Heights and attended the High School of Music and Art in
Manhattan. He majored in political science at New York Uni-
versity, but completed his senior year at Hampshire College in
Amherst, Massachusetts. Following a cross-country trip, Son-
nenfeld decided to enroll in nyu's Graduate Institute of Film
and Television. He earned money making industrial films,
directing commercials, music videos, and X-rated movies. In
1982, Sonnenfeld worked as a cinematographer on the doc-

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SONNENFELD, JOSEPH HAYYIM BEN ABRAHAM SOLOMON

umentary In Our Water, which earned an Academy Award
nomination. After he met fellow nyu film student Joel *Coen
at a party, the two became friends. Sonnenfeld helped Coen
raise money for the noir thriller Blood Simple (1984), for which
he was the cinematographer. In 1985, he won an Emmy Award
for his work on an abc television special, Out of Step. He
was the cinematographer for several feature films, including
the Coen brothers' Raising Arizona (1987) and Millers Cross-
ing (1990) and Rob * Reiner's When Harry Met Sally... (1989)
and Misery (1990). Sonnenfeld directed The Addams Family
(1991), a big-screen adaptation of the 1960s sitcom inspired by
Charles Addams' cartoons, which earned more than $110 mil-
lion, and the sequel, Addams Family Values (1993). He turned
down the opportunity to direct Forrest Gump (1994), prefer-
ring instead to adapt the Elmore Leonard novel Get Shorty
(1995), which earned actor John Travolta a Golden Globe. Af-
ter directing the quirky sci-fi comedy hit Men in Black (1997),
Sonnenfeld began moving into production with two Elmore
Leonard projects, television's Maximum Bob (1998) and the
Steven *Soderbergh-directed feature Out of Sight (1998). Af-
ter directing Wild Wild West (1999), a big-budget flop, Son-
nenfeld returned to his crime roots directing the Dave Barry
comedy Big Trouble (2002) and the sequel to his 1997 hit Men
in Black 11 (2002). He delved further into Leonards lead char-
acter from Out of Sight with the short-lived television show
Karen Sisco (2003). In 2004, he produced the Coen brothers'
remake of The Ladykillers and Lemony Snicket's A Series of

Unfortunate Events.

[Adam Wills (2 nd ed.)]

SONNENFELD, JOSEPH HAYYIM BEN ABRAHAM
SOLOMON (1849-1932), first rabbi of the separatist Ortho-
dox community in Jerusalem. Born in Verbo (Slovakia), Son-
nenfeld was orphaned at the age of four. As a child he stud-
ied both in a talmud torah and in a general school, but in his
youth he decided to devote himself entirely to rabbinic study.
After pursuing his studies in the yeshivah of his native town,
in 1865 he went to Pressburg, where he lived in great poverty
while studying in the yeshivah of Abraham Samuel Benjamin
Sofer. In 1870 he received the title of honor Morenu from his
teacher in a letter full of laudatory references to his great learn-
ing. The same year he went to Kobersdorf (Burgenland), where
he became a pupil of A. Shag, who thought highly of him. In
1873 Sonnenfeld accompanied his teacher to Erez Israel and
settled in the Old City of Jerusalem, and until the end of his
life meticulously refrained from remaining outside the walls
of the Old City for more than 30 days. He formed a close as-
sociation with M.J.L. *Diskin and was his right hand in his
communal activities, such as the founding of the large orphan-
age and schools and the struggle against the secular schools.
Sonnenfeld was one of the most active and influential person-
alities in the community centered in the Old City. He headed
the Hungarian kolel Shomerei ha-Homot ("the guardians of
the walls"), founded the Battei Ungarn quarter, and helped in
the establishment of other quarters in Jerusalem. In 1919 he

was one of a group of rabbis headed by A.I. Kook which vis-
ited the newly established settlements in order to influence
them with regard to the observance of Judaism.

Sonnenfeld stood for complete separation between
the Orthodox and the non- Orthodox; he strongly opposed
the bringing of the institutions of the old yishuv under the
control of the Zionist bodies and the participation of the
Orthodox in the official community, Keneset Yisrael, and
fought for the statutory right of every individual to opt out of
it. When the Jewish Battalions were founded in World War 1
he opposed enlistment of Orthodox Jews in the battalions.
He was one of the founders of the Va'ad ha-Ir le-Kehillat
ha-Ashkenazim ("City Council for the Ashkenazi Commu-
nity"), as well as of its bet din, in opposition to the official
Jerusalem rabbinate. He was also a founder of *Agudat Israel
in Erez Israel.

As a result of his adherence to the doctrine of separation,
Sonnenfeld was one of the chief opponents of A.I. Kook, and
led the opposition to his appointment as rabbi of Jerusalem,
and later as chief rabbi of Erez Israel, even though on the per-
sonal level their relationship was one of friendship and es-
teem. In 1920 Sonnenfeld was elected rabbi of a separate Or-
thodox community. In his struggle for the emergence of the
separatist community he was especially aided by the Dutch
publicist Jacob Israel de *Haan, who took care that eminent
non- Jewish visitors would meet Sonnenfeld, and they were
duly impressed by his personality. He was a member of the
separatist Orthodox delegation that appeared, on de Haan's
initiative, before Hussein, king of the Hedjaz, when the latter
visited Transjordan. He appeared before the U.S. King-Crane
Commission (see: ^Palestine, Inquiry Commissions); he also
instructed his followers to meet Lord Northcliffe on his visit
to Erez Israel. On all these occasions Sonnenfeld expressed a
positive attitude to the Jewish resettlement of Erez Israel and
the return to Zion, and in the census declared Hebrew as his
language. He generally preached loyalty toward the govern-
ment. He also inclined to moderation toward the Arabs of
Erez Israel and strove to establish peace between them and
the Jewish population.

His published works include glosses to the Aguddah on
Bava Kamma (Jerusalem, 1874) and on all of Nezikin (1899),
a pamphlet, Seder ha-Purim ha-Meshullash (1898 ff.); Salmat
Hayyim, responsa to Shulhan Arukh Orah Hayyim and Yoreh
Deah (193842).

bibliography: M. B\au,Ammuda di-Nehora (1932, 1968 2 );

idem, Al Homotayikh Yerushalayim (1946), 114-9; L Breuer, in:

Nach'lath Zwi, 2 (1932), 193-201; S. Daniel, in: La-Moed, 1 (1959),

281-5; A.B. Schurin, Keshet Gibborim (1964), 93-97; Tidhar, 1 (1947),

6if.

[Zvi Kaplan]

SONNENFELD, SIGISMUND (1847-1929), journalist, phi-
lanthropist, and communal leader, born in Vagujhely (then in
Hungary). After graduating in philosophy, Sonnenfeld joined
the staff of Pester Lloyd in Budapest. In 1890 he settled in Paris

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SONNENFELS, ALOYS VON

where he became director of the philanthropic institutions of
Baron de * Hirsch; as such he took part in planning relief for
East European Jewry. From 1891 to 1911 he was a director of
ica (* Jewish Colonization Association), undertaking several
study tours in Russia, Romania, and Argentina. He also was
a member of the central committee of the ^Alliance Israelite
Universelle.

bibliography: Wininger, Biog, 5 (1930), s.v.

SONNENFELDT, HELMUT (1926- ), political adviser and
scholar. Born in Berlin, Sonnenfeldt fled Nazi Germany with
his family, settling in the United States in 1944. He was edu-
cated at Johns Hopkins University, earning his bachelors de-
gree in 1950 and his masters degree in 1951.

Sonnenfeldt joined the U.S. Department of State in 1952,
becoming director of the Office of Research on the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe, a position he held until 1969. That
year he was appointed as a National Security Council aide on
Soviet affairs, working under Henry Kissinger, who was Presi-
dent Richard Nixon's national security adviser. Sonnenfeldt s
close relationship with Kissinger, as well as their agreement in
foreign policy matters, led to his inclusion in Kissinger's wide-
ranging diplomatic ventures, including the early initiatives
toward normalization of relations with China and the ex-
tensive negotiations leading to the Strategic Arms Limita-
tion Talks.

Following Kissinger's appointment as secretary of state in
1973, Sonnenfeldt returned to the State Department, holding
the position of counselor from 1974 to 1977. An expert politi-
cal analyst, Sonnenfeldt also had a reputation as an anti-Com-
munist. His departure from the department in 1977 was pur-
portedly driven by a misunderstanding over remarks about
the Soviet Union.

Sonnenfeldt continued his career as a consultant and
political analyst, writing and lecturing on international is-
sues. He became a visiting scholar at the School of Advanced
International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. In 1978 he
was named a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution, a po-
sition he still held in 2006. In 1988 and 1989 he served as a
member of the executive committee of the International In-
stitute of Strategic Studies. He wrote and lectured extensively
on Asian- Pacific affairs, national security, U.S. -European re-
lations, and executive and congressional relations. His works
include Soviet Politics in the 1980s (1985), Soviet Perspectives
on Security (with William Hyland, 1979), and Soviet Style in
International Politics (1985). He contributed numerous articles
to academic journals.

Sonnenfeldt serves as a trustee of Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity and was a member of the Executive Panel of the Chief
of Naval Operations. He was director of the Atlantic Council
of the United States and was a member of the advisory coun-
cil of numerous organizations, including the Balkan Action
Committee, the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee,

and the World Affairs Council.

[Dorothy Bauhoff (2 nd ed.)]

SONNENFELS, ALOYS VON (Hayyim Lipmann Perlin;
Aloys Wiener; d. c. 1775-80), apostate Hebrew interpreter
in Vienna. Son of a Brandenburg rabbi, Sonnenfels went
to *Mikulov (Nikolsburg), Moravia, as an agent of the local
noblemen. He adopted the Roman Catholic faith between
1735 and 1741 and had his two sons baptized. His wife, how-
ever, remained in the Jewish faith. Moving to Vienna, he be-
came teacher of Oriental languages at the university there and
court interpreter to *Maria Theresa. He was knighted in 1746.
A year earlier he had published Or Nogah, Splendor lucis y sl
"physico-kabbalistic" exposition in Hebrew and German of
the problem of the philosopher s stone. In 1753 he translated
the Shai Takkanot (see *Moravia) for the compilation of the
Polizey-ordnung of 1754. That same year he wrote to R. Isaac
Landau of Cracow offering to go to Poland to assist in the
struggle against the Frankist blood libel (see Jacob *Frank
and the Frankists), publishing Juedischer Blut-Eckel in Latin
and German against the blood libel (1753). In it he argued
that such false, superstitious accusations prevented Jews from
recognizing the truth of Christianity. When Jacob Selekh, the
representative of Polish Jewry, went to ask for the renewal of
the papal *bulls in refutation of the blood libel, Sonnenfels
submitted an Italian translation of his book. He published a
christological apology, Controversiae cum Judaeis ("Contro-
versies with the Jews"), in Latin in 1758. When proposing, in
1760, that he should write a book in defense of the Talmud,
which was then under attack at the court of Pope Clem-
ent xni, he requested financial support for this project from
the Italian communities. The book, which was also to include
proof that the Gospels could be explained by the Talmud, did
not materialize.

His son Joseph (1732-1817) became the chief representa-
tive of the ideology of enlightened despotism, and as adviser
to Maria Theresa, * Joseph 11, and Leopold 11, one of the most
influential men in the Hapsburg Empire in the second half of
the 18 th century. Born in Mikulov and baptized at the age of
three, he never mentioned his Jewish origin. After graduating
from the philosophy faculty of Vienna University, he joined
the army in 1749. On his discharge (1754) he studied law, be-
coming a professor of political science in 1763. As he was pro-
ficient in nine languages, Hebrew among them, he succeeded
his father as court interpreter.

Joseph von Sonnenfels published more than 150 books
and pamphlets and his textbooks on national economy, partic-
ularly mercantilism, were influential for decades (Grundsaetze
der Polizey-Handlung und Finanzwissenschaft y 3 vols., 1765-67,
1819-22). Sonnenfels opposed excessive urbanization and held
that it was the responsibility of the state to guarantee all who
were willing to work the minimum means of subsistence. In
his Ueber die Liebe des Vaterlandes (1771) he introduced the
concept of the "fatherland" into Hapsburg lands. He favored
indirect taxation and opposed revenue farming. Sonnenfels
had literary ambitions, aspiring to be the first Austrian author
to attain international fame. He founded the periodical Der
Mann ohne Vorurteil (1765-75). He eliminated the Hanswurst

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SONNENSCHEIN, ROSA

("buffoon") from the popular Viennese stage and was involved
in a controversy with Gotthold Ephraim *Lessing. In Aus-
tria he was remembered mainly for the part he played in the
abolition of torture injudicial procedure (Ueber die Abschaf-
fungder Tortur, 1775, 1782 2 ). He also fostered educational re-
form.

Sonnenfels drafted the *Toleranzpatent of Joseph 11,
which shows the imprint of his theories. In 1782 he published
in Berlin a pamphlet titled Das Forschen nach Licht und Re-
cht in which he requested Moses ^Mendelssohn to become a
Christian. Mendelssohn's reaction to this was published in
his Jerusalem (1783). In 1784 Sonnenfels made Mendelssohn a
member of his Deutsche Gesellschaft (German scientific soci-
ety) and of the Vienna Academy of Sciences. Although highly
honored during his lifetime (becoming Wirklicher Geheimrat,
Real Aulic councillor in 1779, twice rector of Vienna Univer-
sity, head of the Academy of Sciences in 1810), Sonnenfels was
known in Vienna as "the Nikolsburg Jew." A statue of him was
erected in front of Vienna city hall when the antisemite Karl
*Lueger was mayor; it was removed under Nazi rule (1938)
and restored in 1945.

bibliography: R.A. Kann, A Study in Austrian Intellectual
History (i960), 146-244; bibl., 310-35; Holzmann and Portheim, in:
Zeitschrift fuer die Geschichte der Juden in der Tschechoslowakei, 1
(1930/31), 198-207; 2 (1931/32), 60-66; Nirtl, ibid., 3 (1932/33)* 224;
W. Mueller, UrkundlicheBeitraege... maehrischen Judenschaft (1903),
83-84; F. Kobler, Juden und Judentum in deutschen Briefen (1938),
50-51; 103-14; L. Loew, Gesammelte Schriften, 2 (1891), 363-6; 405-6;
idem, Aron Chorin (Ger., 1863), 137-40; G. Wolf, Das Unterrichtswe-
sen in Oesterreich unter Kaiser Josef 11 nach... Joseph von Sonnenfels
(1880); Zielenziger, in: ess, 14 (1954), 258-9; S. Simonsohn, Toledot
ha-Yehudim be-Dukkasut Mantova (1963), index; Katz, in: Zion, 29
(1964), 112-32; R. Kestenberg-Gladstein, Neuere Geschichte der Juden
in den boehmischen Laendern, 1 (1969), index.

[Meir Lamed]

SONNENSCHEIN (nee Jassol), ROSA (1847-1932), early
American Zionist and editor. Sonnenschein was born in
Hungary but immigrated to America where she soon became
prominent in literary circles, serving as special correspondent
for several St. Louis and Chicago newspapers while attending
the Paris Exposition.

At the Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893
she read a paper on the need for a literary journal for women,
which was followed by her founding the first independent
English -language Jewish women's journal in the United States,
The American Jewess, which appeared from 1895 to 1899, when
it was discontinued for financial reasons, despite the fact that
it was supported by the National Council of Women and had
many well-known contributors, including Israel *Zangwill,
Max *Nordau and Isaac Meyer *Wise.

During her numerous trips abroad, she met Theodor
*Herzl and became an ardent Zionist and was a delegate to
the First Zionist Congress held in Basle in 1897.

In 1864, she married Rabbi Solomon Hirsch Sonnen-
schein who was a rabbi in Prague and subsequently in New

York, St. Louis, and Des Moines, Iowa. They were divorced
however in the 1890s.

bibliography: J.N. Porter, in: American Jewish History
(1978), 78; J. Zausmer, Be-Ikve ha-Dor (1957); A. Lebeson, Recall to
Life: The Jewish Women in America (1970), 228-33.

[Jack Nusan Porter]

SONNENTHAL, ADOLF RITTER VON (Neckwadel;

1834-1909), Austrian actor and theatrical director. Appren-
ticed to a tailor, Sonnenthal decided to become an actor on
seeing a performance by Bogumil *Dawison. For several years
he acted in theaters in Temesvar, Hermannstadt, and Graz, un-
til he was invited by Heinrich Laube to join the Burgtheater
in Vienna in 1856. After an indifferent debut, he triumphed
in Don Carlos and was given a contract that kept him at the
Burgtheater for life. Though not handsome, he nevertheless
excelled in drawing-room comedy, but he gained his great
reputation in Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, Ibsen. Among his
most impressive roles were Romeo, Hamlet, Macbeth, Wal-
lenstein, Faust, King Lear, Nathan the Wise, and Uriel Acosta.
He became Oberregisseur of the Burgtheater in 1884 and its
provisional general manager in 1887-88 and 1889-90. Son-
nenthal was a practicing Jew and resisted attempts to convert
him. More than once he was a target of antisemitic attacks.
The emperor made him a nobleman in 1881. He made guest
appearances in Russia and the U.S.

bibliography: L. Eisenberg, Adolf Sonnenthal (Ger., 1900).
add. bibliography: J. Bab and W. Handl, Deutsche Schaus-
pieler . . . (1908); J. Minor, Aus dem alten und neuen Burgtheater (1920);
J. Handl, Schauspieler des Burgtheaters (1955).

[Gershon K. Gershony / Jens Make Fischer (2 nd ed.)]

SONNINO, (Giorgio) SIDNEY (1847-1922), Italian states-
man and economist who twice became prime minister of Italy.
The son of a wealthy Jewish merchant from Pisa and a Prot-
estant mother whose faith he adopted, Sonnino graduated
from the University of Pisa and was variously occupied as a
journalist, lawyer, and diplomat. In 1880 he entered parlia-
ment where he rapidly established himself as an authority on
financial policy. In 1893 he became undersecretary of the
treasury and was made minister of finance in 1896 when, to-
gether with Luigi *Luzzatti, he helped reduce the Italian bud-
get deficit.

Sonnino served two short periods as prime minister (in
1906 and 1909-10) and was foreign minister during World
War 1, signing the Treaty of London in 1915 by which Italy
sided with the Allies. He remained foreign minister after the
war and headed the Italian delegation at the Versailles Peace
Conference in 1919. Sonnino retired in 1920 and was made a
senator for life. He left two books dealing with his political
life: Discorsi per la Guerra (1922) and Discorsi parlamentari
(3 vol., 1925).

bibliography: M. Viterbo, Sidney Sonnino (It., 1923); A.
Savelli, S. Sonnino (It., 1923); C. Montalcini, Sidney Sonnino (It.,
1926). add. bibliography: G Haywood, Failure of a Dream:

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SONS OF LIGHT

Sidney Sonnino and the Rise and the Fall of the Liberal Italy (1999);

E. Minuto, Ilpartito dei parlamentari: Sidney Sonnino e le istituzioni

rappresentative(i900-i9o6) (2004).

[Giorgio Romano]

SONNTAG, JACOB (1905-1984), Ukrainian-born editor and
author. The son of a bookbinder, Sonntag was educated in
Vienna and elsewhere in Central Europe, fleeing to England
in 1938. He devoted himself to Anglo-Jewish cultural affairs
and made repeated attempts to found a periodical for Jewish
writers and artists. Sonntag finally succeeded with The Jew-
ish Quarterly, which he founded in 1953. Edited almost single-
handedly, it provided the main periodical venue in England
for intelligent discussion of Jewish issues and published the
early works of a range of distinguished Anglo-Jewish writers,
including Dannie *Abse, Jon *Silkin, and Arnold *Wesker. It
continued to be published after Sonntag's death. He also ed-
ited the anthology Caravan (1962).

bibliography: odnb online; R. Sonntag, "Jacob Sonntag: A
Personal Memoir," in: S.W. Massil (ed.), The Jewish Year Book 200$,

Xlll-XVlll.

[William D. Rubinstein (2 nd ed.)]

SON OF MAN (Heb. D"TK ]3; pi. DIK >3?, Aram. B% 13).

In the Bible

In the Bible the phrase "son of man," or "sons of man" (adam),
is used as a synonym for a member of the human race, i.e., de-
scendants of Adam. It occurs frequently in Psalms in the plu-
ral, and the most cogent examples of its meaning are Psalms
90:3, "Thou turnest man to contrition, and sayest, return, ye
sons of man"; 115:16, "the heavens are the heavens of the Lord,
but the earth hath He given to the sons of man"; and repeatedly
in Psalm 107. In Psalm 49:3 a distinction is made between "the
sons of Adam and the sons of Ish, rich and poor together," and
it would appear that insofar as the two are distinct, the for-
mer refers to the common man, while Ish refers to the upper
strata (cf. Isa. 2:9 and 11). The phrase "son of man" is merely
the singular of benei adam, and in the Bible has no theologi-
cal or mystical connotation. It is most frequently used by
Ezekiel, mostly as the form of address to him by God, where
it occurs 79 times, and it seems, as is clear from chapter 33,
that he wishes thereby to emphasize that he is possessed of no
special qualities or powers different from those of any other
person, except that he has been selected as the "watchman"

of his people.

[Louis Isaac Rabinowitz]

Post- Biblical Concept

The eschatological figure commonly identified with the Mes-
siah occurs in chapter 7 of the Book of Daniel in a vision which
is explained by the angel in a collective way as the holy ones
of the most high, i.e., Israel or the pious among them. The au-
thor of Daniel based himself upon a more ancient tradition
according to which the title son of man was a designation of
a special eschatological figure. This idea existed possibly by
the third century b.c.e.; the designation "man" for messiah

already occurs in the Greek translation of the Pentateuch (see
^Messiah) of this period.

The son of man is named "man" also in iv Ezra, and in
Hebrew "son of man" and "man" is identical. In the whole
literature in which it is mentioned, the son of man is always
portrayed with the same economy of line. The son of man has
a superhuman, heavenly sublimity. He is the cosmic judge at
the end of time; seated upon the throne of God, he will judge
the whole human race with the aid of the heavenly hosts, con-
signing the just to blessedness and sinners to the pit of hell;
and he will execute the sentence he passes. Frequently he is
identified with the Messiah, as in the Book of Enoch, chapters
37-71, and in 1 v Ezra. According to a later part of the Book of
Enoch (ch. 71) the son of man is identified with Enoch him-
self as the heavenly scribe. According to the apocryphal Testa-
ment of Abraham the son of man is literally Adam's son Abel
who was killed by the wicked Cain, for God desired that every
man be judged by a man (the identification is based upon
a verbal understanding that son of man in Hebrew is
ben-Adam). Though in the Dead Sea Scrolls there were
also other messianic concepts, the concept of son of man is
also reflected in them. The eschatological figure occurring
in the Thanksgiving Scroll (3, 5-18) resembles or is identi-
cal with the son of man of other Jewish literature. In one of
the fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls Melchizedek fig-
ures as the judge at the end of time. In company with angels
from on High he will judge man and the wicked spirits of
Beliaal. Thus the son of man could be even identified with
the biblical Melchizedek according to a mythical understand-
ing.

The idea of son of man originated possibly from a mi-
drashic interpretation of Ezekiel 1:26, "... and the likeness as
the appearance of a man above upon it." In the Book of Enoch
(46: 1, 2) the son of man is presented with similar words "with
Him was another being whose countenance had the appear-
ance of a man... And I asked the angel who went with me
and showed me all the hidden things, concerning that son of
man, who he was. . . ."

Thus it seems that the concept preceded the final iden-
tification of the son of man with the Messiah, which became
common at the end of the Second Temple period. It was so
applied in the time of Jesus, who used to speak of the son of
man as the heavenly judge, and it seems that finally he iden-
tified himself with this sublime figure.

[David Flusser]

bibliography: post-biblical concept: D. Flusser, in:
Christian News from Israel (1966), 23-29; S. Mowinckel, He That Co-
meth (1956); E. Sjoberg, Der Menschensohn in dem aethiopischen He-
nochbuch (1946).

SONS OF LIGHT (Heb. 1iX 'JJ, benei or), phrase used spe-
cially in the *Dead Sea Scrolls denoting the godly, by con-
trast with the phrase "sons of darkness" (Heb. ^"pU '31, benei
hoshekh) denoting the ungodly. It is so used, notably in the
*War Scroll, where "the sons of light put forth their hands

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SONTAG, SUSAN

to make a beginning against the lot of the sons of darkness"
(iqm 1:1). The "sons of light" are here particularized as "the
sons of Levi, the sons of Judah, the sons of Benjamin, the
dispersion of the wilderness"; the "sons of darkness" as the
hosts of Edom, Moab, the Ammonites, Philistia, and the Kit-
tim, aided by those who transgress the covenant. In the event
described, the sons of light annihilate the sons of darkness.
From the viewpoint of the Qumran community, the sons of
light are members of the community and their sympathizers.
On entry into membership the candidate swears "to love all
the sons of light, each according to his lot in the council of
God, and to hate the sons of darkness, each according to his
guilt in the vengeance of God" (iqs 1:9-11). The apostate is
to be "cut off from the midst of the sons of light" (iqs 2:16).
The sons of light are so chosen through God's predestinating
decree. When God created man, He appointed two spirits to
govern him: "dominion over all the sons of righteousness is in
the hand of the Prince of Lights, and they walk in the ways of
light; all dominion over the sons of perversity is in the hand
of the Angel of Darkness, and they walk in the ways of dark-
ness" (iqs 3:20 if.). The Angel of Darkness, indeed, makes
even the sons of light go astray, but they can count on the aid
of "the God of Israel and the angel of His truth" (iqs 3:24ff.).
The designation "sons of light" is one of the links between the
Qumran texts and the New Testament; in the latter it is found
on the lips of Jesus (Luke 16:8, where it is opposed to the "sons
of this age", John 12:36) and in the Pauline writings (Eph. 5:8;
I Thess. 5:5). In both bodies of literature the ultimate back-
ground is the separation made by God in the beginning when
He called light into being as the first of His creative works and
separated it from the darkness (Gen. 1:3 ff).

bibliography: A.R.C. Leaney, Rule of Qumran and Its Mean-
ing (1966), 79 if., passim.

[Frederick Fyvie Bruce]

SONTAG, SUSAN (1933-2004), U.S. critic and author. Born
in New York City, Susan Sontag taught philosophy and aes-
thetics at the City College of New York, Sarah Lawrence Col-
lege, and from 1961 to 1965 at Columbia University.

Her first novel, The Benefactor, was published in 1963,
but her reputation grew largely from her literary criticism,
which appeared throughout the 1960s in a number of jour-
nals and was collected in Against Interpretation (1966) and
Styles of Radical Will (1969). Consciously avant-gardist, it ar-
gued for a purely formalistic approach to literary values, while
at the same time seeking to reconcile this position with her
left-wing political views. A second novel, Death Kit (1967),
was concerned, like her first, with the relation between illu-
sion and reality. She also wrote and directed a movie, Duet
for Cannibals (1969). Later works include plays, among them
Alice in Bed: A Play in Eight Scenes (1993). In addition to sto-
ries and essays, Sontag has written books that include the
1992 novel The Volcano Lover: A Romance. A selection of her
writings was collected in the 1982 A Susan Sontag Reader. In
her capacity as literary critic she has edited Antonin Artaud:

Selected Writings (1988) and A Barthes Reader (1982). Her re-
flection on the relationships amongst photography, history,
and perception, On Photography, appeared in 1977. Her own
battle with cancer led her to write Illness as Metaphor (1978),
followed in 1989 with a complementary study, Aids and Its
Metaphors. In 2000, her sweeping novel of late 19 th century
America, and the fortunes of Maryna Zalezowska, was pub-
lished with the title In America: A Novel. It received the Na-
tional Book Award. Conversations with Susan Sontag, edited
by Leland Pogue, appeared in 1995.

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sci-
ences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Son-
tag has been the recipient of many awards including the 1978
American National Book Critics prize. She was created Offi-
cier de l'Ordre des Artes et des Lettres in France in 1984.

add. bibliography: L. Kennedy, Susan Sontag: Mind as
Passion (1995); C. Rollyson, Reading Susan Sontag: A Critical In-
troduction to Her Work (2001); S. Sayres, Susan Sontag: the Elegiac
Modernist (1990).

[Rohan Saxena and Lewis Fried (2 nd ed.)]

SOP RON (Ger. Oedenburg), city in W. Hungary on the Aus-
trian border, within proximity of the "Seven Communities" of
*Burgenland. Jews were living there during the 14 th century,
according to the prevailing custom in a "Jewish street." Their
residence in Sopron was guaranteed by King Charles Robert
in 1324. The land registry records of 1379 show that 27 houses
were owned by Jews. After King Louis the Great expelled
the Jews in 1360, those who lived in the town left for nearby
* Wiener Neustadt in Austria, where some of them made their
fortune and became well-known financiers. When Louis au-
thorized their return in 1365, their houses were transferred to
Christian ownership. During their absence the debts owed to
them were canceled by Rudolf, prince of Austria, upon the
request of the citizens of Sopron. Upon their return the Jews
demanded that the validity of their promissory notes be rec-
ognized, but the townsmen succeeded in revoking them.

Their situation did not improve until the reign of Mat-
thias Corvinus, when the office of *Praefectus Judaeorum was
established. From 1495 a special tax was imposed on the Jews
by the governor of the town until in 1523 the king took them
under his protection. The Jews then numbered 400. Rabbis
of Sopron at the close of the 14 th century were R. Meir (men-
tioned in Sefer ha-Minhagim) and R. Judah (mentioned in the
Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah as a distinguished scholar in the Ger-
manic countries). Fifteen codices recently discovered attest
the erudition of the Jewish scholars of Sopron.

When the whole of Hungary was conquered by the Turks
in 1526, the Jews were expelled from the town "forever." They
infiltrated back into Sopron in the 18 th century but its gates
remained closed to them until freedom of residence was au-
thorized by law in 1840. In 1855, 180 Jews were living there.
New settlers came mainly from the "Seven Communities"
of Burgenland where they had lived under the protection of
the Eszterhazy family from the 16 th century. The municipal

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SORCERY

council of Sopron again attempted to oppose them, and in
1858 anti- Jewish riots broke out in the town; these were sup-
pressed by the central authorities. In 1857 the Jews were au-
thorized to organize themselves as a community but they did
not possess a cemetery or synagogue. In 1862 the municipal
council prevented the community from purchasing land for
a cemetery and the Jews were compelled to acquire an estate
for this purpose (1869). A synagogue was erected in 1876, and
in 1884 a school was built. The community remained ^status
quo ante after the schism in Hungarian Jewry of 1868-69 ( see
* Hungary). In 1868 L. Alt was appointed rabbi of Sopron but
he was dismissed in 1872. It was only 20 years later that M.
*Pollak was appointed as the first, and also the last, rabbi of the
status quo ante community (1894-1944). An Orthodox com-
munity was organized in 1872; its rabbi was Menahem Gruen-
wald (1872-1930). A talmud torah was established in 1874, and
a yeshivah was founded in 1917 by S. Posen, the rabbi of the
town (1930-44), who later settled in the United States.

The Jewish population numbered 1,152 in 1881; 1,632 in
1891; 2,255 m 1910; 2,483 in 1920; and 1,885 hi 1930. They were
mainly occupied as merchants, and included industrialists
and contractors, as well as a number of craftsmen and mem-
bers of the liberal professions. The anti- Jewish tradition in the
town continued and its German inhabitants rapidly adopted
the theory of racism.

Holocaust and Contemporary Periods

During World War 11, after the German occupation (March 19,
1944), the Jews, numbering 1,861 in 1941, were confined in a
ghetto. On July 5, around 3,000, including Jews from the sur-
rounding area, were deported to the death camp at Auschwitz.
Only a few returned. Even after the deportation, the inhab-
itants of Sopron did not help to alleviate the suffering of the
thousands of Jews from the forced labor camps who passed
through the town on their last halt before being sent to the
death camps in Germany.

After World War 11, only 274 Jews remained in Sopron
(1946), and only 47 in 1970.

bibliography: M. Pollak, A zsidok tortenete Sopronban

(1896) = Geschichte derjuden in Oedenburg (1929); S. Scheiber, Heber

kodexmaradvdnyok magyarorszdgi kotestdbldkban (1969); idem, Mag-

yaroszdgi zsido feliratok (i960); Magyar Zsido Lexikon (1929), 798-801;

mhj, 6 (1961), index; 11 (1968), index; F. Grunvald, in: miok evkonyv

(1970), 52-64.

[Baruch Yaron]

SORAUER, PAUL KARL MORITZ (1839-1916), German
plant pathologist. Sorauer was born in Breslau, the son of a
cabinet maker, and after studying horticulture went to Berlin
for further training in plant physiology. In 1872 he was ap-
pointed director of an experimental station for plant physiol-
ogy at Proskau. He was given the rank of professor in 1892, but
was obliged to relinquish his post the following year because of
a long-standing eye ailment. He moved to Berlin and lectured
for a time at the Humboldt Academy. At the age of 63 he was
made a Privatdozent at the University of Berlin.

Sorauer was the author of many publications on plant
diseases, which bear the stamp of his unique amalgam of prac-
tical knowledge and physiological science. He was the founder
of the Zeitschrift fuer Pflanzenkrankheiten, established in 1891.
A major work was his Handbuch der Pflanzenkrankheiten, first
published in 1874, which went through three editions. Sorauer
was an influential teacher, and trained a large number of Euro-
pean plant pathologists.

bibliography: Zeitschrift fuer Pflanzenkrankheiten, 26

(1916), 6-17.

[Mordecai L. Gabriel]

SORCERY. First and foremost among the "abhorrent prac-
tices of the nations" mentioned in the Bible are the various
forms of sorcery: "let no one be found among you who. . . is an
augur, a soothsayer, a diviner, a sorcerer, one who casts spells,
one who consults ghosts or familiar spirits, or one who in-
quires of the dead. For anyone who does such things is abhor-
rent to the Lord" (Deut. 18:9-14). ^Divination and soothsaying
(Lev. 19:26) and the turning to ghosts and spirits (Lev. 19:31 and
20:27) na d been proscribed separately before, and witchcraft
in general is outlawed with the lapidary "Thou shaft not suffer
a witch to live" (Ex. 22:17). ft was to be the characteristic of Ju-
daism that nothing would be achieved by * magic, but every-
thing by the will and spirit of God: hence the confrontations
of Joseph and the magicians of Egypt (Gen. 41), of Moses and
Aaron and Egyptian sorcerers (Ex. 7), of Daniel and the Baby-
lonian astrologers (Dan. 2), etc., and hence also the classifica-
tion of crimes of sorcery as tantamount to idolatrous crimes
of human sacrifices (Deut. 18:10) and to idolatrous sacrifices
in general (Ex. 22: 19) and its visitation, just as idolatry itself,
with death by stoning (Lev. 20:27; see ^Capital Punishment).
In a God-fearing Israel, there is no room for augury and sor-
cery (Num. 23:23; Isa. 8:19), and the presence of astrologers
(Isa. 47:13) and fortune-tellers is an indication of godlessness
(Nah. 3:4; Ezek. 13:20-23; et al.). Nonetheless, magic practices
remained widespread throughout, and not only with idolaters
(see, e.g., 1 Sam. 28:4-20; 11 Kings 18:4; Chron. 33:6).

Talmudic law differentiated between capital and non-
capital sorcery, retaining the death penalty only for those spe-
cies for which the Bible expressly enjoined it, namely witch-
craft (kishuf; Ex. 22:17) an d conjuring a death (ov and yidoni;
Lev. 20:27; Sanh. 7:4). Kishuf is nowhere exactly defined, but
a distinction is drawn between actual witchcraft, committed
by some overt and consummate act which resulted in mis-
chief, and then punishable, and the mere pretense at witchcraft
which, however unlawful and prohibited, is not punishable
(Sanh. 7:11 and 67b). Witchcraft appears to have been wide-
spread among women (cf. Avot 2:7), and Simeon b. Shetah is
reported to have ordered the execution of 80 witches in Ash-
kelon on a single day as an emergency measure (Sanh. 6:4
and Maimonides in his commentary thereto). It is witchcraft
that makes for the devastation of the world (Sot. 9:13). All
other species of sorcery are painstakingly defined in talmudic
sources, apparently upon patterns of contemporary pagan us-

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SOREK, VALLEY OF

age. Thus, ov conjures the dead to speak through his armpit,
while yidoni makes them speak through his mouth (Sanh. 7:7),
both using bones of the dead in the process (Sanh. 65b). The
aggravating circumstance, deserving of capital punishment,
obviously is the use of human remains for purposes of sorcery,
for he who simply communicates with the dead (in cemeteries
or elsewhere) and serves as their mouthpiece (doresh el ha-me-
tim) is punishable with flogging only (Yad, Avodat Kokhavim
11:13) _ ana " this would, presumably, apply also to modern spir-
itualism (DaatKoheriy no. 69). Other offenses punishable with
flogging (both for committing and soliciting them) are nihush,
defined as superstitions based on certain happenings or cir-
cumstances (Sanh. 65b; Yad, Avodat Kokhavim 11:4); kesem,
being fortune- telling from sands, stones, and the like (Maim.,
loc. cit. 11:6); onanut (done by the mebneri), being astrological
forecasts of fortunes (R. Akiva in Sanh. 65b; Maim. loc. cit.
11:8); and hever, the incantation of magic and unintelligible
formulae for purposes of healing or of casting spells (Maim,
loc. cit. 11:10). It is presumably because these practices were
so widespread that it was postulated that judges must have a
thorough knowledge of magic and astrology (Sanh. 17a; Maim.
Yad, Sanhedrin 2:1; and see *bet din).

While there is no information about the measure of law
enforcement in this field in talmudic and pre-talmudic times,
it seems certain that this branch of the law fell into disuse in
the Middle Ages. Superstitions of all kinds not only flourished
and were tolerated, but found their way even into the positive
law (see yd 179, passim, for at least eight instances). What be-
came known as "practical Kabbalah" is, legally speaking, sor-
cery at its worst. The penal provisions relating to sorcery are
a living illustration of the unenforceability of criminal law
(whether divine or human) which is out of tune with the prac-
tices and concepts of the people. In modern Israeli law, witch-
craft and related practices are instances of unlawful false pre-
tenses for obtaining money or credit (Penal Law Amendment
(Deceit, Blackmail, and Extortion), Law, 5723 - 1963).

See also ^Imagination; * intellect.

bibliography: Husik, Philosophy, index; Guttmann, Phi-
losophies, index; H. Davidson, in: A. Altmann (ed.), Jewish Medieval
and Renaissance Studies (1967), 75-94; H. Maker, in: jqr, 2 (1911-12),
453-79; S. Horovitz, Die Psychologie bei den juedischen Religionsphilos-
ophen des Mittelalters von Saadia bis Maimuni, 4 vols. (1898-1912).

[Alfred L. Ivry]

SOUL, IMMORTALITY OR

In the Bible

Unlike the gods of Mesopotamia and Canaan, e.g., Apsu, Tia-
mat, Baal, and Mot, who, while they could not die a natural
death, could incur a violent one, the God of Israel is the living
God (Hos. 2:1; Ps. 18:47). His lordship extends from heaven
to Sheol (Ps. 139:8; Job 26:6); He puts to death and brings to
life (1 Sam. 2:6; 1 Kings 17:17-22; 11 Kings 4:18-37); and He can
preserve His faithful from Sheol (Ps. 16:10).

Among the peoples of the Ancient Near East, the Egyp-
tians were very optimistic about the afterlife. They believed
that the dead lived a life almost identical with that in this
world (cf. The Book of the Dead, 110). The Babylonians, on
the other hand, were pessimistic about life after death. The
average human being had no means of escaping his fate: one
day he would die and descend to the netherworld, which was
governed by a god and goddess of death. There were, however,
special cases in which man could attain immortality. Theo-
retically, man could become immortal, or at least rejuvenated,
by means of a mysterious food or drink (cf. Adapa> frag, b;
Pritchard, Texts, 101-2; Gilgamesh, Tablet 11, lines 265-90,
Pritchard, Texts, 96). Immortality could be acquired by a spe-
cial favor of the gods in their assembly (see Gilgamesh y Tablet
11, lines 190-8). A god could also resurrect the dead: Ishtar
threatens the gatekeeper of the netherworld, saying: "I will
raise up the dead ... so that the dead will outnumber the liv-
ing" (Descent of Ishtar, line 20; Pritchard, Texts, 107).

In the Bible two persons are said to have left this world in
a special way: Enoch "was taken by God" (Gen. 5:24) and Eli-
jah "was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind" (11 Kings 2; cf. Ps.
49:16). The exact implication of these traditions is not clear.

The crucial passage of Proverbs 12:28 has been translated
differently through the centuries. Saadiah Gaon already un-
derstood it as immortality, as did E Delitzsch many centuries
later. M. Dahood (in: Biblica y 41 (i960), 176-81) related the
Hebrew JTO *7K c al mawet) in this verse to the Ugaritic blmt,
"not dying."

It is also possible that the Masoretic Text of Proverbs 14:3
contains the hope of a better life than that in Sheol (cf. Ps.
16:9-11; 73:24; A.W. van der Weiden, in: vt, 20 (1970), 339-50).
However in Daniel 12:2 the resurrection to eternal life for some
is unequivocally predicted. Only in the post -biblical period
did a clear and firm belief in the immortality of the soul take
hold (e.g., Wisd. 3) and become one of the cornerstones of the
Jewish and Christian faiths. See *Death; ^Resurrection.

In the Talmud

The rabbis of the Talmud believed in the continued existence
of the soul after death, but differed with regard to the nature
of this existence. On the one hand, the view was widespread
that the righteous person immediately after his death enters
the Garden of Eden, where he is vouchsafed to be in a special
section of the garden (Shab. 152b; bm 83b), while the wicked
go to *Gehinnom (Hag. 15a; Ber. 28b; Er. 19a; whether in cor-
poreal form or not is not mentioned). On the other hand,
the view is expressed that the soul of man - at death - is sev-
ered from any connection with the body and its pleasures,
ascends upward, and is gathered into "the treasury" beneath
"the throne of glory" (Shab. 152b), where it had its pre-exis-
tential origin in the upper heaven called "Aravot "; "where are
right and judgment and righteousness, the treasures of life,
the treasures of peace, the treasures of blessings, the souls
of the righteous, the spirits and souls yet to be born, and the
dew wherewith the Holy One will eventually revive the dead"
(Hag. 12b); while the souls of the wicked "continue to be im-
prisoned" (Shab. 152b), are "cast about on the earth" (Eccles.
R. 3:21; arn 1 12:50), and are cast from the slings of destruc-
tive angels (Shab. 152b).

Alongside the belief in the heavenly "treasury" to which
the soul returns after death, the ancient belief was widespread
in the talmudic era (and later) that the soul of man after death
continues with the body in the netherworld, either for a brief
or for an extended period. In one passage (tj, mk 3:5, 82b; tj,
Yev. 16:1, 15c) R. Levi says that the soul hovers over the body
for three days, hoping that it will return to it, and departing
only when the hope is belied (a belief found also in Zoroas-
trianism). Elsewhere it states that "a man's soul mourns for
him all the seven days of mourning" (Shab. 152a), and also
that "for full 12 months the body continues to exist and the
soul ascends and descends" and only after this period, when
the body is decomposed, "the soul ascends nevermore to de-
scend" (Shab. 152b). Similarly, there is neither uniformity nor
consistency concerning the extent of the consciousness re-
tained by the dead. In one passage it is stated that the dead
hear everything spoken in their presence until the grave is
sealed (ibid.) y while elsewhere it is stated that the dead are
aware (apparently eternally) of their own pain ("worms are
as painful to the dead as a needle in the flesh of the living,"
Shab. 13b) and shame. For this reason it was forbidden to walk
in a cemetery wearing *tefillin or reading from a Sefer Tor ah ,
since it seemed like a mockery of the dead (Ber. 18a). It is re-
lated that R. Hiyya and R. Jonathan were walking in a cem-

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SOUL, IMMORTALITY OF

etery, and Hiyya told Jonathan to gather up his *zizit so that
the dead should not say: "Tomorrow they are coming to join
us and now they insult us" (ibid.).

The dead even have contact with the living and direct
them in worldly affairs: the father of Samuel appeared to him,
on returning from "the heavenly yeshivah," and revealed to
him where the money of orphans, which had been deposited
with him, was to be found (Ber. 18b); and similarly a woman
innkeeper informed Zeiri after her death where the money he
deposited with her was lying (ibid.). The dead also hold con-
versations with the living: Some men digging in the field of R.
Nahman heard the sound of the deep breathing of a corpse,
and when Nahman came he conversed with him (Shab. 152b).
Deceased women adorn themselves in their clothes and or-
naments. The innkeeper who came into contact with Zeiri
requested that her mother send her a comb and cosmetics
through a woman about to die. Another complained to her
neighbor that she was unable to rise and wander about the
upper worlds because she was buried in a matting of reeds
(Ber. 18b). The dead wander about and hear "from behind the
curtain" what was decreed upon the living (ibid.). The sages
spoke especially highly of the power of the righteous after their
death. According to Simeon b. Lakish, the sole difference be-
tween the living righteous and the dead is the faculty of speech
(tj, Av. Zar. 3:1). Likewise they said that "if a statement is said
in a person's name in this world, after his death his lips move in
the grave" (Sanh. 90b). It is also related of Judah ha-Nasi that
after his death he used to visit his house every eve of the Sab-
bath, and only ceased to do so out of respect for the scholars
(Ket. 103a). All these views, however, did not prevent others
from saying that "if one makes remarks about the dead, it is
like making remarks about a stone" (Ber. 19a) and that at the
most the dead know their own pain (Ber. 18b) but not what

transpires in the world.

[Yehoshua M. Grintz]

In Medieval Jewish Philosophy

The doctrine of the immortality of the soul, as it appears in the
writings of * Philo as well as in the works of some later Jew-
ish philosophers, shows strong influences of Platonism (see
Plato and *Platonism), which saw a complete separation be-
tween body and * soul.

philo. Philo s statements that the human soul is mortal are
usually ambiguous, but he often refers to the various ranks
which the souls achieve after death. According to Philo, Abra-
ham achieved the rank of the angels, which are incorporeal,
Isaac ranks higher, and Moses achieved a yet higher rank,
since he is close to God.

saadiah. Saadiah Gaon held the opinion - apparently ac-
cording to views of the Muslim *Kalam, which reflected a
non- Platonic Greek philosophical tradition - that the soul is
"a more pure, transparent and simple substance than are the
spheres," i.e., that the soul is a fine body. At the time of death,
the soul separates from the body of man, and "during the first
period after its separation from the body, however, the soul

exists for a while without a fixed abode until the body has
decomposed; that is to say, until its parts have disintegrated.
It consequently experiences during this period much misery,
occasioned by the knowledge of the worms and the vermin
and the like that pass through the body, just as a person would
be pained by the knowledge that a house in which he used to
live is in ruins and that thorns and thistles grow in it" (Book
of Beliefs and Opinions, 6:7). Saadiah had no clear conception
of the condition of the soul during the transition period from
the time of death until the resurrection of the dead, which
was characteristic of many medieval Jewish thinkers, and il-
lustrates their difficulties in reconciling the notion of the im-
mortality of the soul with a belief in resurrection. According
to Saadiah, the soul is reunited with its body at the time of res-
urrection and this combined state continues thereafter.

isaac Israeli. Unlike Saadiah, his older contemporary,
Isaac ^Israeli, was deep within the Platonic tradition. Accord-
ing to him, the soul is an incorporeal substance. Man's soul
does not die with the death of his body: "he becomes spiri-
tual, and will be joined in union to the light which is created,
without mediator, by the power of God, and will become one
that exalts and praises the Creator for ever and in all eter-
nity. This then will be his paradise and the goodness of his
reward, and the bliss of his rest, his perfect rank and unsul-
lied beauty" (Book of Definitions , see A. Altmann and S.M.
Stern, Isaac Israeli (1958), 25-26). While the upper souls are
above the heavens, the lower ones are beneath them and are
tortured by fire, according to a belief which was also held in
Greco-Roman paganism.

solomon ibngabirol. A similar Platonic spirit pervades
the writings of Solomon ibn *Gabirol in his book Mekor
Hayyim. He does not express a clear opinion in this book
with regard to the immortality of the soul, but he does men-
tion the idea of Platonic recollection (see S. Pines, in: Tarbiz y
27 (1958), 231). One section of Mekor Hayyim, which is cited
by Moses ibn *Ezra, attests more clearly than does the Latin
translation to the central role played by Platonic recollection
in the thought of Ibn Gabirol.

This idea, if accepted simply, presupposes a belief in the
existence of the soul prior to its conjunction with the body,
since it assumes that it is this conjunction which caused the
soul to forget its previous knowledge, which it may again
recollect. In contrast to this view, in his poem Keter Malkhut
Ibn Gabirol expresses a traditional Jewish outlook when he
states that the souls of the righteous rest beneath the throne
of glory

Joseph ibn zaddik. Joseph ibn *Zaddik was influenced by
both Ibn Gabirol and Israeli. According to him, the soul is in-
corporeal, existed before its conjunction with the body, and
continues to exist after the passing of the body. If the soul at-
tained the necessary level of knowledge, it returns after death
to its place of origin, i.e., to the world of the intelligibles; but
if it remained ignorant, it is pulled by the motion of the celes-

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SOUL, IMMORTALITY OF

tial sphere and tortured by fire. It is then likened to a traveler
who cannot find the way back to his homeland.

Abraham bar hiyya. Abraham bar Hiyya describes the
intelligible soul by the term "form" (Meditation of the Sad
Soul (1969), 46 ff.) which continues to exist even after its sep-
aration from the body. Abraham b. Hiyya has a multiple ac-
count of what happens to the soul after death. If the man was
wise and righteous, his soul ascends to the upper world "and
attaches itself to the pure high form, enters into it and never
separates from it." If he was wise and wicked, his soul arrives
after death at the world of the spheres "and it revolves under
the circles of the sun, whose heat appears to it as an image of
a perpetually scorching fire, and it has neither the right nor
the power to remove itself from the heavenly sphere in order
to attach itself to the supernal light." If the man was ignorant
and righteous, his soul returns "a second and third time" to
bodies until it acquires wisdom and is able "to separate from
the air of the lower world and to ascend above it; and its right-
eousness or wickedness at that particular time will determine
the order of its ascent and its ultimate rank." If the man was
ignorant and wicked, his soul too will die "a death of a beast
and an animal."

judah h alevi. According to Judah *Halevi (Kuzari, 1:103),
Judaism is "the religion which insures the immortality of the
soul after the demise of the body." It is nonetheless clear that
the character of the Jewish scholar in the work (who expresses
Judah Halevi s thought) wants to broaden and crystallize this
idea. Thus, his interlocutor, the king of the Khazars, is able
to point out, with certain justification: "The anticipations of
other religions are grosser and more sensuous than yours"
(ibid.y 1:104).

It appears that Judah Halevi realized the difficulty with
which his successors were to contend, namely, that Scripture
does not express clearly the notion of the immortality of the
soul. In answer, Judah Halevi was able to state that the na-
ture of the Jewish prophets and godly men approaches, even
in their lifetime, the condition of souls in their immortality
(ibid.y 1:109).

Abraham ibn daud. Abraham ibn *Daud is considered -
with certain justification - as the first Spanish Jewish Aristote-
lian. It appears, however, that because of *Avicenna's influence
on him, he was not an orthodox Aristotelian. Like Avicenna,
Ibn Daud maintains that the individual human soul contin-
ues to exist after the death of the body (Emunah Ramah y ed.
by S. Weil (1852, ch. 7, 34-39). Contrary to Avicenna, however,
he speaks at great length about the condition of the souls af-
ter death.

maimonides. The great majority of the Spanish Aristote-
lians, both Jewish and Muslim, did not follow Avicenna and
did not believe in the immortality of the individual soul. Noth-
ing remains of man after death, they held, except his intellect,
which bears no trace of individuality and the exact nature of
which was a source of controversy among them (see * Intel-

lect). Judah Halevi had already established - possibly on the
basis of the views of his Muslim contemporary, *Avempace,
which were known to him - that the philosophers do not af-
firm the immortality of the individual soul. It may be thought
that even ^Maimonides, to the extent that he was a philoso-
pher, believed in the immortality of the intellect rather than
of the soul. It is possible to find traces, and even clear state-
ments, of this idea in his Guide of the Perplexed.

In his Mishneh Torah y which essentially deals not with
philosophic ideas but rather with halakhah and principles of
faith, Maimonides states that in the *olam ha-ba there are no
bodies, but only the souls of the righteous, without body, serv-
ing as the angels of God. Since there are no bodies in the world
to come, there are in it neither eating, nor drinking, nor any of
the things which human bodies need in this world. Neither do
the souls perform any of the actions of the body, such as sit-
ting and standing, sleeping and dying, weeping and laughing.
It is obvious that there is no body since there is no eating and
drinking (Yad, Teshuvah, 8:2). It becomes manifest, however,
that these things refer not to the soul, as it was conceived by
the Aristotelians, but to the intellect, which can be deduced
from Maimonides' statements that the soul referred to in this
connection is not the soul which is needed for the body, but is
rather the form of the soul which is the knowledge it derives
from God according to its ability. This is the form which is
called "soul" in this reference (ibid. y 8:3). This rejection of indi-
vidual immortality, which is in accordance with the teachings
of Averroes, caused a furor among Jews as well as among the
i3 th -century Christian scholastics and gave rise to bitter dis-
pute. Echoes of the Christian notions, which reject the opinion
of Averroes, can be seen in the Tagmulei ha-Nefesh of Hillel of
* Verona, who argued for individual immortality.

ISAAC ALBALAG AND HASDAI CRESCAS. Isaac *Albalag

also affirms the immortality of the individual soul, but it is
doubtful that this was his true opinion (see G. Vajda, Isaac
Albalag (i960), 239-49). On the other hand, the position of
Hasdai *Crescas on this matter is entirely clear. He directs
harsh criticism against the views of the Aristotelians regard-
ing the intellect and states that, since man is a spiritual be-
ing, his soul remains immortal after its separation from the
body (Or Adonai y 2:6). According to his view, which rejected
Aristotelian intellectualism and saw love and not knowledge
as the highest good, the love between man and God is what
determines the immortality of the soul. The souls of the righ-
teous after death enjoy the splendor of the *Shekhinah, i.e.,
they attach themselves to God to an extent which was denied
them while they were in the body, and their union with God
is constantly being strengthened. When the soul is unable to
reach this union (because of its sins), it suffers great sorrow,
which is so complete in some souls that it leads to their total
destruction (ibid. y 3:3).

Joseph albo. Joseph *Albo devoted a large section of his
Sefer ha-Ikkarim (fourth treatise) to the question of the im-
mortality of the soul. Unlike the Aristotelians, he maintains

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SOUL, IMMORTALITY OF

that the soul is a spiritual being, which has an independent
existence, is not intellectual in nature, but is capable of attain-
ing knowledge (4:29).

[Shlomo Pines]

In Modern Philosophy

moses Mendelssohn. Outstanding among i8 th -century
works on the immortality of the soul is Moses ^Mendelssohn's
Phaedon oder ueber die Unsterblichkeit der Seele ("Phaedon or
On the Immortality of the Soul," 1767). In its methodology,
this work follows Plato's Phaedo y but its content is based on
modern philosophy In it, Mendelssohn attempts to answer
the question: How would Socrates prove to himself and his
friends the idea of the soul's immortality if he lived in mod-
ern times?

Mendelssohn rejects the theory that the soul, after its sep-
aration from the body, enters a state similar to sleep or faint-
ing. All rational beings, he states, are destined to increase their
perfection. The whole world was created for the sake of the
existence of rational beings who progressively increase their
perfection, and herein lies their bliss. It is not possible that
these beings, who struggle for their perfection in this world,
should be frustrated in these efforts in the world to come.
This would be a contradiction of the order of the universe. It
was not in vain that the Creator instilled in man a desire for
eternal bliss. It is both possible and necessary that this desire
should be fulfilled, despite all the setbacks and obstacles. In
the same way that certain disorders in the physical world, such
as storms, earthquakes, diseases, etc. are negated within the
infinite totality of the cosmos, so in the realm of morality all
the temporary disorders lead toward the eternal perfection.
Even suffering reinforces a person's powers, without which he
cannot attain moral bliss. It is impossible to know God's de-
sign. In order to understand the life of even one man, it would
be necessary to view all life in its totality, and then we would
not complain but would rather revere the creator's mercy and
wisdom, which are revealed in the life of each intelligible be-
ing, when viewed in its totality.

moritz lazarus. In the 19 th century, with a general change
in the intellectual climate, the question of the immortality of
the soul lessened in importance. Several Jewish thinkers at-
tempted to show that Judaism is not concerned with the im-
mortality of the individual after death.

Moritz *Lazarus deals with this question in his Ethik des
Judentums (1898, para. 137 ff.). In his opinion, the attitude of
Judaism was summarized in two sayings of R. Jacob in Pirkei
Avot (4:16, 17). One states: "This world is like a vestibule before
the world to come: prepare thyself in the vestibule that thou
mayest enter into the banqueting hall." Lazarus sees this say-
ing's "weak side" in that it speaks only of the individual, while
in the realm of ethics it is the society which plays the major
role. This saying is based only on the philosophy of the "I,"
while true knowledge of man's fate can only be attained by a
philosophy of "we." Thus Lazarus rejects completely the notion
of individual immortality or, at least, he is not concerned with

this notion. This attitude emerges even more clearly in Laza-
rus' treatment of R. Jacob's second saying, which is inverted by
Lazarus to read as follows: "Better is one hour of bliss in the
world to come than the whole life of this world; [but] better
is one hour of repentance and good works in this world than
the whole life of the world to come." Lazarus does not hesitate
to change the saying in order to make it conform to his own
emphasis on this world rather than the next.

Hermann cohen. Hermann *Cohen also holds that Juda-
ism views the soul's immortality as applying to the people as
a whole rather than to the individual (Religion der Vernunft
(1918), ch. 15). The people never dies, he states, but rather
has an eternal continuing history. The individual soul is per-
petuated by means of this history and is real only within the
context of the continuity of the people. This concept of im-
mortality is taught by the Bible, while the place of individual
immortality is in the realm of mythology. Individual immor-
tality only means that the individual is constantly required to
strive for his moral perfection. True immortality of the soul
is its spirit, i.e., the possibility and the obligation to effect
the principles of truth and morality in this world. The soul
is spirit - beyond this there is no need to think about man's
fate after death.

ahad ha-am. *Ahad Ha- Am regards belief in immortality
of the soul solely as a sign of weakness. Many people, he says,
lack the courage to face death and, in old age, fall back on a
belief in immortality to give the "I" back its "future," a future
in which they will compensate for what was lacking in the past.
Thus Ahad Ha- Am ridicules a belief in the world to come and
in the immortality of the soul (see his article Avar ve-Atid). In
his article Heshbon ha-Nefesh y Ahad Ha-Am characterizes the
belief in an afterlife as a "sickness of the spirit." He attributes
the manifestation of this belief to the desire to escape from life
during times of depression. This belief, he states, does nothing
to encourage positive activity in life, since it teaches that man's
fate on earth depends on his continued fate after death.

r a b b 1 ko o k . In dealing with the question of death and im-
mortality, A.I. *Kook holds that death is a defect in creation.
The Jewish people is called upon to remove this taint from the
world and to save nature from death. Death is wholly imagi-
nary, but it is difficult for man to free himself from this image.
Original sin, which led man to a distorted world view, brought
about death and fear of death, but repentance will overcome
both. R. Kook saw indications of the retreat of death in mod-
ern times in the increase of life expectancy. The modern He-
brew poet Aaron Zeitlin gave a striking expression to this idea
of the delusionary nature of death by coining the word LHa-
Ma-M, formed from the initial letters of the Hebrew sentence,
Lo hayah mavet me-olam ("death has never existed").

[Samuel Hugo Bergman]

In Kabbalah

In contrast with speculations in medieval Jewish philosophy,
in Kabbalah immortality of the soul is not a matter requir-

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOURASKY

ing justification and defense in the face of doubts and argu-
ments. To the kabbalists, immortality of the soul was an in-
controvertible fact based on the primary doctrine of the soul
common to all, that the soul and all its parts are a spiritual
entity (or spiritual entities), whose origin (or origins) is in
the supernal worlds and from the divine emanation, and that
it evolved downward and entered the body only in order to
fulfill a specific task or purpose. Its special spiritual essence
guarantees its immortality after death. The forms visualized
for this immortality differ widely and are connected with the
respective views of the kabbalists regarding reward and pun-
ishment. The reward is included in the many- staged ascent to
the primal dwelling place of the soul. This ascent begins with
the entrance of the soul into the earthly Paradise. From there
it ascends to the heavenly Paradise, and from there into even
higher spiritual worlds, until it reaches its original anchorage
both in the world of creation and in the world of emanation -
two of the four worlds acknowledged by most kabbalists after
the * Zohar. The absorption of the soul or of its upper parts,
such as the spirit (and in the Lurianic Kabbalah, also the life,
hayyah, and the entity, yehidah) into the world of the Sefirot
apparently does not cancel its personal individuality - in any
case, not in the period preceding the universal resurrection
of the dead. Afterward a more basic absorption is possible, to
the extent of the abolition of the separate existence of the soul
and its complete adherence to its divine source.

The punishment awaiting sinners, which is also con-
nected with the immortality of the soul, takes on two forms:
hell and reincarnation. In these two, the quality of justice
which befits the soul exists according to the particular cir-
cumstances of its deeds. There is no general agreement in the
kabbalistic systems on the details of reward and punishment,
and there are many variations in the details, but these do not
affect the principle of immortality of the soul, its designation
for eternal life, and the rectification of its defects by different
means. Only the question of the punishment of karet, which
the Torah designates for several sins, presented the kabbalists
with the problem that in special cases the existence of the soul
may be completely abolished, and it would have no chance of
immortality. For the most part the kabbalists gave the punish-
ment of karet the interpretation which sees in it a special type
of the punishment of reincarnation. The soul was indeed cut
off from its supernal roots and lost its predetermined group.
Despite this, its existence was not completely abolished; it
only passed to other fields of existence of lower value than its
source of origin. In the Lurianic Kabbalah the problem of im-
mortality of the soul became complex, because, according to
this doctrine, there are five different sources for the five prin-
cipal elements of which the soul is composed - nefesh y ruah,
neshamah, hayyah, yehidah. Life, spirit, and soul are the three
lower souls; the two higher elements can be attained only by
elects. In addition, the soul also has sparks (nizozot) of other
souls close to it, in accord with its essence. There is no one
vision of what will happen to the different parts of the soul af-
ter their separation from the body, because each one under-

goes individual refinements and purifications and ascends to
a different place in the supernal worlds. Only with the resur-
rection of the dead do all the parts return and become uni-
fied, and from that time they remain connected to the total

spiritual unity.

[Gershom Scholem]

bibliography: in the bible: F. Delitzsch, Das Salomoni-
sche Spruchbuch (1873), 20/ff.; J. Derenbourg, Oeuvres completes de
R. Saadia, 6 (1894), 70; J. Touzard, in: rb, 7 (1898), 207ff.; L.F. Bur-
ney, Israel's Hope of Immortality (1909); A. Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic
and Old Testament Parallels (1949 2 ), i37ff-; W.F. Albright, in: vts, 4
(1957), 257. in medieval Jewish philosophy: Guttmann, Philoso-
phies, index; Husik, Philosophy, index, s.v. Immortality; HA. Wolf-
son, Philo, 1 (1947), 260 ff.; H. Davidson, in: Jewish Medieval and Re-
naissance Studies (1967), 75-94; S. Horovitz, Die Psychologie bei den
juedischen Religionsphilosophen des Mittelalters von Saadia bis Mai-
muni, 4 vols. (1898-1912); G. Vajda, in: Archives d'historie doctrinale
et litteraire du Moyen Age, 15 (1946).

SOULTZ (Ger. Sulz), town in the department of Haut-Rhin,
E. France (not to be confused with the place of the same
name in lower Alsace, where the settlement of the Jews was
of a later date). The presence of Jews in Soultz is confirmed
from 1308. In 1338 some fell victim to the *Armleder excesses;
in the *Black Death persecutions of 1349 the community was
destroyed. From 1371 onward a number of Jews returned to
Soultz. During the 17 th century Jews were engaged as money-
lenders, physicians, wine merchants, and livestock merchants.
After reunion with France the number of Jews increased, ris-
ing from 102 in 1784 to 231 in 1808. After 1918 the community
declined and by the outbreak of World War 11 had ceased to
exist. E. *Carmoly, the chief rabbi of Belgium (1802-1875),
was a native of Soultz.

bibliography: M. Ginsburger, Histoire de la Communaute
Israelite de Soultz (1939); idem, in: Revue d'Alsace, 70 (1923), 405-16,
508-14; I. Bloch, in: rej, 14 (1887), 116 f.; Germ Jud, 2 (1968), 8nf.

[Bernhard Blumenkranz]

SOURASKY, Mexican family of industrialists, bankers, phi-
lanthropists, community leaders, and active Zionists, origi-
nally from Bialystok, Poland, from where the family emi-
grated in 1909. In 1917 the brothers leon (1889-1966), jaime
(1894-1962), and elias (1899-1986) settled in Mexico. Each of
them acted independently in many areas of general and Jew-
ish community life in Mexico: assistance to the needy, institu-
tional organization, Zionist activity, promotion of excellence
in scientific research and education, promotion of Jewish and
Hebrew education, defense against antisemitic attacks. They
were also very active in the political and material support of
the Zionist idea, and the establishment of the national Jew-
ish homeland in Erez Israel, the establishment of the State of
Israel during the War of Independence and its strengthening
afterwards. Many general and Jewish institutions in Mexico
and Israel were supported by them and subsequently named
after them. They also instituted many prestigious prizes in
Israel and Mexico. In 1968 Elias Sourasky received from the

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

sous

Mexican government the "Aguila Azteca," the highest decora-
tion Mexico awards foreigners.

[EfraimZadoff(2 nd ed.)]

SOUS, largest province in ^Morocco, including the southern
slopes of the Grand Atlas, the valley of the Oued Sous, the
Anti-Atlas, the Noun (to the Atlantic Ocean), and the south-
ern Dar c a. Early legends mention the existence of two pre-Is-
lamic Jewish kingdoms in the Sous: one in *Ofran (Ifrane)
and the other in the Dar c a. The Jews always lived dispersed in
the Sous; in some of its regions they found secure, if remote,
shelter. The larger urban centers did not attract great numbers
of Jews, not even the ancient capital, Taroudant; however, the
small community of this town, although relegated to quarters
outside the city walls, for many centuries imposed its own tak-
kanot and minhagim upon the numerous Jewish centers and
communities of the Sous.

There were many wars and political upheavals over the
centuries, and towns such as Tiyout and Tidsi, seats of pros-
perous Jewish communities, passed out of existence; in many
localities ancient cemeteries remain as the only sign of Jew-
ish life. The Marabout movement of the 15 th and 16 th centuries
severely damaged the Jewish community. Forced conversions
eliminated all aspects of Jewish life from territories where the
Jews had formerly been numerous, with traces remaining only
in names such as A'it-Mzal and A'it-Baha, and in the land of
the Ammeln, where some of the present-day tribes are still
called by names such as A'it-Aouday ("Tribe of the Jews").
In the A'it-Jerrar, Ida-ou-Milk, Chtouka, A'it-Ba Amran, and
other places there are parts of ^Berber tribes which may well
have once been Judaized, or even Jews. In about 1510 the sur-
vivors of the persecutions joined together in Tahala, where
they remained until 1957 when they left en masse for Israel, as
well as in other centers of the Anti- Atlas where they met with
different fates. By the 17 th century the Jews of the important
center of Illigh had become an influential community; 100
years later the Jewish populations suffered during a series of
rebellions and upheavals, and their synagogues, like those of
*Agadir, were destroyed around 1740. About 1792 Bou-Hal-
lais gave the Jews of Ofran the choice of conversion or death.
In the 19 th century the occupation of the Sous by the central
government offered the opportunity to pillage and massacre
the Jewish population. In 1840 the Jewish village of Tatelt was
destroyed, and 40 years later Tillin suffered the same fate; in
1882 the Jewish quarter of Goulimine was pillaged, and in 1900
the soldiers of the Makhzen razed the quarter of Ouijjane. In
some instances the Jews resisted fiercely and succeeded in
saving many of their settlements and in some cases they even
went on the offensive.

In the high mountains, in often inaccessible localities, far
from the troubled life of the plains, the Jews of regions such
as Ounein, Tifnout, and Azilal - considered by modern eth-
nologists and ethnographers as the remnants of very ancient
migrations - were probably Berber tribes that had become
Jewish in pre -Islamic times. In these forbidding regions the

Jews lived as autochthonous populations, detached from all
outside influences. As in the case of many of their brethren
in the Marrakesh Atlas, their common language was Berber,
not Arabic. At the southwestern end of the Sous, the region
of Noun, whose ancient center of Tagaost was destroyed and
replaced by Goulimine, was the foremost supplier of ostrich
feathers; from ancient times it was also one of the market out-
lets for numerous Sahara caravans, which until the end of the
19 th century carried the continents basic raw materials, such
as slaves, ivory, ebony, pelts, and gold, from the heart of Africa.
Some of the richest Jews controlled a vast part of this trade.
In the 15 th and 16 th centuries their trade with the neighbor-
ing Canary Islands was of great importance. Moreover, from
1505 to 1540 a number of Marranos who had found shelter in
those islands came to the Sous region and returned to Juda-
ism. After 1880 almost every Jew became a retailer or a small
artisan. Only after 1936 did the economic situation change
somewhat for the better.

The surplus Jewish population of the Sous was regularly
sent to the urban centers of Morocco, especially to Marrakesh
and *Mogador where they contributed to the overcrowding
of the local mellahs. It is estimated that up to the 18 th century
the Jewish communities of the Sous formed 20% of the to-
tal Jewish population of Morocco. Droughts and epidemics
of plague and cholera in 1799, 1805, 1818, and 1878 decimated
the local population, and in 1884 Charles de Foucault esti-
mated that there were about 7,000 persons. Adding some Jew-
ish communities not included in his studies to his figure, the
number of about 8,500 is arrived at. In 1951 A. de la Porte des
Vaux - whose calculations are the most detailed and reliable
among available statistics - estimated that there were 6,420.
After 1955 the Jewish population literally evacuated the Sous
en masse, the great majority immigrating to Israel.

bibliography: V. Monteil, in: Hesperis, 33 (1946), 385-405;
35 (1948), 151-62; J. Chaumeil, ibid., 40 (1953), 227-40; A. de la Porte
des Vaux, in: Bulletin Economique et Social du Maroc (1952), 448-59,
625-32; P. Flamand, Diaspora en Terre d'Islam (i960); D. Corcos, in:
Sefunot, 10 (1966), 58-60, 72-75, 77-83. add. bibliography: D.J.
Schroeter, Merchants ofEssaouria: Urban Society and Imperialism in
Southwestern Morocco, 1844-1886 (1988).

[David Corcos]

SOUTH AFRICA, republic comprising nine provinces -
Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, North West,
Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Free State, and KwaZulu-
Natal. Prior to 1994, when multiracial democracy was intro-
duced, there were four provinces, viz. Cape, Natal, Orange
Free State, and Transvaal.

The first European settlement in southern Africa was
founded in *Cape Town, today capital of the Western Cape,
in 1652 by the Dutch. It became a British colony in 1806; Na-
tal was a British colony from 1843; the Free State and the
Transvaal, founded by Dutch (Afrikaner or Boer) emigrants
from the Cape, were republics until annexed by Britain
in 1902 after the Boer War. In 1910 the colonies were merged

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOUTH AFRICA

Roodepoort •

• ir .1897
Randfontein

1896

Boksburg Benoni
» 1898. * 1900

Johannesburg

1887

Germiston Brakpan

1896

1919

Springs
1904

Nigel
1902

NAMIBIA

ZIMBABWE

BOTSWANA

NORTHERN

TRANSVAAL

Pietersburg
1905

! o
1^

Rustenburg
1905

Middelburg
Pretoria • 1906

NORTH-WEST

Lichtenburg
1926

Krugersdorp* 1890 . Witbank 1887

%T^

Upington
1898

NORTHERN
CAPE

Kimberley #
,1875

Bloemfontein
1876

1894 • „ , ' ™' /

Carletonville "Johannesburg /

Potchefstroom • A° Vereeniging •Bethal / .'

1895 . • AT* * 191? 1910 (SWAZILAND

Klerksdorp r ^ Vanderbijl ( >~-

1896 ° Park EASTERN v /

r 1953 '>..- i

z^-TV .Kroonstad TRANSVAAL

(^ Welkom • 1904 • Vryheid

^ 1955 .Bethlehem 1904

ORANGE FREE STATE 1906

REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

LESOTHO

^/^e Rive*

ATLANTIC
OCEAN

WESTERN CAPE

Queenstown •
1902

EASTERN CAPE

Bellville 1903

Wellington

Worcester

• 1903

1924 " • * Paarl

' !, • • Faarl 1884
Cape Town Stellenbosch
1841 1899

George
1903

Oudtshoorn
_ 1883

Graham stown

tt- i I 843 *

Uitennage

1901' * -

D Port Elizabeth

1857

KWAZULU/NATAL

• Pietermaritzburg
' .1902^

Durban ▲

1883

East London

1901 □

Historical Jewish communities of South Africa with dates of establishment. Main 21st century communities in boldface with population figures based on
2004 census. (Discrepancies in dates in the records may be partially due to varied definitions of what constitutes the establishment of a congregation.)

as the Union of South Africa under the British flag. In 1961
the Union became a republic outside the British Common-
wealth. Until 1994, South Africa was ruled by the white mi-
nority. Black majority rule was ushered in by the country's
first democratic, non-racial elections, held on April 27 of
that year.

Settlement

Jewish associations with South Africa date back a long way.
Jewish scientists and cartographers in Portugal contributed to
the success of Vasco da Gam as voyage which led to the dis-
covery of the Cape of Good Hope in 1497. Jewish merchants
in Holland were associated with the Dutch East India Com-
pany, which established the white settlement at the Cape in
1652, and Jewish names appear in the early records of the set-
tlement. These were probably converts to Christianity who

had come to Holland from Central and Eastern Europe. The
company required all its servants and settlers to be profess-
ing Protestants. Identifiably Jewish settlement began only af-
ter the introduction of complete religious tolerance under the
Batavian Republic in 1804 and its confirmation by the British
who took over the Cape in 1806. Enterprising Jewish individu-
als then began to arrive, mainly from Germany and the Brit-
ish Isles. Some made their way from Cape Town (where the
first congregation was founded in 1841) deep into the interior
and played pioneering roles in the development of what was
then a backward country with a thinly scattered white popu-
lation. Prominent individuals were Nathaniel ^Isaacs, Benja-
min *Norden, Jonas *Bergtheil, the *Mosenthal brothers, the
*Solomon family, and Joel * Rabinowitz.

By the end of the 1860s, when the Jews in the Cape num-
bered a few hundred families in a white population of some -

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOUTH AFRICA

thing over two hundred thousand, there were two main cen-
ters of Jewish settlement in the colony, the older in Cape Town
and environs, and the other in the eastern region, mainly in
Grahamstown, Tort Elizabeth and district, and GraaffReinet.
Individuals - itinerant traders and storekeepers, with a few
professional men - had also penetrated into the more remote
inland areas. Though small in number, they made a signifi-
cant contribution to the economic advancement of the coun-
try and to its social and civic life.

The opening up of the diamond fields in Griqualand West
(*Kimberley) in 1869 and of the gold mines of the Witwa-
tersrand in 1886, marked a turning point in the economic and
political history of South Africa. From being predominantly
pastoral, it developed rapidly into a modern industrial soci-
ety. The new economic opportunities attracted Jews among
the emigrants from Britain, Germany, and elsewhere on the
continent of Europe, as well as from America and Australia,
and other countries. They were the forerunners of the main-
stream of Jewish immigrants who began to arrive from East-
ern Europe in the 1880s, a tributary of the vast outflow escap-
ing czarist oppression and economic deprivation and seeking
freedom and new opportunity, of whom the majority found
their way to North America. Many of these immigrants set-
tled in Cape Town and nearby towns, but later spread to more
distant rural areas, and also found their way to the goldfields
in the Witwatersrand. Few villages in the Cape, the Orange
Free State, and later in the Transvaal, were without their Jewish
peddlers or storekeepers, who were usually joined in time by
their families and kinsmen from overseas. They formed small
communities, and in some cases (as in the ostrich feather cen-
ter *Oudtshoorn) larger Jewish settlements. The mainstream
of Jewish migration, however, flowed to ^Johannesburg and
other towns on the Witwatersrand, which soon after the Boer
War (1899-1902) - during which there was an exodus of war
"refugees" - became the nucleus of the largest concentration
of Jews in South Africa. There was also a smaller movement
into Natal, particularly to ^Durban.

The steady extension of Jewish settlement to the new
areas was reflected in the dates when the first congregations
were established: Kimberley - 1875; Oudtshoorn - 1883; Dur-
ban - 1883; Johannesburg - 1887; ^Pretoria - 1890; *Bloem-
fontein - 1876.

Immigration

Official statistics on immigration became available only after
the Boer War (1899-1902), but it can be conjectured that the
Jewish population in 1880 was about 4,000. Ten years later
it had grown to about 10,000. Around 1900 it was in the vi-
cinity of 25,000, and in the 1904 official census it had reached
a total of some 38,000. These figures reflect clearly how the
Jewish population was growing through the addition of new-
comers from abroad. Between 1880 and 1910, some 40,000
Jewish immigrants entered the country. Thereafter, for vari-
ous reasons, the numbers decreased, with the exception of
the years 1924 to 1930. In all, in the half-century from 1910

to i960, it is estimated that there were perhaps 30,000 Jew-
ish immigrants.

Until about 1890, the majority of Jewish immigrants
came from Britain, and in lesser numbers from Germany.
Thereafter, the influx of "Russian" Jews (as the East Euro-
pean Jews were officially designated) increased and within a
couple of decades the "greeners" outnumbered the older ele-
ments. They came predominantly (approximately 70%) from
Lithuania and the other territories on the eastern shores of
the Baltic (South African Jewry came to be described as "a
colony of Lithuania") and also from Latvia, Poland, Belorus-
sia, and further afield. In their escape from oppression and
poverty in Eastern Europe the Jews who went to South Af-
rica were encouraged by success stories of individuals, reports
of the sympathetic attitude of the Boers (Afrikaners) to Jews
as the "Chosen People," the helping hand stretched out by
older settlers, and inflated stories of the fortunes made from
the gold mines. Most of the East Europeans at first encountered
great hardships and difficulties economically before achiev-
ing prosperity. South Africa's attitude to Jewish immigration
was influenced by various factors, among them conservative
official policies in regard to immigration generally, partly
due to the internal struggle between the rival English-speak-
ing and Afrikaner sections of the population. The chang-
ing political and economic situation in the country, and at
times, the relatively high proportion of Jews among immi-
grants from alien (non-British) countries, also played their
part.

Although, in an overall historical perspective, and by
comparison with other countries, South Africa's attitude was
not an unfavorable one, Jewish leaders frequently felt the need
for vigilance against discrimination, and at certain periods
Jewish immigration became a subject of intensive political agi-
tation (see below, legal and social status). In 1902, Jewish im-
migrants faced a crisis because a new literacy test at the Cape
(designed to exclude Asiatics) called for the ability to read and
write "in the characters of a European language." There were
moves to deny this status to Yiddish because it was written in
Hebrew characters, but the language was officially accorded
recognition in the Cape Immigration Law of 1906. This pro-
vision was also incorporated after Union in the basic Immi-
gration Act of 1913. In the early 1920s Jewish communal lead-
ers were engaged in a lengthy dispute with the government
on the interpretation of the immigration laws, which had
resulted in severe restrictions on economic grounds. These
restrictions were removed in 1924, but the increased Jewish
immigration which followed led in 1930 to the enactment of
a law generally referred to as the "Quota Act." This did not
restrict Jewish immigration per se but by imposing numeri-
cal limitation upon all immigration from specified countries
of Eastern and southern Europe, it substantially reduced the
admission of Jewish immigrants. Soon afterward the influx
of Jewish refugees, from Nazi Germany - and especially the
dramatic arrival in 1936 of a chartered boat, the Stuttgart, with
537 German Jewish refugees on board - resulted in a major

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOUTH AFRICA

Jews in South Africa

Year

Total

1904

38,101

1911

46,919

1918

58,741

1921

62,103

1926

71,816

1936

90,645

1946

104,156

1951

108,498

1960

114,762

1970

118,200

1980

117,963

1991

91,925

2001

71,800

agitation and precipitated the enactment of the "Aliens Act"
of 1937. This law gave plenary powers to an Immigrants Selec-
tion Board, which was required, among other considerations,
to apply the criterion of "assimilability." The number of Jewish
refugees from Germany then dropped considerably, the total
between 1933 and 1940 being approximately 5,500.

During World War 11, Jewish immigration virtually
ceased and in the immediate postwar period was largely lim-
ited to aged parents and children of persons already living
in South Africa and to other specified categories. Following
the virtual destruction, in the Holocaust, of the communities
from which South Africa had drawn its Jewish immigrants,
as well as the movement toward the State of Israel, the over-
all figure of Jewish immigration to South Africa dropped to a
few hundred annually.

demographic aspects. The growth of the South African
Jewish population through both immigration and natural
increase is shown in the Table; figures are based on official
census returns:

Until 1936, when the proportion of Jews in the popula-
tion reached its peak of 4.52%, the annual Jewish increase was
proportionately higher than that of the white population gen-
erally. In the succeeding 25 years (1936-1960), however, it was
only 1.77% compared with 2.26% for the white population as a
whole, and in the decade 1950 to i960, it was only one-half of
the general figure. The relative decline of the Jewish percentage
was due to the restrictive immigration laws; the lower birth
rate of Jews compared with that of the general white popula-
tion; a certain amount of emigration; and the higher number
of Jews in the older age groups.

In the early years, the high masculinity in sex distribu-
tion was similar to that of all typical immigrant communities,
but later it dropped sharply. In 1904, there were 25,864 males
and 12,237 females, while by i960, males numbered 57,198 and
females 57,563. The proportion of foreign- born to local-born
Jews had also radically changed. Whereas in 1936, 46.69% were
South African-born (for females the figure was 50%), the large
majority are now South African-born.

In 1970, according to the official census of that year, the
Jewish population reached an all-time high of 118,200. This
figure remained static during the next decade, with losses
to emigration being partially offset by immigration from
Rhodesia (today ^Zimbabwe), other African countries, and
Israel. The Jewish population declined precipitously during
the 1980s as a result of social, economic, and political unrest.
The adjusted 1991 census, when adjusted upwards based on
the national percentage of those who omitted the "religion"
question on the census form, gave the Jewish population as
91,925, comprising 1.8% of the white population and 0.3% of
the total population.

According to the 2001 census, this figure had declined
still further. A total of 61,670 whites gave their religion as Jew-
ish, suggesting a total of between 72,000 and 75,000 when
the proportion of those who omitted the religion question
was taken into account. These were overwhelmingly concen-
trated in the three provinces of Gauteng (47,700, more than
90% of whom lived in Johannesburg), Western Cape (18,360,
mainly in Cape Town), KwaZulu-Natal (3,470, mainly in
Durban) and Eastern Cape (1,390, mainly Port Elizabeth and
East London), while the combined total of the remaining five
provinces was estimated at about 1,500. Once a substantial
proportion of the total, the number of Jews still living in rural
districts had declined to a few hundred, mainly elderly peo-
ple. Despite the steep decline in the Jewish population, there
were signs early in the new century that Jewish emigration
was leveling off and that a modest influx of new immigrants,
as well as some returning emigrants, was beginning to swell
its ranks once more.

Legal and Social Status

As an integral part of the white population, Jews have full
equality and participate in all aspects of South Africa's na-
tional, political, civic, economic, and cultural life. During the
white minority rule years, although the usual forms of anti-
Jewish prejudice in gentile societies were occasionally encoun-
tered, both of the main white population groups - the Eng-
lish-speaking and the Afrikaans -speaking - remained faithful,
generally speaking, to the traditions of religious tolerance
which characterized the homelands - England and the Neth-
erlands - from which their forefathers came. In the post-1994
era, there has been little evidence of anti- Jewish sentiment in
the majority black population, with antisemitism being pri-
marily confined to elements within the Muslim community.
There have nevertheless been periods in South Africa's
history when Jews faced special problems which arose, in par-
ticular, from the complex racial and political tensions of the
country. There were exceptional periods when the status of
Jews was challenged. While the Cape was under the control of
the Dutch East India Company prior to 1795 (see above), and
all in the Company's service had to profess the Christian Re-
formed religion, there could be no professing Jews in the coun-
try until a liberal religious policy was introduced. Thereafter,
however, whether in the British or the Afrikaner territories,

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOUTH AFRICA

Jews enjoyed religious tolerance and freedom of conscience.
Indeed, a notably sympathetic attitude was shown by the Boers
toward the early Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.

The situation in the Afrikaner Transvaal Republic, how-
ever, differed from that in the Orange Free State, where full
equality was enjoyed by the Jews. The Grondwet (constitution)
of the Transvaal Republic (1864; reaffirmed in 1896) stipulated
that membership in the Volksraad (parliament) and also the
holding of official positions in the state service, were to be
restricted to Christian Protestants. Catholics, and also Jews,
were consequently debarred from military posts and from the
offices of the presidency, state secretary, and Landdrost, nor
could they become members of the first or second Volksraad
or superintendents of the natives or of mines. These disabili-
ties applied even to individuals who had become burghers of
the republic. There were also educational disabilities: as educa-
tion had to be based on a strictly Christian Protestant religious
foundation, Catholic and Jewish children were debarred from
attending government schools and their parochial schools
were denied state aid. These disabilities did not arise from ex-
pressly anti- Jewish motives, but flowed from the rather harsh
Calvinist constitution of the republic. In the last years of the
republic, Jewish deputations to the government sought to have
them removed, but without success. Eventually in 1899, Presi-
dent Kruger tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Volksraad to
replace the requirement of the Grondwet that all members of
the Raad must be Protestant by a provision that they must "be-
lieve in the revelation of God through His Word in the Bible."
The Jews in the Transvaal reacted variously to these disabilities
which were also somewhat obscured by the fact that the Jews
were in most cases foreigners (uitlanders) with their own far-
reaching grievances. Such limitations also did not weigh much
upon the relatively recent arrivals from Eastern Europe, who
appreciated their situation in the Boer republic, so markedly
in contrast to the oppressive conditions of czarist Russia. All
the disabilities disappeared when the Transvaal republic came
under British rule in 1902. Thereafter, whether under the co-
lonial regimes in the Transvaal and in the rest of the country
prior to Union in 1910 or subsequently, Jewish citizens living
in South Africa enjoyed legal equality in all respects.

However, further immigration of Jews, more particu-
larly from Eastern Europe, did periodically become a public
issue. In the 1930s the influx of refugees from Nazi Germany
led to active agitation for the complete prohibition of Jewish
immigration. In the result, while no specific anti- Jewish pro-
visions were written into the immigration laws, restrictions
were introduced which were expressly designed to cut down
the flow of Jewish immigrants. The supporters of these restric-
tive policies were not confined to one political party only, and
many disclaimed an anti-Jewish prejudice, asserting that the
measures were necessary to prevent the growth of antisemi-
tism by maintaining the existing balance between the various
elements of the white population. (South Africa never favored
an open-door immigration policy, the Afrikaans-speaking
section, in particular, often contending that the aliens were a

threat to the economic and political status of the established
population).

South Africa became the scene of open antisemitic agita-
tion among certain sections of the population - not shared by
the majority of the citizens - from the time of the accession of
the Nazis in Germany in 1933 until the end of World War 11.
Organized antisemitic movements arose, among them the
"shirt" movements like the Greyshirts, Blackshirts, and South
African Fascists, and semi-political bodies like the Ossewa
Brandwag and the New Order, with fully- fledged National
Socialist programs. These developments eventually had their
impact upon the official opposition party, the National Party,
which in 1937 included a plank on the "Jewish question" in its
official program. Its demands included the total prohibition
of further Jewish immigration, stronger control over natu-
ralization, and the introduction of a "quota" system for Jews
in various branches of economic life. In Transvaal province,
too (but not in the other provinces), Jews were banned from
membership in the National Party. When the United Party
government, headed by Jan Christiaan *Smuts, declared war
against Germany in 1939, the National Party formally pro-
claimed its neutrality.

The anti-Jewish agitation grew more subdued as World
War 11 moved to its climax and sharp ideological differences
emerged within the National Party. The moderate elements
finally gained the upper hand, and in his political manifesto
prior to the general election in May 1948, the Nationalist
Party leader, Daniel Francois Malan, later prime minister, an-
nounced a new policy. Denying that the party's attitude on im-
migration was motivated by anti-Jewish feelings, he affirmed
positively that his party did not support discriminatory mea-
sures between Jew and non-Jew who were already resident
in the country. Consistently with that declaration, when the
National Party won the election and became the government,
Malan announced his goal to be the removal of the "Jewish
question" from the life and politics of South Africa. The rees-
tablishment of confidence was not effected without difficulty.
Jews generally tended to hold aloof from the National Party.
However it fulfilled its pledge not to countenance antisemi-
tism in public life. Successive National Party prime ministers
reaffirmed government policy to be one of equality and non-
discrimination between all sections of the white population.

Apart from the 1930s and early 1940s, antisemitism has
never manifested as a serious problem in South Africa and
Jews continue to participate fully in all aspects of national life
on the basis of equality. Levels of recorded antisemitic inci-
dents have been dramatically lower than those of other ma-
jor Diaspora communities, consistently averaging around 30
annually. During the apartheid years, most antisemitic activ-
ity emanated from the white extreme right. During the 1980s
and 1990s, the community became increasingly perturbed
by the growing prevalence of organized neo-Nazi move-
ments and other antisemitic organizations. Among these
were the Afrikaanse Weerstands Beweging (Afrikaner Resis-
tance Movement), Boerenasie, and the Blanke Bevrydingsbe-

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOUTH AFRICA

weging (White Liberation Movement). These organizations
largely ceased to operate following the transition to major-
ity rule in 1994.

In recent years, most antisemitism has emanated from
radical elements within South Africa's large Muslim minority,
numbering around 800,000 in 2001 (about 2% of the popula-
tion). The post-1994 ethos in the country, however, is strongly
anti-racist, with numerous laws - including a comprehensive
Bill of Rights in the Constitution - proscribing any form of
abuse, discrimination, or hate speech based on race, color,
creed, or ethnicity.

Communal Organization and Structure

historical survey. The earliest pattern of communal or-
ganization was established by Jews of German, English, and
Dutch extraction. Their congregations provided elementary
facilities for worship, classes for Hebrew and religious instruc-
tion of the young, and philanthropic aid, and also attended to
the rites for the dead. The authority of the chief rabbi of Eng-
land was accepted in ecclesiastical matters. Joel Rabinowitz (of-
ficiated 1859-82), Abraham Frederick *Ornstein, and Alfred
P. *Bender (1895-1937), all of whom administered to the Cape
Town Congregation, and Samuel I. Rapaport (1872-95), the
minister in Port Elizabeth, all emigrated from England.

By the end of the 19 th century or soon after, the "greener"
East Europeans had broken away from the "English" syna-
gogues in most communities to form their own congrega-
tions. Their parochial loyalties were reflected in the many
separate associations for religious worship and talmudic study
and the numerous *Landsmannschaften (fraternal associa-
tions) of persons who had come from the same town or vil-
lage in Lithuania or Poland. Leading rabbinical personalities
in this formative period were: in Johannesburg, Judah Loeb
*Landau (officiated 1903-42), from Galicia; the more "West-
ernized" Joseph Herman *Hertz (1898-1911) who arrived via
the United States (he later became chief rabbi of the British
Empire); Moshal Friedman (beginning in 1891), from Lithu-
ania; Chief Rabbis L.I. ^Rabinowitz (1945-61); B.M. Caspar
(1963-1988) and C.K. Harris (1988-2004) and in the Cape,
M.Ch. Mirvish (d. 1947), also from Lithuania and I. *Abra-
hams (1937-68). In lay matters, Jews of English and German
origin usually took the lead, but East Europeans also began
to assert their influence.

The communal structure gradually underwent change
in response to the new social forces - the slowing down of
immigration, increasing acculturation and growing homo-
geneity. Splinter congregations rejoined the older synagogues
or new amalgamations took place. By the 1940s most of the
Landsmannschaften had disappeared or continued to survive
on nostalgic memories. Emerging social and cultural needs
called forth a variety of new institutions, such as the lodges
of the Hebrew Order of David, the Zionist and Young Israel
Societies, the branches of the Union of Jewish Women, the
*B'nai B rith Lodges, the Ex- Servicemen's organizations, the
^Reform movement in religious life, Jewish social and sports

clubs and, since the early 1990s, communal security organi-
zations. Important work in social outreach and uplift ment in
the non-Jewish community is carried out by such organiza-
tions as MaAfrika Tikkun, the Union of Jewish Women, the
United Sisterhood and ort -South Africa, amongst others. In-
creased communal cohesion began to be reflected in the orga-
nizational structure of education, congregational affairs and
philanthropy, and overall communal representation. However,
older forms of organization, inherited or adapted from the
East European tradition, yielded slowly to change. The most
striking exceptions were in the Hebrew educational sphere
and in the proliferation of Jewish sports clubs.

The main concentration of Jewish communities is now
in two areas: the Johannesburg- Pretoria complex in the north,
and the Cape Peninsula in the south, where 66% and 25% re-
spectively of the Jewish population now live. Because of the
geographic distance and differences of outlook, the regional
bodies in the south until fairly recently maintained virtually
autonomous religious and educational organizations parallel
to the national bodies up north. However, since the mid-1980s
the trend has been toward greater coordination and unity, as
shown, inter alia, by the establishment of a national Union of
Orthodox Synagogues and Bet Din in 1987. All the major na-
tional Jewish bodies have their headquarters in Johannesburg,
which has now become the focal point of Jewish life.

religious institutions. The great majority of Hebrew
congregations in South Africa, about 85% of the total, are
Orthodox, with most of the remainder being Reform (Pro-
gressive). The Conservative movement as known in America
virtually does not exist in South Africa, apart from the small
Shalom Masorti Independent Congregation in Johannesburg,
formed after one of the Reform congregations broke away
from the Progressive movement in 1992.

In 1966, there were 29 Orthodox congregations and
four Reform temples in Johannesburg and 12 Orthodox con-
gregations and two Reform temples in Cape Town. In 2004,
the number of Orthodox congregations in Johannesburg had
grown to 51 while the Reform temples had declined to three.
In Cape Town, the number of Orthodox congregations had
increased to 18 and Reform Temples to three. There is at least
one Orthodox and one Reform congregation each in Dur-
ban, Port Elizabeth, and East London. Outside of the main
urban centers, virtually all of the smaller country synagogues
had closed, with those remaining functioning only with great
difficulty.

The Union of Orthodox Synagogues of South Africa
(uos) is the umbrella body for Orthodox congregations
throughout South Africa and has affiliated to it most Ortho-
dox congregations countrywide. It consists of just under 100
synagogues (including many shtiebels) and claims a member-
ship enrollment of approximately 20,000 families. The uos
appoints and maintains the office of the chief rabbi and the
Bet Din (ecclesiastical court). At the end of 2004, Scottish-
born Rabbi Cyril Harris, who had served as a rabbi in London

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOUTH AFRICA

before coming to South Africa, retired after seventeen years
as chief rabbi and was replaced by Rabbi Dr. Warren Gold-
stein, the first locally born rabbi to have been appointed to
the position.

There is a single national Bet Din, based in Johannesburg
with an office in Cape Town. This deals with conversions to the
Jewish faith, the issuance of divorces, supervision of kashrut,
and similar matters. Although the uos established and main-
tains the Bet Din, and also appoints the dayyanim, the Bet Din
is an independent body, exercising supreme plenary authority
in Orthodox religious matters. The uos publishes a quarterly
magazine, Jewish Tradition. There is an Orthodox Rabbinical
Association of South Africa, its members being drawn from
the clergy of all parts of the country.

The period after 1970 saw young people becoming pro-
gressively more involved in religious life, in part because of
more religion -foe used Jewish day schools such as Yeshiva
College and also because of the advent of dynamic outreach
movements such as the Kollel Yad Shaul, Chabad (Lubavitch),
Ohr Somayach, and Aish HaTorah. Johannesburg in particular
is today widely regarded as a model baal teshuvah (return to
Orthodoxy) community, while Cape Town and Pretoria were
also experiencing an upsurge in religiosity by the turn of the
century. The impressive growth of the baal teshuvah move-
ment was shown by the proliferation of shtiebls (small syna-
gogues, characterized by a high level of observance amongst
its members) in Johannesburg, which numbered over 30 in
2004.

The Progressive movement was started in South Africa
in 1933 by Rabbi Moses Cyrus Weiler (1907-2000) and was
later led by Rabbi Arthur Saul Super (1908-1979) in the teeth
of strong Orthodox opposition. The Reform movement be-
came established in all the larger communities, at its height
claiming support from about 20% of the whole Jewish popu-
lation. This had declined to between 10 and 15% by the end of
the century. In South Africa Reform has been relatively con-
servative in its religious approach, avoiding some of the radi-
cal manifestations of the American movement, and it has al-
ways been strongly pro- Zionist. In contrast to the Orthodox
synagogues, which confined their activities largely within the
Jewish community, Reform congregations broke new ground
by adopting programs for Christian-Jewish goodwill and by
fostering social welfare projects among non- whites, particu-
larly for children. Several Orthodox congregations, notably
the prestigious Oxford shul in Johannesburg, subsequently
also became involved in social outreach and upliftment proj-
ects in the general community.

The Progressive congregations are associated together in
the South African Union for Progressive Judaism, religious is-
sues being handled by a central ecclesiastical board. The latter
consists of rabbis and a few laymen, with a rabbi elected an-
nually as its chairman. The ladies guilds in Orthodox syna-
gogues are affiliated to the Federation of Synagogues' Ladies
Guilds, and the Reform sisterhoods to the National Union of
Temple Sisterhoods.

Both Orthodox and Reform congregations for many
years had difficulties in finding rabbis and ministers. The
sources in Europe which provided them with trained and ex-
perienced ministers no longer existed. By the closing years
of the 20 th century, however, an increasing number of the
community's Orthodox rabbis were emerging from locally
established rabbinical training institutions, most notably the
Yeshiva Gedolah. Many products of the religious day schools,
moreover, were returning to South Africa after gaining semi-
khah overseas, and serving the community both from the pul-
pit and as teachers within the burgeoning Jewish day school
system.

SOUTH AFRICAN JEWISH BOARD OF DEPUTIES. A single

representative organization, the South African Jewish Board
of Deputies, is recognized by Jews and non- Jews alike as the
authorized spokesman for the community. It is charged with
safeguarding the equal rights and status of Jews as citizens and
generally protecting Jewish interests. A Board for the Trans-
vaal was formed in 1903, on the initiative of Max *Langerman
and Rabbi Joseph Hertz, with the encouragement of the High
Commissioner, Lord *Milner, and was named after its proto-
type in England. At first it encountered opposition from the
Zionists. Among its early leaders were Bernard ^Alexander,
Manfred *Nathan, and Siegfried Raphaely An independent
Board for the Cape was formed in 1904 through the efforts of
Morris ^Alexander and David Goldblatt, despite opposition
from the Rev. Alfred P. Bender and his congregation.

Following the unification of the four provinces in 1910,
the two bodies were unified in the South African Board of
Deputies (1912). Its main concern was to prevent discrimina-
tion against Jews in respect of immigration and naturalization
and to rebut defamatory attacks on Jews. It led the commu-
nity's efforts in rendering relief to Jews in Europe after World
War 1, and later was active also on behalf of German Jewry
and the displaced persons of World War 11 through the in-
strumentality of the South African Jewish Appeal (1942). A
relatively small and weak body, the Board underwent reorga-
nization in the early 1930s to meet the challenge of Nazism
and antisemitism. While Johannesburg remained the head-
quarters, provincial committees were set up in Cape Town -
the seat of Parliament - Durban, Port Elizabeth, East Lon-
don, Pretoria, and Bloemfontein. The position of chairman
of the executive council was held by Cecil Lyons (1935-40);
Gerald N. Lazarus (1940-45); Simon M. Kuper (1945-49);
Israel A. *Maisels (1949-51); Edel J. Horwitz (1951-55); Na-
mie Philips (1955-60); Teddy Schneider (1960-65); Maurice
Porter (1965-70); David Mann (1970-74), Julius Rosetten-
stein (1974-78), Israel Abramowitz (1979-83), Michael Katz
(1983-87), Gerald Leissner (1987-91), Mervyn Smith (1991-95),
Marlene Bethlehem (1995-99), Russell Gaddin (1999-2003),
and Michael Bagraim (from 2003). Its secretary and later gen-
eral secretary for many years was Gustav Saron. Aleck Gold-
berg held this position for most of the 1980s while Seymour
Kopelowitz did so for most of the next decade. As new needs

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOUTH AFRICA

had to be met, the Board became a functional agency in vari-
ous fields. Today, it publishes a quarterly journal, Jewish Af-
fairs, runs a Country Communities Department to cater to
the needs of Jews still living in isolated country areas, main-
tains in Johannesburg an important library of Jewish informa-
tion and archives relating to South African Jewry, and pub-
lishes information on the community through its website and
communal directories. In 1993 it also took the lead in found-
ing, and subsequently in running, the ^African Jewish Con-
gress, a representative and coordinating body for the Jewish
communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. There is frequent con-
sultation and cooperation between the Board and the Zionist
Federation. In 1949 the Board launched the United Commu-
nal Fund (ucf) for South African Jewry, which provides the
budgets - in whole or in part - of the Board itself, and of a
number of other important communal organizations, includ-
ing the Office of the Chief Rabbi, Community Security Or-
ganisation, Union of Jewish Women (ujw) and S.A. Board of
Jewish Education. The ucf combined with the Israel United
Appeal in 1984 to form the iua-ucf. In line with important
rationalization initiatives introduced during the late 1990s,
the Board, Zionist Federation, iua-ucf, ujw, S.A. Union of
Jewish Students, and a number of other, smaller, Zionist and
Jewish communal organizations today share single premises
in all the major Jewish centers country- wide.

philanthropy. Institutions to assist the poor and needy
early became an established feature of communal organiza-
tion. In the wake more particularly of the East European im-
migration, there was a proliferation of many kinds of philan-
thropic institutions or fraternal bodies having philanthropic
objects, such as Landsmannschaften, free-loan societies, so-
cieties to visit the sick, and especially for the provision of fi-
nancial and material help to those in need. Many of these
institutions bore the hallmark and followed the methods of
East European traditions of zedakah. Today, for instance, the
largest welfare body in Johannesburg, the Chevra Kaddisha
combines extensive philanthropic work with the activities of
a burial society. The organizational structure and also the un-
derlying principles of Jewish social welfare subsequently un-
derwent changes under the impact of changing social condi-
tions. In recent years, the Chevra Kaddisha has incorporated a
number of other important welfare institutions under its um-
brella, amongst them the two Jewish aged homes Sandringham
Gardens and Our Parents Home, Jewish Community Services,
the Jewish Women's Benevolent Society, and the Arcadia Jew-
ish Orphanage. Other important welfare institutions include
the free-loan societies, the Witwatersrand Hebrew Benevo-
lent Association (founded 1893) and the more recent Ram-
bam Trust, the Selwyn Segal Home for Jewish Handicapped
(1959), Yad Aharon, Hatzollah (medical rescue), Kadimah
Occupational Centre, B'nai B rith, and Nechama (bereave-
ment counseling).

Leading bodies in the Cape include the Astra Centre (in-
corporating Jewish Sheltered Employment), B'nai B'rith, Cape

Jewish Welfare Council, Glendale Home for the Intellectu-
ally Disabled, Hebrew Helping Hand Association, Highlands
House (Jewish Aged Home), and Jewish Community Services
(incorporating Jewish Board of Guardians, founded 1859, and
the Jewish Sick Relief Society). The Jewish community has
assumed financial responsibility for all its welfare needs, the
large budgets being met by fees, membership dues, contribu-
tions, and bequests. Some advantage has been taken of gov-
ernment grants for specific welfare projects.

fraternal organizations. In the first decades of the 20 th
century many of the communal organizations provided some
form of philanthropic and fraternal services to assist the inte-
gration of the immigrant generation. As late as 1929, of the 68
Jewish institutions in Johannesburg then affiliated to the Board
of Deputies, 38 were either wholly or partly philanthropic. An
indigenous South African institution of this type, the Hebrew
Order of David, founded successive lodges after 1904 and, as
members began to be recruited among the South African-born
generation, added social, cultural, and communal objectives.
The Grand Lodge has its headquarters in Johannesburg.

union of Jewish women. In the women's sphere the Union
of Jewish Women of South Africa plays a major role. The first
branch was formed in Johannesburg in 1931 and a national
body in 1936. In 1969 the Union had 64 branches throughout
the republic with a total membership of between 9,000 and
10,000 women, its national headquarters being in Johannes-
burg. The subsequent concentration of most Jews in the main
urban centers, with the resultant closure of most rural and
small town branches, saw the number of branches shrinking
to 10 by 2004, with a total membership of about 7,500 women.
The Union maintains a wide range of activities and acts as a
coordinating body for Jewish women's organizations. A dis-
tinctive aspect of its program is its nondenominational work,
educational and philanthropic, serving all sections of the pop-
ulation. Some branches run creches and feeding depots for in-
digent colored and African children and adults. Branches of
the Union have established Hebrew nursery schools, friend-
ship clubs, services for the aged, youth projects, and a wide
program of adult education. In recent years, the ujw has be-
come extensively involved in hiv/aids relief work.

education. There are a plethora of Jewish day schools in
Johannesburg and Cape Town, all of which provide a com-
plete secular education, with Jewish studies integrated into
the general curriculum, up to matriculation standard. The
mainstream schools in Johannesburg are the three King David
schools, located in Linksfield, Victory Park, and Sandton. The
first two provide Jewish education from pre-school to ma-
triculation level while the third goes up to primary school
level. King David's counterparts in Cape Town are the Herzlia
schools, while there is also a small Jewish day school in Port
Elizabeth, Theodor Herzl.

The ideological basis of the King David, Herzlia, and
Theodor Herzl schools is officially described as "broadly na-

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOUTH AFRICA

tional traditional," a formula intended to indicate both the
religious and the Zionist character of the education. Pupils
receive a full education following a state syllabus and a Jew-
ish studies program, including religion, history, literature, and
Hebrew language. The mainstream Jewish day schools accept
children of mixed marriages and Reform converts. However,
many demanded more intensive religious instruction and
greater religious observance. Protagonists of this type of edu-
cation, together with Bnei Akiva religious youth movement,
created in 1958 Yeshiva College, originally established as the
Bnei Akiva Yeshiva seven years previously. This developed
into a full-time day school from nursery school up to matric-
ulation and steadily grew from an initial few dozen pupils to
well over 800 by the turn of the century. In 1995, the school
received the Jerusalem Prize for Jewish Education in the Dias-
pora. Yeshiva College could be regarded as centrist Orthodox
in its approach. More right-wing Orthodox schools that sub-
sequently were established include Torah Academy and Cape
Town's Hebrew Academy (both under Chabad's auspices), Ye-
shivas Toras Ernes, Shaarei Torah, Bais Yaakov, Hirsch Lyons,
and Yeshiva Maharsha.

The Progressive movement also maintains a network of
supplementary Hebrew and religious classes at its temples.
These schools are affiliated with the Union for Progressive
Jewish Education.

Overall supervision of the King David schools is un-
dertaken by the South African Board of Jewish Education
(sabje), established in 1928, which operates from headquar-
ters in Johannesburg. Affiliates include Yeshiva College and
Torah Academy in Johannesburg, Theodor Herzl in Port Eliz-
abeth, and the Herzlia schools in Cape Town. The sabje has
direct responsibility, both financial and administrative, for the
Jewish day schools in Johannesburg. It also involves itself with
Jewish children who attend state schools and whose main ac-
cess to Jewish education is through the Cheder program and by
means of religious instruction booklets sent into the schools.
It administers a network of Hebrew nursery schools accord-
ing to the standards laid down by the Nursery School Associa-
tion of South Africa. The Cape Council of the South African
Jewish Board of Education has its own religious instruction
program for Jewish pupils who attend the state schools in the
Western Cape Province.

In 2003, over 80% of school-going Jewish children in Jo-
hannesburg, Cape Town, and Port Elizabeth (whose Theodor
Herzl School by then had a mainly non-Jewish enrollment)
were attending one of the Jewish day schools. Those still in
government schools had their Jewish educational require-
ments catered to by the United Hebrew Schools (under the
sabje) in Johannesburg and the Religious Instruction De-
partment of the sajbe in Cape Town. Jewish pupils in Preto-
ria and Durban received Jewish education through a special
department at the Crawford College branches. This arrange-
ment came about following the take-over of the Carmel Col-
lege Jewish day schools in those cities by Crawford during
the 1990s. The total pupil enrollment in the day schools in

2004 was about 8,000, substantially more than the 1969 fig-
ure of 6,000 even though the overall Jewish community had
by then declined by more than a third. Government policy
precludes financial support to new private schools, of what-
ever denomination, and financing of Jewish education re-
mains a problem.

At the tertiary level, university students are able to take
Jewish studies through the Semitics Department of the Uni-
versity of South Africa (unisa); the Department of Hebrew
and Jewish Studies of Natal University; and the Department
of Hebrew and Jewish Studies (including the Isaac and Jessie
Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and Research) at the Uni-
versity of Cape Town.

Programs of adult education continue to be provided by
the sabje, the South African Zionist Federation and the vari-
ous affiliates, including most particularly the Union of Jewish
Women, the Women's Zionist Council and the South African
Zionist Youth Council. Other bodies, which have significantly
contributed to the general cultural life of South African Jewry,
include the Histadrut Ivrit, Yiddish Cultural Federation and
the South African National Yad Vashem Foundation. Courses
of Jewish study are offered at the University of Natal in Dur-
ban, and the University of South Africa.

Social Life

influence of immigration streams. Following the
congregational beginnings in Cape Town in 1841, loss of iden-
tity through assimilation was gradually arrested, although
the immigrants became quickly integrated into the general
economic and cultural life. In secular matters, as also in re-
ligious, they maintained ties with Anglo -Jewry, and this tra-
dition was followed also by the immigrants from Germany.
The latter, socially influential, often assumed the leadership,
but do not appear to have made a specifically German- Jewish
cultural contribution.

The growing numbers of East Europeans led in time
to social, religious, and cultural ferment. Social distance,
and even open friction and conflict, developed between the
"greeners" and the older sections, due to differences in ritual
tradition, in intensity of religious observance, or in attitudes
to Jewish education and Zionism. Nonetheless, many aspects
of the Anglo-Jewish pattern persisted, although it underwent
changes in spirit and content.

Elements of the legacy of Lithuanian Jewry may be iden-
tified in certain characteristics of South African Jewry: gener-
ous support for all philanthropic endeavors, respect for Jewish
scholarship and learning, exemplified in the status accorded
to the rabbinate and concern for Jewish education; and a con-
servative outlook toward religious observance (at least in ex-
ternals). However, as the community became largely South
African-born and homogeneous, the barriers that formerly
separated the various immigrant groups all but disappeared.
The Yiddish language, the only vernacular used by the East
European immigrants, became confined to a small minority.
(In the 1936 census, 17,861 persons declared Yiddish as their

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOUTH AFRICA

home language; by 1946 the figure was 14,044, and in 1951, it
had fallen to 9,970. In i960, of the large Jewish population in
Johannesburg, only 2,786 declared Yiddish to be their home
language). By 2004, only a handful remained.

FORCES STRENGTHENING GROUP IDENTITY. The normal

trends of acculturation and integration - linguistic, cultural,
and economic - were accelerated by the rapid rise in the ma-
terial condition of many Jews. South African Jewry has thus
far escaped large-scale manifestations of assimilation and
maintains a vigorous group life. A major community survey
jointly conducted in 1998 by the Institute for Jewish Policy Re-
search (U.K.) and Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and Re-
search (Cape Town) showed remarkably high levels of Jewish
identification, both in the religious and Zionist sphere, and
an intermarriage rate of less than 10%. Various factors have
contributed to this. During the apartheid years, the country's
cultural and political climate, which emphasizes the distinc-
tiveness of the various linguistic, cultural, and ethnic groups
of the population, and especially the coexistence of the Eng-
lish and Afrikaans language and culture, was favorable to the
preservation of a separate Jewish group life. There was no
pressure upon the Jew to drop his identity or to become an
"unhyphenated" South African. This has continued into the
post-1994 era, where the right of ethnic and religious commu-
nities to express their identity within the greater multicultural
society is constitutionally protected, and indeed encouraged.
The advent of democracy has therefore scarcely impinged, if
at all, on Jewish identity, which has in fact been considerably
strengthened by the strong upsurge in religiosity, particularly
in Johannesburg.

the Zionist movement. The greatest influence, however -
itself part of the Lithuanian heritage - has been exerted by the
Zionist movement in the evolution of South African Jewry.
Lithuanian Jewry's support of *Hibbat Zion was continued by
the emigrants to South Africa. There was at first lukewarm-
ness, and even active opposition, from some of the older an-
glicized groups, some right-wing Orthodox ministers, and also
a small group of *Bund members and socialists. In time, how-
ever, the Zionist outlook achieved an unchallenged position.
Even before the first Basle Congress in 1897, there were a
few Hovevei Zion societies in the country. An association of
Zionist societies in the Transvaal, formed in 1898, convened
a countrywide conference which led to the creation of the
South African Zionist Federation, the first all-national Jewish
body. The first all- South African Zionist conference was held
in 1905. Although the fortunes of the Zionist movement fluc-
tuated in the post-Herzl era, its strength was revealed during
World War 1, when the first South African Jewish Congress
was held in Johannesburg, in April 1916, convened jointly by
the Zionist Federation and the Board of Deputies in order
to mobilize public opinion for the Jewish claim to Palestine.
Zionist activity expanded greatly in the post-*Balfour Declara-
tion period, owing much to its effective leaders, among them,
Samuel Goldreich, Jacob *Gitlin, Idel Schwartz, A.M. Abra-

hams, Rabbi J.H. Hertz, Rabbi J.L. Landau, Benzion Hersch,
Isaac Goldberg, Joseph Janower, Lazar Braudo, Katie Gluck-
man, Nicolai Kirschner, Bernard Gerling, Simon M. *Kuper,
Joseph *Herbstein, Leopold *Greenberg, Edel J. Horwitz, and
Israel A. Maisels. Its most influential officials included Jack Al-
exander, Zvi Infeld, and Sidney Berg. The Zionist Movement
acted as a counterforce to weakening religious observance,
and also unified the widely scattered communities. During
the 1960s and 1970s, contributions per capita to Zionist funds
were believed to have been higher in South Africa than else-
where, even though the country's laws did not allow tax re-
ductions for such donations. These contributions have been
significantly reduced in the modern era, partly due to the de-
cline of the South African currency relative to other curren-
cies and because of government restrictions.

The South African Zionist Federation has been held up
as a model of an all-embracing territorial Zionist organization.
It takes the lead in, and coordinates, a many- faceted program.
Its activities range from fundraising, the promotion of aliyah,
tourism, and other forms of assistance to Israel, to youth work,
adult education, and the fostering of Jewish culture generally.
With its national headquarters situated in Johannesburg, it
has officials in the main provincial centers and also an office
in Tel Aviv, which carries out many varied functions in Israel
itself. The strength of the Zionist movement lies particularly
in its women's and youth sections. Organizations affiliated to
the Zionist Federation include the Women's Zionist Organiza-
tion of South Africa, whose fundraising projects are directed
mainly toward the needs in Israel of women and children and
land reclamation. The South African Maccabi Association,
which promotes sport with Israel and is responsible for South
Africa's participation in the *Maccabi Games. In 2004, there
were four Zionist youth movements nationally, the largest be-
ing Bnei Akiva, followed by Habonim-Dror, Betar, and Netzer
(representing the Reform movement). These conduct cultural
programs, organize youth activities, and run summer camps.
University youth have their representative organization - the
South African Union of Jewish Students (saujs) affiliated to
both the sajbd and sazf. In addition, many Zionist Societ-
ies and numerous synagogues are affiliated to the Federation.
Fundraising is conducted through various channels, mainly
through the Israel United Appeal campaign. Additional funds
are raised for the Jewish National Fund, the Magen David
Adorn, South African Friends of various Israeli universities
and educational institutions including the Hebrew, Bar-Ilan,
Ben-Gurion and Haifa universities and the Technion, amongst
other causes. The executive council of the Zionist Federation,
elected by a biennial conference, includes representatives of
the Women Zionists, Youth, Maccabi, and Medical Councils,
and of other bodies within the Zionist movement.

South African Zionism has been noteworthy for its prac-
tical character, and the many projects which it has sponsored
in Israel, among them the South African Palestine Enterprise
(Binyan Corporation Ltd.) 1922, which granted mortgage
loans at low interest rates; the African Palestine Investments,

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOUTH AFRICA

which participated in the Palestine Cold Storage and Supply
Co.; and the Palestine Shippers Ltd. The South African Jewish
Appeal promoted an important housing project and the build-
ing of the garden village in *Ashkelon. The Women's Zionist
Council erected and maintains the wizo Mothercraft Center.
The Union of Jewish Women endowed the first dormitory for
women students at the Hebrew University and is responsible
for the maintenance of the Parasitology Laboratory. Significant
endowments made by individuals to the Hebrew University
include the Bialik Chair of Hebrew, the Ruth Ochberg Chair
of Agriculture, the Cootcher Museum of Antiquities, the Jof-
fee Marks wing of the Jewish National and University Library,
the Silas S. Perry Endowment for Biblical Research, and the
Percy A. Leon building in the geology complex.

Comparatively large numbers of South African Jews set-
tled in Israel. By 1948 they numbered about 200, and by the
beginning of 2004 the figure was estimated at around 18,000.
Former South Africans who achieved high distinction in the
state are Abba Eban, Michael Comay, Louis (Aryeh) Pincus,
Arthur Lourie, and Jack Geri (who for a time was minister of
commerce). In periods of crisis many volunteers from South
Africa spontaneously left for Israel. In the 1948 War of Lib-
eration, men and women who had served in the South Af-
rican forces during World War 11 went to the defense of the
Jewish state. A few thousand volunteered, but only 800 were
sent and of these, approximately one-quarter remained per-
manently in the country. A stream of volunteers again left for
Israel in the 1956 Sinai crisis, at the time of the Six-Day War
in June 1967, and in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. An increasing
number of students continued their studies at various seats of
higher learning in Israel. The Jewish day schools send large
groups of pupils to Israel for extended courses, and great
numbers of tourists visit Israel regularly. Increasing contacts
between South African Jewry and Israel have enriched the
content of Jewish life and strengthened Jewish consciousness
in South Africa.

Political Attitudes and Involvement

Apart from a few exceptional situations, opportunities to par-
ticipate in all aspects of civic and political life have been open
to Jews at all levels - national, provincial and local. An im-
pressive number of Jews regularly participated in local gov-
ernment as elected councilors, both in the large cities and in
the rural villages (until the exodus to the cities). Many were
elected to the position of mayor (including 22 in Johannes-
burg and 13 in Cape Town). The provincial councils and Par-
liament also have always included Jewish representatives, with
these after 1948 largely belonging to opposition parties. Four
Jews, Henry *Gluckman, Louis Shill, Joe *Slovo, and Ronnie
Kasrils have to date attained cabinet rank, while Gill Mar-
cus, as well as Kasrils, have served terms as deputy ministers.
In 1999, Tony Leon became the country's first Jewish Leader
of the Opposition when his party, the Democratic Alliance,
became the second largest party in Parliament following the
general election of that year.

Throughout the 20 th century, relations between the white
and non-white sections of the population formed the warp
and woof of party politics in South Africa, and there was like-
wise no collective Jewish attitude in regard to these. Because
of the great diversity of opinions among individuals, and
the complexity of the racial and political tensions within the
country, the Jewish community found it impossible to advo-
cate any specific group policy. The majority espoused mod-
erate policies. Some Jews were among the foremost protago-
nists of the non-white sections of the population. One of the
best-known was Helen *Suzman, the sole representative of
the Progressive Party in the South African Parliament from
1961 to 1974. Within the ranks of the anti- apartheid liberation
movements, Jews were likewise disproportionately involved,
whether as academics, trade unionists, political organizers,
or within the armed wings of the liberation groups. Many of
these were jailed, including Denis Goldberg, who was con-
victed alongside Nelson Mandela and other leading black
opposition figures at the famous Rivonia Trial in 1964. Many
more were compelled to go into exile, where they continued
to be active in anti -apartheid activities in places like London
and Lusaka in Zambia. Some returned after the unbanning of
the various liberation movements in 1990 and several of these,
amongst them Joe Slovo, Ronnie Kasrils, Ben Turok, and Gill
Marcus, played an important role in the subsequent process
of transition to multiracial democracy.

During the apartheid years of white minority rule, the
activities of individual Jews or of the Jewish community
as such led to occasional controversy, often revealing the im-
pact of the political, ideological, and racial tensions in South
Africa upon attitudes toward Jews. The fact that so high a
proportion of Jews were engaged in anti-apartheid activities,
often as members of the banned Communist Party, led to the
loyalties of the Jewish community as a whole being called
into question. The mainstream Jewish leadership, represented
by the sajbd, found it necessary from time to time to empha-
size that there was no collective Jewish viewpoint in regard
to the racial policies advocated by the respective political par-
ties, and that Jewish citizens act in such matters not as mem-
bers of a group, but as individuals. As opposition to apartheid
intensified, both locally and internationally, the mainstream
communal leadership became increasingly torn between its
traditional mission of safeguarding the Jewish community
and the need to condemn the injustices of the apartheid pol-
icy in accordance with Jewish moral values and historical ex-
perience.

By the mid-1980s, the sajbd was speaking out more
forthrightly against the apartheid policy. At its national con-
ference of 1985, and again in 1987, the Board explicitly rejected
apartheid. It also released statements condemning evictions
of black leaders and pass-law arrests, detention without trial,
a university quota system for blacks, and the treatment of
black squatters near Cape Town. The ruling National Party's
move away from pure apartheid attracted some Jewish sup-
port although the majority of Jews continued to support the

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SOUTH AFRICA

liberal opposition Progressive Federal Party, later transformed
into the Democratic Party and thereafter the Democratic Al-
liance. A substantial number of Jews were engaged in social
action and welfare activities. Jews were prominent in various
activist organizations including Lawyers for Human Rights,
the Legal Resources Centre, and the End Conscription Cam-
paign (which sought changes to laws regarding compulsory
military service for whites). Two specifically Jewish activist
organizations were founded in the mid-1980s: Jews for Social
Justice in Johannesburg and Jews for Justice in Cape Town.
In 1987 Jews for Social Justice participated in the founding of
the Five Freedoms Forum, a broad grouping of 25 white orga-
nizations opposed to apartheid. The sajbd fully endorsed the
moves away from apartheid by President De Klerk after 1989,
and devoted much of its efforts during the following decade
to preparing the Jewish community for the transition to black
majority rule. In 1992, it threw its weight behind a "yes" vote
during an all-white referendum on whether or not the reform
process should be continued.

The majority of Jews tended to vote for opposition par-
ties during the 1948-94 period, and in the elections of 1999
and 2004 overwhelmingly supported the Democratic Alliance.
Nevertheless the Jewish community collectively - as distinct
from individual Jewish citizens - has played no part in poli-
tics (except in exceptional situations, such as during the 1930s,
where Jews felt that their status as full and equal citizens was
being threatened).

Economic Life and Social Structure

That Jews have played a significant role in the economic de-
velopment of the country is generally acknowledged. They
were able to make a distinctive contribution because of the
specific economic situation prevailing in the country at vari-
ous periods, which required and gave scope for their particu-
lar talents and enterprise.

In the early part of the 19 th century, before the discovery
of the diamond fields, the economy was largely pastoral and
agricultural. Economic prospects of the Cape were revived,
however, by the increased trade and shipping around the
southern route between Europe and the East. Furthermore,
the aftermath of the English industrial revolution had en-
couraged some emigration to South Africa; and included the
group known as the 1820 Settlers from Britain, which settled
along the eastern frontier of the Cape (see *Norden family).
During the 1830s, the interior was further opened up by the
Boer voortrekkers. The relatively small number of Jewish im-
migrants from England and Germany brought with them an
aptitude for and experience in trade and finance, and filled a
special niche in the economically undeveloped society. They
were merchants and small traders, with a sprinkling of profes-
sional men and craftsmen. Through their knowledge of for-
eign markets they helped to develop the export of such prod-
ucts as wool, hides, skins, and wine. They also contributed to
the improvement of the Cape wool and mohair industries,
the foundation of South Africa's future development as one

of the worlds producers. The Mosenthals from Germany, in
particular, left a permanent mark on the economy through
their initiative and diversity of interests. From bases in Cape
Town and Port Elizabeth they set up a chain of trading sta-
tions in the interior of the Cape, usually manned by Jewish
immigrants whom they had brought out from Germany. They
helped to stabilize the rural economy by providing long-term
credits to storekeepers and, through them, to farmers, par-
ticularly in bad seasons. Before the advent of commercial
banking, the firms banknotes were widely accepted in the
development of banking, the financing of diamond and gold
mining, and the establishment of secondary industries in the
Cape and Transvaal. The *De Pass brothers, who came from
Britain in the 1840s, developed shipping, fishing, and coastal
trading enterprises in the southwestern Cape. They had in-
terests in the newly discovered diamond fields in South- West
Africa, then a German possession. Daniel De Pass was one of
the pioneers of the sugar industry in Natal. The itinerant Jew-
ish traders and peddlers (locally known as "smouses") trav-
eled on foot or used animal-drawn transport to penetrate long
distances, often amidst great hazards and hardships, to scat-
tered hamlets and the extensive farms. They sold their wares
and also provided a channel through which the products of
the land could reach the ports and world markets. Many set-
tled in the villages and at wayside stations as shopkeepers, so
that eventually there was hardly a small town without one or
more Jewish stores. These Jewish middlemen had a recog-
nized place in the economy of the Cape and subsequently in
the northerly territories.

Then came the revolution which transformed South Af-
rica's economic structure: the discovery of diamonds at Kim-
berley (1870) and the opening of the Transvaal gold mines
(1886; see * Johannesburg). The exploitation of mineral wealth
called for enterprise, technical and managerial initiative, abil-
ity and great capital resources. There was a demand for com-
mercial techniques, and the way was opened for the later
development of secondary industries to supply the new com-
munities which sprung up. The majority of Afrikaners, still
largely a rural community, were not ready for the challenges
of this new economic era, and the lead was taken by the Eng-
lish-speaking elements and foreigners of various nationalities,
who flocked to the country. Among them Jews, mainly from
Western Europe, became leaders of the mining industry (see
B.I. *Barnato, the * Joels, Lionel ^Phillips, George *Albu and
David ^Harris). With Cecil John Rhodes, Barnato founded
De Beers Consolidated Mines which controlled the produc-
tion and marketing of diamonds (see also ^Diamond Industry
and Trade). On the discovery of gold the same men, using the
wealth and skill they had acquired in the diamond fields, took
the lead in developing the gold mines. In later years, Ernest
*Oppenheimer and his son Harry were at the head of De Beers
and established widespread interests in the goldfields of the
Transvaal and the newer goldfields of the Orange Free State,
in the production of base minerals and uranium, and in the
development of manufacturing industries. Many of the early

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SOUTH AFRICA

Jewish magnates had only flimsy associations with the Jew-
ish community, and some actually abandoned Judaism. Later,
other Jewish mining magnates, financiers, and executives also
became leading figures in the mining industry, though in rela-
tively small numbers.

The next major movement forward - a latecomer in
South Africa - was the development of secondary industry,
which occurred after World War i and was greatly intensified
during and after World War n. Jews, many of them from East-
ern Europe, contributed greatly to this development through
their pioneering spirit and readiness to take risks. Often start-
ing from humble beginnings as peddlers, storekeepers, and
handicraftsmen (tailors, shoemakers, cabinetmakers, brick-
layers, and so on), they produced some of the most enterpris-
ing industrialists. Among the pioneers were Samuel *Marks,
who immigrated to South Africa in the 1860s, and his part-
ner Isaac Lewis, who, with the help of state concessions estab-
lished a number of industries in the Pretoria area, from the
production of dynamite for the mines to a distillery and glass
works. The steel plant which they established in Vereeniging
was the forerunner of the South African state- controlled iron
and steel industry. Assisted by protective tariffs and by war-
time conditions, industries for manufacturing food, clothing,
textiles, furniture, leather articles, and others were established
by Jewish enterprise. Clothing and textile factories, in partic-
ular, were developed into one of the most important sectors
of South African industry, and Jews remained leaders in that
field. In the 1930s, the refugees who arrived from Germany
also introduced many new industries. The younger generation
of South African-born Jews later diversified into other spheres
like electronics, engineering, the chemical industries, and
large-scale building construction. Jewish town planners, prop-
erty developers, and builders were largely responsible for the
modernization of Johannesburg and other cities to meet the
needs of an increasingly urbanized population. Entrepreneurs,
notably I.W. *Schlesinger, were among the leading figures in
the tertiary industries (insurance, mass entertainment, hotel
keeping, catering, and advertising). Jews were among the first
in South Africa to introduce modern distribution techniques
in the retail trade, such as the department store, the super-
market and the discount house. The largest chain stores were
founded by Jews, most of whom started from small begin-
nings. Although few Jews took up agriculture, Jewish farmers,
especially in the maize industry, fruit growing, dairy farming
and viticulture, set examples of successful scientific farming.
Schlesinger s citrus undertaking in the Transvaal became one
of the largest of its kind in the world. Ostrich farming and
marketing, until the decline of the industry after 1914, was de-
veloped by Jews in the Oudtshoorn area of the Cape, notable
among them being the Rose brothers, Max and Albert.

The South African-born generation of Jews turned in in-
creasing numbers to the professions, to medicine, law, phar-
macy, and later to accountancy, engineering, architecture, and
pure and applied science, often achieving positions of emi-
nence. A high proportion of young people regularly study at

the universities. There have been distinguished Jewish lawyers
in the past, Simeon Jacobs, Manfred *Nathan, Leopold Green-
berg, Philip *Millin, J. Herbstein, H.M. Bloch, Percy Yutar,
Simon Kuper, Cecil Margo, Isie Maisels, Richard Goldstone,
Sydney Kentridge, Albie Sachs, and Arthur Chaskalson, many
of these going on to serve with distinction on the bench. In
2001, Arthur Chaskalson was appointed chief justice. Many
Jews have distinguished themselves in medicine, medical re-
search, and the development of health and hospital services.

Jews in the Armed Forces

Jewish service as volunteers in the armed forces of the nation
dates back to the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, when Jews
fought on both sides. Jewish participation in army service has
been in greater numbers, proportionally, than the rest of the
white population. Thus in World War 1, there were some 3,000
Jewish volunteers representing about 6% of the entire Jewish
population of that time. In World War 11 over 10,000, above
10% of the Jewish population, were listed in the records kept
by the South African Jewish Board of Deputies of Jews serving
in the Union Defense Forces and with other Allied forces. Of
these 357 were killed, 327 were wounded or injured, 143 were
mentioned in dispatches, and 94 received various awards for
distinguished service. Compulsory military conscription for
white males was introduced in the early 1970s, which began
at six months and eventually was extended to two years plus
two further years of military camps. Shortly thereafter, in
1976, South Africa became embroiled in a war against South
West African liberation fighters and Cuban forces on the An-
gola-South West Africa border. The war continued until 1989,
when South West Africa, now called Namibia, gained its inde-
pendence from South Africa. A number of Jewish conscripts,
perhaps a dozen in all, were amongst those who lost their
lives in the conflict.

During the years of compulsory military conscription,
chaplaincy services to Jewish men in the armed forces were
provided by a Chaplaincy Committee, composed of repre-
sentatives of the Board of Deputies, the Federation of Syna-
gogues (later the uos), the Union of Progressive Judaism, the
Jewish Ex- Servicemen's organization, the Union of Jewish
Women, and the Rabbinical Association. The chaplains were
usually ministers or rabbis serving communities in the areas
where military camps were located. Most of the administra-
tive work of the Chaplaincy Committee was carried out by the
Board of Deputies. There were 30 Jewish chaplains serving in
the field in World War 11. Chaplaincy services were discon-
tinued in 1994.

Cultural Life

Jews have participated actively in all aspects of the cultural and
artistic life of the country. Their work is recognized as part of
South African culture. That they are Jews may not be irrelevant
to their work, but does not determine the nature of their con-
tributions. In the literary field, they have produced an impos-
ing list of writers and artists, some of the first rank, including
South Africa's foremost novelist, Sarah Gertrude *Millin. Also

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SOUTH AFRICA

from South Africa are the Jewish novelists Dan * Jacobson and
Nadine * Gordimer. Since for the most part Jews have been liv-
ing in the cities where English is the dominant language, it is
not surprising that they have had a greater share in English
culture than in Afrikaans, although several have made wor-
thy contributions to Afrikaans literature and more and more
Jews are becoming fluent in both Afrikaans and English (see
*South African Literature). One of the founders of the Rand
Daily Mail and both founders of the Mail & Guardian were
Jews, and Jews figure prominently in journalism. As patrons
of art, music, and literature, they have provided stimulus in
many aspects of the cultural life of the country, notably, per-
haps, in musical and dramatic enterprise. Jewish painters in-
clude Irma *Stern and John Henry *Amshewitz, and among
sculptors of notable standing is Moses *Kottler. South Afri-
can playwrights, composers, musicians, producers, and actors
have contributed largely to the cultural scene. While Yiddish
was still in vogue among substantial numbers of the commu-
nity, several South African writers made worthy literary con-
tributions in that medium. There has also been literary cre-
ativity in Hebrew.

Relations with Israel

South Africa's official relations with Israel were founded, sig-
nificantly, in a month decisive for the destinies of both people,
May 1948. Chaim Weizmann, describing May 15, the day after
the establishment of the State of Israel, wrote: "I bethought
myself of one surviving author of the Balfour Declaration
and addressed a cable to General Smuts. This was closely fol-
lowed by South African recognition (of Israel)" (Trial and Er-
ror, p. 585). In the same month, however, Smuts and his United
Party were defeated in the South African elections and suc-
ceeded by Malan's Nationalist Party. Smuts had had a long-
standing familiarity with Zionism, whereas the new govern-
ment was less involved with the story of Zionism and the cause
of Jewish statehood. The Smuts administration had steadfastly
supported the Zionist cause in international forums and was
among the governments which had voted in the United Na-
tions for the partition of Palestine on Nov. 29, 1947. Under the
Nationalists, South Africa continued to support Israel, voted
for its admission to the United Nations in 1949, and backed
it on a number of subsequent issues in that forum. South Af-
rica's recognition of Israel was followed by the establishment
of an Israel consulate -general in Johannesburg and an Israel
legation in Pretoria. Out of consideration for its economic
interests and ties with the Arab States, however, South Africa
was for long reluctant to establish any diplomatic mission in
Israel. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Malan made a personal
visit to Israel in 1952.

During the 1960s, attitudes to Israel underwent a change,
because of the statements and votes by Israel representatives at
the United Nations, which were critical of South Africa's racial
policies. The reactions at times caused considerable tension
between the South African government and the Jewish com-
munity. When the Israel- Arab war broke out in 1967, however,

public sympathy was strongly on Israel's side. Following the
1973 Yom Kippur War, ties between Israel and South Africa,
particularly in the military sphere, were steadily strengthened,
a factor that contributed significantly to anti-Israel sentiment
within the majority black population.

The establishment of these links between Israel and South
Africa brought increasing and severe international criticism.
Chaim Herzog, then Israel ambassador at the un, revealed
the hypocrisy of these allegations by his disclosure of details
concerning large-scale secret trade between Arab, Asian and
African nations and South Africa. On numerous occasions it
was made plain by Israel that it had reservations about South
African internal policies, but that it believed that it was essen-
tial to continue to foster cooperation between the countries
despite differences of opinion on internal policies.

South Africa consolidated warm relations with Israel
through the 1980s. However, as Western pressure against
South Africa intensified, Israel was forced into reassessing
this relationship. The United States threatened to cut military
assistance to countries engaged in military trade with South
Africa. In 1987 Israel agreed "to refrain from new undertak-
ings between Israel and South Africa in the realm of defense."
In line with its general opposition to sanctions as a policy, the
South African Jewish leadership urged Israel not to take that
step. Notwithstanding Israeli policy, the South African gov-
ernment continued to accept "approved enterprise to certain
categories of investment" in Israel, among them residential
housing, subject to certain conditions.

During the 1980s, left-wing and Islamist groups, such as
the p ac, the Azanian Peoples' Organization (azapo), Call of
Islam, and Qibla (a Muslim fundamentalist movement) pur-
sued a vigorous anti-Zionist line. Their support was built upon
black disappointment at close ties between South Africa and
Israel and suspected military cooperation. Anti-Zionist sen-
timent was already evident at the time of the Lebanon War
(1982) and consolidated during the first intifada. In particular
the Muslim population of over 500,000 pursued a vigorous
stance against Israel. This was very evident during the First
Gulf War, intensifying during the years of the Oslo peace pro-
cess and reaching unprecedented heights following the out-
break of the second intifada in September 2000. Notwith-
standing sympathy for the Palestinian people, black leaders
made a clear distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemi-
tism. Nonetheless, there were indications of substantial "so-
cial distance" between blacks and Jews, including anti- Jewish
attitudes among blacks.

The advent of black majority rule in 1994, which resulted
in an overwhelming victory for the strongly pro- Palestinian
African National Congress (anc), saw a radical change in
the government's attitude towards Israel. The relationship re-
mained reasonably cordial during the years of the Oslo peace
process but deteriorated sharply with the outbreak of the sec-
ond intifada. While often critical of Israeli policy, however, the
anc (which was returned to office with increased majorities
in the elections of 1999 and 2004) remains committed to di-

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SOUTH AFRICAN LITERATURE

alogue and strengthening already strong trade ties between
the two countries.

bibliography: L. Feldman, Yidn in Johannesburg (1956);
Jewish Affairs, 15 (i960); Zionist Record (March 21, 1961); idem, Jew-
ish Affairs, vol. 15 no. 5 (May, i960), M. Shain, The Roots of Anti-Semi-
tism in South Africa (1994); S.E. Aschheim, in: jjs 12, 2 (Dec. 1970),
201-31. add. bibliography: I. Suttner (ed.), Cutting Through the
Mountain - Interviews With South African Jewish Activists (1997); G.
Shimoni, Jews and Zionism: The South African Experience, 1910-196/
(1980); G. Shimoni, Community and Conscience: The Jews in Apartheid
South Africa (2003); M. Shain and R. Mendelsohn (eds.), Memories,
Realities and Dreams - Aspects of the South African Jewish Experience
(2002); Jewish Affairs, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Rosh Hashana 2003) (South
African Jewish Board of Deputies centenary issue); M. Kaplan and
M. Robertson (eds.), Founders and Followers - Johannesburg Jewry,
1887-1915 (1991); M. Arkin (ed.), South African Jewry - A Contem-
porary Survey (1984); M. Kaplan, Jewish Roots in the South African
Economy (1986); Jewish Affairs 60 th anniversary issue, Vol. 57, No. 3
(Rosh Hashana 2002).

[Gustav Saron and Milton Shain / David Saks (2 nd ed.)]

SOUTH AFRICAN LITERATURE.

Biblical Influences

The Afrikaans -speaking people of South Africa are mainly
descended from Dutch Calvinist and French Huguenot im-
migrants of the 17 th century. The Bible has been an important
factor in their life and thinking. The Afrikaans language (a
variant of Dutch) took shape in the late 19 th century, and bib-
lical influences were reflected in it and in the early literature.
Scriptural themes were common in the Afrikaans novel, and
some Afrikaans verse was influenced in its subject matter and
style, notably by Psalms and Ecclesiastes.

In South African English literature, with its natural af-
finities to the literature of England, biblical influences were
less pronounced. They were to be seen chiefly in style and
language in the works of the non-Jewish Olive Schreiner
(1855-1920), Pauline Smith (1884-1959), and Alan Paton
(1903-1988), and the Jewish writer Sarah Gertrude *Mil-
lin (1889-1968). Dan *Jacobson (b. 1929) wrote The Rape of
Tamar (1970), which is an imaginative reworking of a bibli-
cal subject.

The Figure of the Jew

While the Hebrews of the Bible were esteemed by the Afri-
kaners, the Jews of modern times were generally less favor-
ably dealt with by Afrikaans writers, who tended to portray a
traditional stereotype of the "bad Jew," shrewd, grasping, and
ruthless in his dealings with the simple Afrikaner. However,
there were some instances of the "good Jew" as well. Jewish
characters were frequently represented as speaking a heav-
ily accented Afrikaans. D.F. Malherbe, Jochem van Bruggen,
CM. Van den Heever, and Abraham Jonker, who focus on
the changeover that took place in the 1920s and 1930s from
an agricultural to a capitalist mode of production, create Jew-
ish characters with a mixture of grudging admiration and
condemnation. J. van Melle and C.J. Langenhoven's charac-
terizations are more sympathetic. Abraham Jonker s non-fic-

tional Israel die Sondebok (1940) (translated as The Scapegoat
of History, 1941), vigorously condemned antisemitism. Etienne
Leroux (1922-1989) wrote several novels. In Sewe Dae by die
Silbersteins (Seven Days at the Silbersteins, 1962) Jewish char-
acters are more fully developed. Een vir Azazel (1964) contains
biblical motifs. Onse Hymie (1982) deals sympathetically with
a smous (itinerant peddler). Generally, in later Afrikaans lit-
erature, Jews seldom appear.

After the advent of the State of Israel, a number of de-
scriptive and historical accounts of the Holy Land by Afri-
kaans writers usually exhibited a sympathetic approach. B.
Gemser, who in 1937 had published a collection of Afrikaans
translations of Hebrew short stories, issued a Hebrew- Afri-
kaans grammar in 1953.

In South Africa's English -language literature, in the work
of non- Jewish writers, both white and black, Jewish charac-
ters invariably appear in three distinct stereotypes, of which
the unscrupulous Jewish shopkeeper or businessman is the
most common. The wandering Jew appears as the itinerant
peddler, a typical occupation for newly arrived Jews from the
end of the 19 th century. A philo- Semitic approach is rarer. Alan
Paton's Too Late the Phalarope (1953) and the work of the col-
ored (mixed-race) Peter Abrahams, are examples of portrayals
of sympathetic Jews. Some writers were viciously antisemitic.
A. A. Murray's Anybody's Spring, (1959) is a striking example.
In later English fiction Jews often appear as leftists, involved
in the struggle of the black people for freedom, a perception
which reflects the prominent presence of Jews in the struggle
for a democracy.

The Jewish Contribution

Jews did not reach South Africa in significant numbers until
the second half of the 19 th century. Most settled in towns, and
Jewish writers mainly used Yiddish and, increasingly, English.
The Jewish contribution to the emergent Afrikaans literature
came later and was smaller, though not negligible.

Writers in English

fiction. Among the major figures in South African English
fiction a number are Jewish. However, not all identify as being
Jewish, nor does their writing always reflect Jewish themes.
Except for some specifically Jewish social, political, and com-
munal concerns, Jewish writers, following the general trend,
concern themselves with general South African topics, not
least with the issue of race and color, understandably so for
a people with a history of persecution. The family saga, par-
ticularly immigration from eastern Europe and, more latterly,
emigration from South Africa, is another recurrent theme.
However, there is no "Jewish" school, and it is noteworthy
that some Jewish writers display evidence of Jewish self- re-
jection. Overall, the Jewish contribution to South African lit-
erature has been contemporary in setting, realistic in mode,
and liberal in political outlook. Jewish characters occur more
frequently in the fiction of Jewish writers than in that of gen-
tiles, where the Jew more often than not appears in a minor,
and stereotyped, role. Perhaps because of concern with the

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SOUTH AFRICAN LITERATURE

overshadowing white- black racism, antisemitism is a theme
that seldom becomes a central issue.

Louis Cohen, a half- Jewish immigrant from England, was
a journalist in Kimberley during the 1870s and wrote scurri-
lous sketches concerning Jews. Sarah Gertrude Millin, one of
the most prolific of South African writers, published 18 novels.
For many years she was the outstanding personality in South
African creative writing and her works were translated into
many languages. Her novel Gods Stepchildren (1924) was the
first major South African work of fiction to deal with misce-
genation and the plight of the colored people. The Coming of
the Lord (1928) deals with the problems of minority groups,
including the Jews. In later years her writings tended to reflect
more conventional South African views on color.

Nadine *Gordimer s work and Dan Jacobson's early writ-
ing revealed an intense awareness of the currents of social and
race conflict in South Africa. Gordimer s international stand-
ing culminated in the award of the Nobel Prize for literature
in 1991. Her 13 novels and many books of short stories are
among the finest of South African writing. Apart from in her
early work, references to Jews are few, and some, such as in A
Sport of Nature (1987), are depicted in stereotypical fashion.
Dan Jacobson, who immigrated to London, wrote an impor-
tant novel, The Beginners (1966), portraying on a broad can-
vas the fortunes of a Jewish immigrant family, their adjust-
ment to South African conditions, and emigration. The Price
of Diamonds (1957) and several masterly short stories, includ-
ing "The Zulu and the Zeide" (1958), satirize Jewish assump-
tions about race and morality and interrogate the Jewish ste-
reotypes. His non-fictional writing includes HesheVs Kingdom
(1999 )> which deals with a retrieval of Lithuanian roots.

The works of Arthur Markowitz {Facing North, 1949;
Market Street, 1959) and Arthur Segal (Johannesburg Friday,
1954) also treat Jewish South African life, as do the sketches in
Millionaires and Tatterdemalions (1952) by Victor Barwin.

Lewis Sowden in The Crooked Bluegum (1955) and Ger-
ald Gordon (1909-1998) in Let the Day Perish (1952) deal
with social and racial themes. Harry Blooms Episode (1956)
is considered a classic on the subject. A pioneer in a related
field was Herzl J. Schlosberg who, under the pen name Henry
John May, was co-author with J. Grenfell Williams of I Am
Black (1936), the first South African novel to view life from
the black Africans standpoint. Wolfe Miller published Man
in the Background (1958).

Lionel Abrahams (1928-2004), who wrote The Celibacy
of Felix Greenspan (1977) and The White Life of Felix Greens-
pan (2002), was one of South Africa's most eminent writers,
editors, teachers, and critics, having worked with distinction
in almost all genres. His great contribution to South African
letters was recognized by the award of two honorary doctor-
ates. Among lesser-known figures the following authors are
those who have published at least one novel or novella. Only
one reference is given in each case. Ronald Segal (The Toko-
losh), Rhona Stern (Cactus Land), Phyllis Altman (The Law
of the Vultures), Bertha Goudvis (Little Eden), Maurice Flior

(Heralds of the East Wind), Myrna Blumberg (White Madam),
Sylvester Stein (Second Class Taxi), Olga Levinson (Call Me
Master), Rose Moss (The Family Reunion), Rose Zwi (Another
Year in Africa), Shirley Eskapa (The Secret Keeper), Dennis
Hirson (The House Next Door to Africa), Lynne Freed (Home
Ground), Eddie Lurie (The Beginning Is Endless), Gillian Slovo
(Ties of Blood), Maja Kriel (Rings in a Tree), David Cohen (Peo-
ple Who Have Stolen from Me), Tony Eprile (The Persistence of
Memory), Patricia Schonstein (The Alchemist), Mona Berman
(Email from a Jewish Mother), Johnny Steinberg (Midlands),
Diane Awerbuck (Gardening at Night), and Ken Barris (Sum-
mer Grammar). The renowned actor Antony Sher, who moved
to England, imaginatively and even grotesquely dealt with the
subject of immigration in Middlepost (1988).

Collections of short stories have come from Bertha
Goudvis, Barney Simon (Jo'burg Sis!), David Medalie (The
Killing of the Christmas Cows), Maureen Isaacson, Shirley
Eskapa, Maja Kriel, Sandra Braude, Marc Glaser, and Ken
Barris. Lilian Simon, Pnina Fenster, and Marcia Leveson are
among the numerous others whose stories have appeared in
South African literary journals. Humorous fiction was writ-
ten by, among others, D. Dainow, M. Davidson, S. Levin, and
Barbara Ludman.

poetry. Jews have made substantial contributions to South
African poetry. Phillip Stein published Awakening (1946) and
Victor Barwin's Europa and Other Poems appeared in 1947.
Lewis Sowden published three volumes of verse, notably Po-
ems from the Bible (i960), and Florence Louie Friedman pro-
duced original verse and translations from the French and
Zulu.

Among the most important voices in South African Eng-
lish poetry were those of Sydney Clouts (1926-1982) (One Life)
and Ruth Miller (1919-1969) (The Floating Island). Jewish as-
pects were not reflected in their poetry. These do appear, how-
ever, in the work of many of South Africa's other Jewish poets.
Jacob Stern's Proverbs is one such volume. Lionel Abrahams
published several volumes of poetry on philosophical and
political issues, love, and his home city, Johannesburg. Helen
Segal (Footprint of a Fish) wrestles with moral, aesthetic, and
religious issues. Bernard Levinson in From Breakfast to Mad-
ness and elsewhere draws on his experience as a psychiatrist.
Sinclair Beiles (Ashes of Experience) and Roy Joseph Cotton
(Ag Man) employ surrealism. Riva Rubin (The Poet-Killers)
writes among other things on biblical themes, and her expe-
riences of Israel where she settled in 1963. Chaim Lewis, an
Anglo- Jewish author, wrote poetry on South African and Jew-
ish themes during his long stay in the country. Experience of
Israel is also apparent in the work of Jeremy Gordin (With My
Tongue in My Hand). Among the many others whose work has
appeared in their own anthologies or in journals are Robert
Berold (The Door to the River), David Friedland (After Image),
Lola Watter (Images from Africa), Edgar Bernstein, Elias Pa-
ter (Jacob Friedman), Jean Lip kin, Elaine Unterhalter, Man-
nie Hirsch, Dennis Diamond, Dennis Hirson, Allan Kolski

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SOUTH AFRICAN LITERATURE

Horwitz, Rose Friedman, Sheila Basden, Sandra Braude, Roy
Blumenthal, Debra Aarons, Marc Glaser, Peter and Mike Kan-
tey, Karen Press, Keith Gottshalk, Steve Shapiro, Terry Suss-
man, Adam Schwartzman, Barry Feinberg, Ken Barris, Gail
Dendy, Cyril Edelstein, Jessie Prisman, and Freda Freeman.
Gloria Sandak-Lewin's poetry contains many Jewish themes.
Israel Ben Yosef, in collaboration with Douglas Reid Skinner,
published Approximations (1989), translations into English of
contemporary Hebrew poetry.

drama. The Jewish contribution to the performing arts has
been highly significant in South Africa. The Verdict (1911),
written by T.J. Holzberg in collaboration with I.K. Sampson
(a non-Jew), was probably the first South African play by a
Jew. One of Lewis Sowdens plays, The Kimberley Train (1958),
brought the color question onto the South African stage, and
ran for more than 100 performances. Bertha Goudvis wrote
several plays on Jewish themes, A Husband for Rachel (1926)
being the best known. Sarah Gertrude Millin's novel Mary
Glenn (1925) was dramatized and staged abroad, as were two
adaptations of works by Dan Jacobson, notably his short story
"The Zulu and the Zeide," which was staged as a musical on
Broadway. The first internationally successful South African
musical, King Kong, which premiered in Johannesburg in 1959,
was, except for the music, a largely Jewish production with Af-
rican actors, with the book by Harry Bloom, orchestration by
Stanley Glasser, set design by Arthur Goldreich, and direction
by Leon Gluckman (all of whom subsequently emigrated).

Internationally acclaimed Leonard *Schach was involved
in every stage of the development of theater in South Africa
between 1925 and 1994. He was the inspiration behind Cape
Town's Cockpit Theater, and until his death, divided his time
as a director between South Africa and Israel. He published
his memoirs in 1996. Other influential directors in the post-
war years were Celia Sonnenberg and Rene Ahrenson, who
founded "Shakespeare in the Park" at Maynardville in Cape
Town and, later, the "Company of Four." Leon Gluckman, one
of the country's most creative directors, was particularly in-
terested in fostering black theater. Moira Fine, a major sup-
porter of the Space Theater in Cape Town, also ran Volute
Productions. For a lengthy period the doyenne of South Af-
rican theater actor-directors and managers was Taubie Kush-
lick. The Johannesburg Children's Theater was the work of
Joyce Levinsohn. A co-founder and artistic director of the
famous Market Theater, the home of political protest theater
in South Africa, was Barney Simon, who was a leading di-
rector and facilitator- playwright, stimulating his actors into
creative improvisations. One of the most successful of these
was the internationally acclaimed Woza, Albert! A significant
book, tracing the first decade of the existence of this theater,
was written by the Johannesburg journalist Pat Schwartz
in 1988. The Junction Avenue Theater Company, under the
leadership of Malcolm Purkey, applied workshop methods to
create The Fantastical History of a Useless Man and other im-
portant plays, including Sophiatown, a recreation of a black

township destroyed by government edict. Purkey became
artistic director of the Market Theater. Among other Jew-
ish playwrights whose work has been staged in South Africa
are Bernard Sachs, Geraldine Aron, Sinclair Beiles, Michael
Picardie, David Peemer, Gary Friedman, and Henry Root-
enberg. Shawn Slovo produced a film, A World Apart, based
on the experiences in political detention of her mother, Ruth
First. William Kentridge, renowned artist, collaborated with
the Handspring Theater Company to produce such innova-
tive works as Faustus in Africa! which had worldwide success.
In the field of satire and social commentary, Adam Leslie was
for many years a household name, as are the half- Jewish and
half- Afrikaans Pieter-Dirk Uys and David Kramer.

For over 50 years, one of South Africa's most influen-
tial theater and film critics was Percy Baneshik. Percy Tucker
wrote his memoirs as the creator of a theater-booking agency.
Among promoters of the arts in general in South Africa is
Phillip Stein, who was director of the Vita Awards made an-
nually for distinguished work in the performing, literary and
visual arts.

autobiography, biography and memoirs. Jewish
writers have been greatly concerned with the recreation of
the past - the general South African past, their own life-sto-
ries, and the history of immigrant families. In this field Sarah
Gertrude Millin was prominent. She wrote the lives of Rhodes
(1933), General Smuts (1936), and two autobiographical vol-
umes, The Night is Long (1941) and The Measure of My Days
(1955). Nathan Levi, a Dutch- Jewish journalist in Pretoria, pro-
duced the first biography of General Smuts in English (1917).
The memoirs of Lionel Phillips, Randlord, first appeared in
1924. Henry Raymond, Richard Lewinsohn and S. Joel each
chose Barney *Barnato as a subject (1897, 1937 and 1958), and
Felix Gross wrote Rhodes of Africa (1956). Manfred *Nathan
wrote a standard biography of the Boer leader, Paul Kruger
(1941). The memoirs of Sir David ^Harris, South African pio-
neer, soldier, and politician, appeared in 1930. The explorer
Nathaniel ^Isaacs was also a literary pioneer with his Trav-
els and Adventures in Eastern Africa... with a Sketch of Na-
tal (1836; reissued 1935-36). Sir Harry Graumann published
a review of the gold industry in 1936. Enid Alexander wrote
the life of her husband, Morris ^Alexander (1953), and Mor-
ris Kentridge's published reminiscences of his public career.
The historian, Phyllis Lewsen, produced an authoritative edi-
tion of the letters of the South African statesman John Xavier
Merriman (4 vols. 1960-69). Her own memoir is titled Re-
verberations (1996). Bernard Friedman wrote a biography of
J.C. Smuts. Bertha ^Solomon's memoirs, Time Remembered,
appeared in 1968. Martin Rubin wrote on Sarah Gertrude
Millin. The mercantile Mosenthal family was researched by
D. Fleischer and A. Caccia. Isie Maisels, a leading advocate in
human rights cases, wrote his memoirs. Eric Rosenthal recap-
tures the spirit of South Africa in the 20 th century. Lola Wat-
ter evokes the literary and artistic life, particularly of Johan-
nesburg. In Strange Odyssey (1952) Betty Misheiker wrote of

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SOUTH AFRICAN LITERATURE

an immigrant group, and Geoff Sifrin's To Gershn (1995) is a
recreation of his widely spread family from their days in east-
ern Europe. Richard Mendelsohn wrote on Sammy Marks: The
Uncrowned King of the Transvaal (1991). Phyllis Jowell docu-
mented the life of her father-in-law, a key figure in Namaqua-
land, in Joe Jowell of Nam aqu aland (1994) and, with Adrienne
Folb a pictorial history of the Jews of Namaqualand. In 2000
Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris recorded highlights of his ministry
Others in the autobiographical field include Lyndall Gordon,
eminent scholar and biographer who immigrated to England
and wrote a memoir of life in Cape Town during the 1950s ti-
tled Shared Lives (1992). Helen *Suzman, long-time sole rep-
resentative in parliament of the Progressive Party under the
Apartheid government, wrote memoirs, as did Jack Penn, Ali
Bacher, David Susman, Pauline Podbrey, Hilda Bernstein,
Harold and AnnMarie Wolpe, Ben Turok, Benjamin Pogrund,
Norma Kitson, Ronald Segal, Lionel (Rusty) Bernstein, Baruch
Hirson, Joel Joffe, Rudy Frankel, Ronnie Kasrils, and Alfred
Honikman, former mayor of Cape Town. Benjamin Pogrund
also wrote on activist Robert Sobukwe and Paul Clingman on
the Hon. A.E. Abrahamson. Ruth First and Albie Sachs wrote
of their experiences in an apartheid prison. Joe *Slovo, the
renowned South African communist, recorded his life; and
Mendel Kaplan, industrialist, former chairperson of the Board
of Governors of the Jewish Agency, and later chairman of the
World Jewish Congress produced several books chronicling
Jewish immigration and the Jewish contribution to the eco-
nomic development of the country. Julian Roup, in Boerejood
(2004), contributed a different slant with the point of view of
the sometimes intermarried community of Afrikaner- Jews.

Included in the memoirs of survivors of the Holocaust
are those of Levi Shalit, Beyond Dachau (1980), Henia Brazg,
Passport to Life (1981), Maja Abramowitch's To Forgive... But
Not Forget (2002), and Madeleine Heitner s Breaking through
Buttonholes (2004). Gwynne Schrire edited a selection of
the memories of Cape Town Holocaust survivors, In Sacred
Memory (1995).

other fields. In belles lettres, Jewish writers included
Joseph Sachs (Beauty and the Jews, 1937; The Jewish Genius,
1939); Wulf Sachs (Black Hamlet, 1937; later published as Black
Anger); George Sacks (The Intelligent Mans Guide to Jew-bait-
ing, 1935); and Adele Lezard (Gold Blast, 1936). Bernard Sachs
wrote a miscellaneous collection of essays on Personalities and
Places (2 vols., 1959-65). Contributions to literary criticism
were also made by Edward Davis, Phillip Segal, and many
others not collected in volume form.

non-fiction. Non-fictional literary prose of a very high or-
der, in the form of scholarly, journalistic, historiographical, bi-
ographical, and polemical works, has been produced by many
distinguished Jewish South Africans. Not only have books and
studies appeared, but there have been innumerable contribu-
tions to newspapers and journals and important editorships,
not only in the Jewish field but also in the general world of
scholarship and letters. For Jewish scholarship and historiog-

raphy, the influential Jewish Affairs (started in 1941 under the
editorship of Edgar Bernstein, and for 16 years under the edi-
torship of Amelia Levy, once secretary of the Society of Jews
and Christians) is crucial. The Isaac and Jessie Kaplan Cen-
ter for Jewish Studies and Research at the University of Cape
Town currently produces outstanding work in this field.

Sidney Mendelssohn compiled a monumental South Af-
rican Bibliography (1910) and wrote Jewish Pioneers of South
Africa (1912). Bernard Sachs published several volumes of au-
tobiographical, political, and other essays, as well as a study of
H.C. Bosman, writer of Afrikaans extraction connected with
the South African Jewish community in the 1930s and 1940s.
He has been the subject of a biography by Valerie Rosenberg,
Sunflower to the Sun. Rosenberg and Lionel Abrahams edited
several volumes of his writing, which, until recent scholarly
updating, have been authoritative. Edgar Bernstein published
a collection of essays titled My Judaism, My Jews, while Neil
Hirschson has published some polemical work on Jew-ha-
tred and Shakespeare. Michael Wade and Steven Clingman
published major studies of the novels of Nadine Gordimer.
The Cape Town Intellectuals - Ruth Schechter and her Circle,
1907-1934 (2001) was written by Baruch Hirson, a political
activist who immigrated to England. Reuben Musiker has
published six books and 150 articles in the field of South Af-
rican bibliography. Among the many Jewish scholars directly
engaged in academic work on South African Jewish histori-
ography and writing are Louis Herrman, who wrote A His-
tory of the Jews in South Africa from the Earliest Times to 1895
(1935), and Gustav Saron and Louis Hotz, who were the editors
of the influential The Jews in South Africa: A History (1955).
Marcus Arkin edited South African Jewry: A Contemporary
Survey in 1984. Among several other surveys of the South Af-
rican Jewish community are those of L. Feldberg, N. Berger,
N.D. Hoffman, D.L. Sowden, M. Konvisser, T. Hoffman, and
A. Fischer. Marcia Gitlin's The Vision Amazing (1950) and the
work of the prominent scholar now living in Israel, Gideon
Shimoni (Jews and Zionism, 1980), analyze the strong bonds
between the South African community and Israel. R. Musiker
and J. Sherman edited Waters out of the Well, a collection of
articles and essays on Jewish themes. Memories, Realities and
Dreams, with international as well as local contributions, ed-
ited by Milton Shain and Richard Mendelsohn, is an impor-
tant documentation of more recent thinking responses to and
construction of a new identity in the light of political change
in South Africa. In recent years a team of volunteers working
for the South African Friends of Beth Hatefutsoth has been
producing handsome illustrated books as part of its ongoing
record of the dwindling Jewish country communities. Joseph
Sherman made available in translation much of the neglected
Yiddish writing from South African authors in From a Land
Far O/f (1987). Milton Shain produced a great deal of ongoing
research on the South African Jewish community and a semi-
nal work, The Roots of Anti-semitism in South Africa (1994).
Jocelyn Hellig, who wrote The Holocaust and AntiSemitism
(2003), lectured and published on issues such as antisemitism

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SOUTH AFRICAN LITERATURE

and comparative religion. Marcia Leveson published on the
image of the Jew, including People of the Book: The Image of
the Jew in South African Fiction 1880-1992 (1996). Immanuel
Suttner s collection of interviews with South African Jewish
activists, Cutting through the Mountain (1997), is an important
repository of research material. A.A. Dubb, Shirley Kossick,
John Simon, Gwynne Schrire, David Saks, Franz Auerbach,
Rose Norwich, and a host of other scholars published origi-
nal research into the many facets of the wide Jewish contri-
bution to the development of South Africa. Claudia Braude
published a collection of contemporary Jewish writing in
2001. Veronica Belling compiled a Bibliography of South Af-
rican Jewry (1997).

In other fields, Martin Orkin published Shakespeare
against Apartheid (1987) and Clive Chipkin Johannesburg
Style (1993). Esme Berman, Steven Sack, Neville Dubow, and
Mona Berman made significant contributions in the field of
art and art history. Mona de Beer wrote on an aspect of Cape
urban history, Joel Mervis on South African newspapers, El-
lison Kahn on law, Rod Suskin and Alexandra Levin on eso-
teric matters, and Raymond Ackerman on his life and busi-
ness. Arnold Benjamin was a long- serving journalist on The
Star and produced a book on graffiti. Elaine Katz wrote on
trade unions and disease in the South African gold mines.
Adam Levin wrote on travel in Africa, and Matthew Krouse,
assisted by Kim Berman, co-edited a book on gay and lesbian
writing. Shirli Gilbert wrote on South African music and mu-
sic in the Holocaust. Numerous handsome cookbooks have
been published by Jewish writers, and Geraldine Mitton and
Linda Friedland publish on health issues. The Jewish Report
has since 1998 been a popular national Jewish weekly news-
paper, and several well-known Jewish journalists are active
in the media world.

Writers in Afrikaans

A significant contribution to Afrikaans literature was made
in the early 19 th century by a Dutch Jewish convert to Chris-
tianity, Joseph Suasso de Lima (1791-1858). In 1844 he wrote
the first booklet of its kind on the subject, in which he cham-
pioned the developing Afrikaans language. He also wrote (in
Dutch) the first history of the Cape of Good Hope (1823) and
a number of other works. Another convert to Christianity, Jan
Lion Cachet (d. 1912), who came from Holland in 1861, pub-
lished Sewe Duiwels en wat hulle gedoen het ("Seven Devils
and What They Did"). Written in serial form, it appeared in
one volume in 1907. There are several Jewish characters, chiefly
unsympathetically drawn. Cachet ranks as one of the found-
ers of literary Afrikaans. Sarah Goldblatt (d. 1975), a writer of
Afrikaans children's books and short stories, was the literary
executrix of C.J. Langenhoven (1873-1932), a foremost Afri-
kaans writer. Another Jewish pioneer of Afrikaans literature,
best known for his stories and sketches of animal life, was J.M.
Friedenthal (1886-1959).

In later years, South African-born Olga Kirsch, who set-
tled in Israel in 1948, published highly acclaimed collections

of Afrikaans verse, including Die Soeklig ("The Searchlight,"
1944), dealing with racial issues, Geil Gebied (Fertile Territory
1976) and four other collections which dealt with general Jew-
ish and Israeli themes. Peter Blum, an immigrant, won an Af-
rikaans literary prize for his first collection of poems (1955).
In Judaic studies, links between Hebrew and Afrikaans
were established by Rabbi Moses Romm, in his translations
of the Jewish prayer book and the Ethics of the Fathers; and
by Roman B. Egert, who published an Afrikaans version of
the Haggadah (1943). Israel ben Yosef wrote Nofim Rehokim.
("Verre Landskappe"), translations of Afrikaans poems into
Hebrew, in collaboration with S.J. Pretorius (1985), and Olyf-
woestyn. Po'esie uit Verre Lande. ("Poems from Far-off Lands,"
1987), Hebrew poems translated into Afrikaans in collabora-
tion with Johan Steyn. The Yiddish writer Jacob Mordecai
Sherman was extremely interested in Afrikaans, publishing
several essays on its literature.

Writers in Yiddish

From 1881 onward, the influx of Yiddish -speaking Jewish im-
migrants enormously increased the size of the existing South
African Jewish population. And of these many laid the foun-
dations for the development of an indigenous South African
Yiddish literature.

Yiddish newspapers and journals. The pioneer of Yid-
dish journalism in South Africa was the professional belle-
trist, Nehemiah Dov Ber Hoffmann (1860-1928), who in 1889
brought the first Hebrew- Yiddish typeface to the land. Moving
from the Cape to the Transvaal in 1890, he founded South Af-
rica's first Yiddish weekly, Der Afrikaner Israelite which lasted
six months. Returning to the Cape, Hoffmann started a sec-
ond weekly - Cape Town's first - titled Ha- Or, which lasted
from April 1895 to July 1897. David Goldblatt's weekly, Der
Yiddisher Advokat, which appeared regularly from 1904 until
1924, was recognized by the government as an official news-
paper. Hoffmann's volume of memoirs, Sefer Ha-zikhroynes
(1916) was the first full-length Yiddish book to be printed in
South Africa. It describes the author's experiences in Europe,
America (in Hebrew), and Africa. He was the first writer to
record the eastern European immigrant response to life in
South Africa. His account of the hardships experienced by
the traveling Jewish smous was the first appearance in South
African Yiddish literature of what was to become one of its
major themes. His Yearbook of 1920 contains important in-
formation about country communities.

Yiddish weekly newspapers before World War 11 were
short-lived. In Johannesburg between 1920 and 1948, six books
of short stories and essays and four volumes of poetry were
published. Solomon Fogelson founded a Yiddish weekly, Der
Afrikaner, in Johannesburg in 1911, and at least three Yiddish
periodicals were being published at the same time. Fogelson's
newspaper survived for over 20 years until it was amalgam-
ated with the Afrikaner Idishe Tsaytung in 1933, directed by
Boris Gershman. After his death in 1953, the newspaper was
bought by Levi Shalit in partnership with Shmarya Levin; it

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOUTH AFRICAN LITERATURE

closed in 1983. At its peak, it had a weekly readership of 3,000
and carried regular contributions from distinguished overseas
writers. Shalit exerted a powerful influence on local Yiddish
writing through his finely wrought prose.

There were many short-lived journals, the most robust
of which came from socialist groups. Between 1912 and 1939
organizations such as the Gezerd [Gezel shaft far Erdarbet] y
Po'alei Zion y and the Yiddisher Arbeter Klub produced several
periodicals. The literary journal that did most to stimulate lo-
cal creative writing at this time was Dorem Afrike, the organ of
the Yiddisher Liter arisher Farayn y which appeared first in nine
issues between 1922 and 1923 and reappeared as a monthly
from July 1928 to January 1931.

At a national conference called in Johannesburg in May
1947, Di Dorem Afrikaner Yiddishe Kultur Federatzie was
established, and its monthly organ, a new Dorem Afrike y the
first issue of which appeared in September 1948, was edited
by Melekh Bakalczuk-Felin. In 1954 the editorship passed to
David Wolpe, who ran the journal until 1970 and was suc-
ceeded by a committee chaired by Zalman Levy. It closed in
1991.

In 1949, Pacific Press and its ancillary, Kayor Publishers,
were founded by Nathan Berger and Joseph Borwein. Between
them, Kayor and the Kultur Federatzie inaugurated the most
productive era in local Yiddish publishing. South Africa be-
came an important center of Yiddish creativity. From 1949 to
1962, Kayor, in association with the Kultur Federatzie y pub-
lished six collections of essays and short stories, six volumes
of poetry and one novel, together with all the journalism and
most of the Yiddish and Hebrew occasional publications in
South Africa.

The horrors of the Holocaust were movingly chronicled
by two survivors, Levi Shalit (b. 1916) and A. Peretz, who lived
in South Africa before they emigrated to Israel.

THEMES AND AUTHORS IN SOUTH AFRICAN YIDDISH

prose. A normative figure in early South African Jewish
life was the old bachelor, who stayed single because he could
not afford to bring over a bride from the Old Home. For some,
brides were sent out from Lithuania. Married men often could
not afford to bring their families to join them. There was also
considerable intermarriage with Afrikaans, black, and col-
ored women in country districts. Sensitively treated, all these
matrimonial complexities, common in the immigrant experi-
ence, became recurring subject matter. Many immigrant Jews
went to work in the exploitative stores-cum-eating-houses
which the mining companies granted by concession to en-
trepreneurs, mostly Jewish themselves. There they lived soli-
tary lives, working long hours in unhygienic conditions. To
describe these places and those who worked in them, Yiddish
speakers created two neologisms which entered the language
as unique South Africanisms: kaffireater y the place, from the
pejorative English title "kaffir eating-house"; and kaffireatnik y
which became one of the stock figures of South African Yid-
dish literature. The problem of adaptation and the ensuing

conflict between traditional ways of Jewish life and the de-
mands of accommodation are understandably another chief
focus of the writing. The love-hate relationship between Af-
rikaners and Jews recurs in different forms, but the alienat-
ing and bitter gulf between black and white most profoundly
touches sensitive observers.

The earliest, most important figures in South African Yid-
dish literature were Hyman Polsky (1871-1944), Morris Hoff-
man (1885-1940), and Jacob Mordecai Sherman (1885-1958).
Polsky, a journalist on Fogelson's Yiddish weekly, assumed its
editorship in 1933 and remained its chief contributor. A selec-
tion of his best stories was published in Warsaw under the title
In Afrike in 1939, republished in 1952. Morris Hoffman spent
most of his life as a shopkeeper in the Little Karoo and pub-
lished a major anthology of poetry, Woglungsklangen ("Songs
of a Wanderer"), in Warsaw in 1935. After his death, his widow
published a selection of his stories titled Unter Afrikaner Zun
("Under the African Sun") in 1951. Apart from contributing
extensively to all the country's Yiddish publications and edit-
ing several periodicals himself, Sherman worked in almost all
literary genres and produced South Africa's first Yiddish novel,
Land fun Gold un Zunshayn ("Land of Gold and Sunshine").
His fiction, which was often autobiographical, depicted the
relationships in farming communities between Afrikaner and
Jew and between black and white. He also concentrated on the
problem of marriages outside the faith.

Black-white relations, and the hardships of black peo-
ple, were powerfully drawn by Richard Feldman (1917-1968),
prominent in Transvaal labor movements. His volume of short
stories, Shvarts un Vays y was published in South Africa in 1934,
and republished in America 20 years later.

Der Regn hot Farshpetigt ("The Rains Came Late"), short
stories by Nehemiah Levinsky (1901-1957), showed insight
and compassion concerning the interrelationships between
Jews, blacks and coloreds, and a deep understanding of Afri-
can tribal customs. The most prolific Yiddish humorist was
Hersh Shisler (1903-1978). Hyman Ehrlich published a book
of satirical sketches in 1950, titled OtAzoy ("That's the Way"),
and a book of childhood reminiscences, Dankere y in 1956. A
gifted short- story writer was Samuel Leibowitz (1912-1976), a
regular contributor to all the local Yiddish periodicals. Other
talented writers were Leibl Yudaken (1904-1989); Wolf Rybko
(1896-1955), who wrote in Hebrew and Yiddish; and Chaim
Sacks, who published in 1969 a series of vignettes of life in his
father's rabbinical household in Poland titled S'lz Geven a Mol
("Once Upon a Time").

Mendel Tabatznik (1894-1976) produced South Africa's
second Yiddish novel, Kalman Bulan y a family saga which
shows a realistic appreciation of the inexorable processes of
assimilation. His stories, one -act plays, two volumes of mem-
oirs and two volumes of poems sensitively examine all aspects
of Jewish life in South Africa. Memoirs have always been a
chief feature of all Yiddish literature, and 15 volumes have ap-
peared in South Africa. Some writers never really adjusted to
life in the African environment and looked back with sadness

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOUTHAMPTON

to the world left behind in eastern Europe, forever obliterated
by the Holocaust.

Foremost among the writers of non-fiction was the po-
lemicist and researcher, Leibl Feldman (1896-1975), a passion-
ately committed Yiddishist with strong historicist leanings,
who became the earliest chronicler of South African Jewish
life. He published five books of history, providing indispens-
able documentation of early Jewish settlement in South Af-
rica, particularly in Oudtshoorn and Johannesburg. He was
also interested in the history of the Indians in South Africa
and wrote a controversial essay of impressions after visits to
Israel. David Wolpe (b. 1908) produced two volumes of liter-
ary criticism and a substantial book of short stories, and in
1997 and 2002 two volumes of his autobiography. Published in
Argentina under the series title Muster werk fun der Yidisher
Literatur ("An Outline of Yiddish Literature"), volume 50 was
dedicated to South African Yiddish Literature: Dorem-afri-
kanish - fragmentn fun forsharbrtn tzu der kharakteristik un
zikhrones ("South African - Fragments of Research Works,
Literature and Memoirs," 1971).

south African Yiddish poetry. Yiddish in South Af-
rica found its most profound expression in poetry. Here
women made an impressive contribution. Anthologies came
from Chaya Fedler (d. 1953), Rachiel Levin-Brainin (d. 1980),
and Leah Benson-Rink. Sarah Eisen (d. 1981) wrote poetry
in both Yiddish and Hebrew. Her subjects ranged from mem-
ories of eastern Europe to impressions of Israel and pictures
of African life. Hyman Ehrlich (1908-1981) wrote children's
verses before moving to more somber lyrics of two later vol-
umes.

Outstanding among the introspective lyricists were Mi-
chael Ben Moshe (1911-1983) and David Fram (1903-1988).
While Ben Moshe explored the anguish of personal pain in
anthologies like Opris, Fram changed his style from the lyrics
that had established his reputation in Lithuania to incorporate
some of the vibrancy of tribal Africa. Fram's epics, published
in 1947-1948, were Efsher ("Perhaps") and Dos Letste Kapittel
("The Last Chapter"). His last anthology, A Shwalb Oifn Dakh
("A Swallow on the Roof"), appeared in 1983. South African
Yiddish verse continued to achieve international distinction
in the work of David Wolpe, whose substantial modernist an-
thology, A Wolkn un a Weg ("A Cloud and a Way," 1978), was
awarded the Itzik Manger Prize for Yiddish Literature in Jeru-
salem in 1983. Among other volumes Krikveg, lider - poemes
("The Way Back - Poems") appeared in 1991 and Iber meine
vegn, lider, poemes, dertzaylungen ("Above My Ways, Poems
and Stories") in 2002.

Yiddish drama in south Africa. Yiddish plays, mainly
written by overseas playwrights, were staged in South Africa
from 1895. Most of the local work produced between 1916
and 1954 was light entertainment, performed from typescript,
sometimes appearing in ephemeral local journals. Only Hirsch
Brill (1891-1925) attempted to deal with serious dramatic
themes and published two collections. Steadily declining com-

munal interest and commercial competition slowly forced all
Yiddish theater from South Africa's boards.

There is growing interest in Yiddish literature and in
keeping Yiddish alive as a spoken language in South Africa.
In 1983 the University of the Witwatersrand established a Yid-
dish library.

Hebrew

The most remarkable South African achievement in Hebrew
came from Judah Leib *Landau, who arrived to assume a
rabbinical position in South Africa in 1903. Between 1884
and 1923, he published overseas eight five-act epic dramas on
mainly historical themes. Two were staged in Johannesburg.
Only one dealt with African issues, the rest were concerned
with the problems of westernization and assimilation, which
he treated in the many essays he contributed on South Afri-
can Jews during the period when he was chief rabbi of Johan-
nesburg. A volume of his poetry was published in Warsaw. N.
Levinsky and Z.A. Lison published in Israel fiction concern-
ing South African life.

S. Aisen, M. Hoffman, and I. Idelson also published po-
etry in Israel. B. Beikenstadt published an anthology of trans-
lations from the Hebrew and Yiddish in 1930. I. Ben Yosef's
Links of Silence was translated by Rachelle Mann and appeared
in Tel Aviv in 1983. Azila Talit Reisenberger published poetry
in both English and Hebrew. Her volume Mahazor Ahavah
("Cycles of Love," 2002) appeared in Israel, as did her volume
of short stories, Mi-Po ad Kaf ha-Tikvah ha-Tovah ("From
Here until the Cape of Good Hope," 2004). As well she wrote
plays and published on Jewish identity in South Africa.

In the 1930s Jack Rubik founded a monthly Hebrew
newspaper, Barkai, and produced it regularly until his death
in 1978. The newspaper died with him. A monthly Hebrew
supplement, the Musaf Ivrit, to the weekly Zionist Record ran
from the 1960s and closed in 1987.

bibliography: D. Sowden, The Jew in South Africa (1945);
idem, South African Jewry (1965), 119-39; South African Jewish Board
of Deputies, Books and Writers (1948); E. Bernstein, in: South African
Jewish Yearbook (1959/60), 21-26; idem, in: jba, 18 (1960/61), 54-61;
idem, in: Jewish Affairs, 15, no. 5 (1960), 27-32; A. Coetzee, ibid.,
38-41 (Afrikaans); H.D.A. du Toit, ibid., 21, no. 4 (1966), 16-20; S.
Liptzin, ibid., 23 no. 9 (1968), 28-32; S.I. Mocke, ibid., 6, no. 6 (1951),
7-10 (Afrikaans); R. Pheiffer, in: Die Burger (March 11 and 12, 1970).
add. bibliography: C.N. Van der Merwe, Breaking Barriers:
Stereotypes and Changing of Values in Afrikaans Writing 18/5-1990
U994); M. Leveson, People of the Book: Images of the Jew in South
African English Fiction 1880-1992 (1996); V. Belling, Bibliography of
South African Jewry (1997).

[Louis Hotz, Dora Leah Sowden, and Joseph Sherman /

Marcia Leveson (2 nd ed.)]

SOUTHAMPTON, major port in S. England. Its small me-
dieval community was expelled in 1236 (Runceval, a house
owned by the Jewish financier, Benedict of Winchester, was ex-
cavated in the 1960s). During the 16 th century, Marrano agents
boarded ships docking at Southampton to inform Marrano
refugees from Portugal whether it was safe for them to pro-

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOUTH CAROLINA

ceed to their destination in Flanders. The modern community
dates from 1833, though individual Jews lived in Southampton
in the late 18 th century and some were navy agents during the
Napoleonic Wars. A split in the early congregation was settled
soon after the appointment of Nathan Marcus *Adler as chief
rabbi of Anglo-Jewry in 1844. Later Southampton was the
port largely used by Jews traveling to and from South Africa.
In 1969 the Jewish population numbered 150, out of a general
population of 210,000. In the mid-1990s the Jewish population
numbered approximately 105. According to the 2001 British
census, there were 293 declared Jews in Southampton. It had
an Orthodox synagogue. The University of Southampton has
emerged as one of the major academic centers of Jewish his-
tory in Britain and contains the Parkes Library, which holds a
number of important collections of Anglo -Jewish material.

bibliography: C. Roth, TlieRise of Provincial Jewry (1950),
100; jyb; Roth, England, index.

[Vivian David Lipman / William D. Rubinstein (2 nd ed.)]

SOUTH CAROLINA, southeastern state of the United States,
bordering the Atlantic Ocean and the states of North Caro-
lina and Georgia. Jews arrived in the British colony of Caro-
lina in the early days of European settlement. A new outpost
in the mercantile traffic of the Atlantic basin, Carolina of-
fered economic opportunities and a degree of religious tol-
erance remarkable for the time. The colony's Fundamental
Constitutions of 1669, drafted by philosopher and physician
John Locke, who was secretary to one of the eight Lords
Proprietors, granted freedom of worship to "J ews > Heathens,
and other Dissenters from the purity of the Christian Reli-
gion." Although the colonial assembly never endorsed the
provision, British ^Charleston became known as a place where
people of all faiths - except Catholics - could do business and
practice their religion without interference. In 1696, Jews in
Charleston allied with French Protestants to safeguard their
rights to trade, and the next year to secure citizenship.

Most of Carolina's first Jewish settlers traced their roots
to Spain or Portugal. Expelled during the Inquisition at the
end of the 15 th century, the Sephardim dispersed around the
globe and established themselves in capitals and port cities in
northern Europe, the Mediterranean, and the West Indies. In
1749, Charleston's Jewish community chartered Kahal Kadosh
Beth Elohim - one of the first five Jewish congregations in
America. Like her sister synagogues in New York, Newport,
Savannah, and Philadelphia, Beth Elohim was Sephardi in
ritual and practice. Charleston's congregation remained so for
two generations after the Revolutionary War, though by then
the majority of South Carolina Jews were Ashkenazi, hailing
from central or eastern Europe.

Following the Revolutionary War, South Carolina's Jew-
ish population surged. When Columbia became the state cap-
ital in 1786, seven Jewish men from Charleston were among
the first to buy town lots. Jews in Georgetown, Beaufort, and
Camden belonged to the business and civic elites. By 1800,
Charleston was home to the largest, wealthiest, and most cul-

•
Greenville

O Spartanburg
O
Rock Hill

SOUTH CAROLINA

O Florence
Columbia A Q Sumter ^^

Myrtle Beach
OA

^ OAiken Orangeburg

Charleston fc

0—

•—

- 100-500

- 1,200

1749 4^
Beaufort^^^

A —

- 2,750

■ —

- 5,500

^Mn

Total Jewish population of South Carolina

% of Jews in general population of South Carolina

% of South Carolina Jews in Jewish population of U.S

11,500

0.3

0.18

Jewish communities in South Carolina. Population figures for 2001.

tured Jewish community in North America - upwards of five
hundred individuals, or one-fifth of all Jews in the nation.

Carolina's Jews pursued the same goals as their white
neighbors. Those who could afford it owned slaves. The af-
fluent lived in finely furnished houses and traveled abroad.
Many Ashkenazim adopted traditional Sephardi practices
and assumed an aristocratic view of themselves as "earliest
to arrive."

Charleston's highly acculturated Jewish community pro-
duced the first movement to reform Judaism in America. In
1824, a group of young Jewish men, mostly American-born,
petitioned the governing body of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim
for shorter services, a sermon preached on the Sabbath, and
prayers in English. Rebuffed in their efforts, the dissidents
drafted a constitution and established the Reformed Society
of Israelites. For eight years the reformers worshiped sepa-
rately, then returned to the traditional congregation. But in
1840 the reform faction prevailed. With the blessing of Beth
Elohim's popular minister, Gustavus Poznanski, a proposal to
install an organ in the new synagogue - a Greek revival tem-
ple that replaced the original structure, which had burned in
the great fire of 1838 - was adopted by a narrow margin. The
traditionalists seceded and formed Shearit Israel (Remnant of
Israel), with its own burying ground adjacent to Beth Elohim's
Coming Street cemetery. A brick wall separated the dead of
the two congregations.

While schism in Beth Elohim divided traditionalists and
reformers, a new group of immigrants introduced another
brand of orthodoxy to Charleston. People of modest means -
peddlers, artisans, metalworkers, bakers - the newcomers gave
the city's Jewish population a more foreign appearance than
before. As early as 1852, these eastern European Jews began
meeting under the leadership of Rabbi Hirsch Zvi Levine, re-

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOUTH DAKOTA

cently arrived from Poland. In 1855, they formally organized as
Berith Shalome (now Brith Sholom) or "Covenant of Peace,"
the first Ashkenazi congregation in South Carolina and one
of the first in the South.

As the southern states began seceding from the Union
in i860 and 1861, Jews rallied to the Confederate cause. Thou-
sands of Jewish men served in the southern armies, while
Jewish women, in accord with their gentile sisters, threw
themselves into the war effort, sewing uniforms, knitting
socks, rolling bandages, preparing boxes of clothes and pro-
visions, and working in hospitals to care for the sick and
wounded.

After the war, during the period of Reconstruction, some
South Carolinians of Jewish descent, including the notorious
"scalawag" governor, Franklin J. Moses, Jr., supported the Rad-
ical Republicans' drive to build a new society. However, most
backed the Redeemers' crusade to restore white rule. Jewish
women such as Octavia Harby Moses and Phoebe Yates Levy
Pember were prominent in memorializing the "Lost Cause."
In the shared experience of defeat, Jewish Confederates dem-
onstrated their fierce sense of belonging.

Beginning in the 1880s, East European migration to
America brought about a dramatic increase in the nation's
Jewish population. Charleston's Jewish population, which had
remained flat for decades at around 700, doubled between
1905 and 1912. The neighborhood where the "greenhorns" set-
tled was called "Little Jerusalem." Immigrant men commonly
started out as peddlers, then established small businesses. At
one time some 40 stores on upper King Street were closed on
Saturday, in observance of the Jewish Sabbath. The men held
prayer services above stores. The women kept kosher homes.
They trained their African American help to make potato
kugel and gefilte fish, and they learned, in turn, to fix fried
chicken and okra gumbo.

By World War 1, Jewish communities in the midlands
and upcountry had grown large enough to support syna-
gogues. Meanwhile, some country clubs, fraternities, and so-
rorities barred Jews, who responded by forming their own so-
cial groups and athletic teams modeled on the ones that kept
them out. These organizations helped unify Jews around an
ethnic identity without regard to place of birth, date of arrival
in America, and degree of observance.

The revival of the Ku Klux Klan disturbed southern Jews'
sense of well-being. In the heyday of Jim Crow, however, the
primary targets of discrimination were blacks. Jews generally
found themselves on the safe side of the racial divide. They
demonstrated their loyalty to country and region in patriotic
parades and party politics. When the United States entered
World War 11, Jewish southerners joined in the mobilization
to fight the Japanese and Nazi foes.

As a result of the Holocaust in Europe, America's place
in world Jewry changed radically. Now more than half of all
Jewish people were living in the United States. In many ways,
South Carolina was a microcosm of the nation. The class of
Jewish merchants had begat a generation of lawyers, doctors,

accountants, and college teachers, who shifted the Jewish eco-
nomic niche away from retail business. With the rest of the
white American mainstream, urban Jews abandoned the old
neighborhoods and moved to the suburbs - a migration that
coincided with the first stirrings of the civil rights movement
and the rise of Conservative Judaism.

By the end of 20 th century, Jewish populations in most
small towns across the South had dwindled, while suburban
and resort congregations were continuing to grow. South
Carolina's Jews remained prominent in political life. Solomon
Blatt, of Barnwell, served for 30 years in the state legislature,
ending his final term as Speaker of the House in 1970. Numer-
ous other Jewish lawmakers have filled seats in both houses,
and, since World War 11, more than a dozen Jews have been
elected as mayors of South Carolina towns and cities.

South Carolina mirrors the nation in the drift toward
more traditional observance - a trend in all divisions of Ju-
daism. The Addlestone Hebrew Academy in Charleston and
Lubavitcher Chabads in Myrtle Beach and Columbia teach
Hebrew and religious studies in day schools to an increas-
ingly diverse student population that includes newcomers
from other parts of America, and from Russia and the Mid-
dle East as well.

bibliography: S. Breibart, Explorat ions in Charlestons Jew-
ish History (2005); B.A. Elzas, The Jews of South Carolina, From the
Earliest Times to the Present Day (1905, reprint, 1972); "The Diary of
Joseph Lyons (1833-35)," a new an d unabridged transcript edited, an-
notated, and introduced by M. Ferrara, H. Greene, D. Rosengarten,
and S. Wyssen, in: American Jewish History, 91:3 (Sept. 2003); B. Ger-
gel and R. Gergel, In Pursuit of the Tree of Life: A History of the Early
Jews of Columbia and the Tree of Life Congregation (1996); J.S. Gur-
ock, Orthodoxy in Charleston: Brith Sholom Beth Israel & American
Jewish History (2004); J.W. Hagy, This Happy Land: The Jews of Co-
lonial and Antebellum Charleston (1993); Jewish Heritage Collection.
Special Collections, College of Charleston Library, Charleston, South
Carolina. For excerpts from the jhc oral history archives, see www.
cofc.edu/~jhc; C. Reznikoff and U.Z. Engelman, The Jews of Charles-
ton: A History of an American Jewish Community (1950); R.N. Rosen,
The Jewish Confederates (2000); T. Rosengarten and D. Rosengarten
(eds.), A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jew-
ish Life (2002). See on-line version of the exhibition "A Portion of the
People" at www.lib.unc.edu/apop.

[Dale Rosengarten (2 nd ed.)]

SOUTH DAKOTA, state in the upper Midwest sector of the
United States; general population 756,000 (2001) with ap-
proximately 300 Jews. As a result of the gold rush, Jews settled
in the Dakota territory as early as 1876. Two Utopian agricul-
tural communities, Cremieux and Bethlehem Yehudah, were
founded in 1882 by the *Am Olam. They were defunct by 1885.
Other Jewish homesteaders, particularly in the western part
of the state stayed on the land longer. Movement to towns and
to commercial activity was common.

There were once congregations in Deadwood, Lead,
Sioux Falls, Aberdeen, and at Ellsworth Air Force Base in
Rapid City. Today there are two: Mt. Zion in Sioux Falls
and the newer Synagogue of the Hills in Rapid City, both

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOUTINE, CHAIM

• Aberdeen

SOUTH DAKOTA ^M

• Rapid City

Sioux Falls

•

Total Jewish population
of South Dakota

% of Jews

in general population

of South Dakota

0.03

% of South Dakota Jews
in Jewish population

of U.S.

0.005

• 50-1 95

Jewish communities in South Dakota. Population figures for 2001.

served by student rabbis. Blanche Colman, a native of Dead-
wood, became the first woman to practice law in the state
and worked as legal counsel for the Homestake Mining Com-
pany. She is buried, along with her family and other Jewish
gold seekers, in the "Hebrew Hill" section of the communal
Mt. Moriah Cemetery, where Wild Bill Hickock and Calam-
ity Jane are also interred. Other noteworthy South Dakota
Jews include agronomist Sam Bober, who in the 1920s and
1930s developed rust resistant strains of wheat and the Adel-
stein family of Rapid City whose Northwestern Engineering
Company is one of the largest private civil engineering firms

in America. r «.,,*,

[Linda M. Schloff (2 nd ed.)]

SOUTH WEST AFRICA (Namibia). Jewish connections
with the territory were established even before its conquest
by the Germans when it became a German colony. During
the middle of the 19 th century the *De Pass brothers, Jewish
merchants from Cape Town, established trading posts on the
Namaqualand coast, and in 1861 started the Pomona Copper
Company. German Jews were allowed much more scope in
the territory after its establishment as a colony. Carl *Fuer-
stenberg, a German Jewish banker, was responsible, as head
of the Berliner Handellgesellschaft, for the development of the
diamond industry, and he also organized the construction of
the railway line from Luderitz Bay to Kubub. Emil * Rathenau
created the German South West African Mining Syndicate and
established a research company in 1907 for the study of irriga-
tion problems. Walther *Rathenau was one of the two experts
sent by Kaiser Wilhelm 11 to report on administrative reforms.
The number of Jews in South West Africa under German rule
was no more than about 100, most of them in Swakopmund.
During the campaign of 1915, which ended in the conquest of
the territory by South African forces, the men were interned
and their families sent to Windhoek. After South Africa was
granted a mandate over it by the League of Nations after World
War 1, however, the Jewish population increased, and in 1965
there were 400-500 Jews in a total white population of about
68,000, of whom the overwhelming majority lived in Wind-
hoek, which has a Hebrew congregation (dating from 1917),
a synagogue (completed in 1925), a talmud torah, a commu-
nal hall, named after Simon (Sam) *Cohen, the most promi-
nent Jew and benefactor of the community, an active Zionist
movement supported by generous contributions, and the only

Jewish minister in the territory. The only other community, at
Keetmanshoop, which had about 12 families, a congregation
(founded in 1910), and a synagogue, ceased to exist when the
number of Jewish families was reduced to five and their si-
frei torah were sent to Windhoek. In addition, there are a few
families in Swakopmund and Walvis Bay. L. Kerby served as
town clerk of Windhoek for many years, and was responsible
for the layout and upkeep of the beautiful cemetery which is
one of the showpieces of Windhoek.

Jack Louis Levinson, the husband of Olga *Levinson,
who has been a member of the municipal council for 25 years
was mayor from 1963 to 1965 and was succeeded by Sam Da-
vis. Mr. George May was another Jewish councilor.

In November 1980 Windhoek became a twin city with
Kiryat Telshe Stone, a settlement outside Jerusalem.

The political developments including the cancellation of
the League of Nations mandate by the United Nations and the
proclamation of the establishment of an independent republic,
called Namibia, has brought about a considerable dwindling

of the Jewish population.

[Lewis Sowden]

SOUTHWOOD, JULIUS SALTER ELIAS, FIRST VIS-
COUNT (1873-1946), British newspaper owner. The son of
Polish immigrants who settled in Birmingham, England, and
then moved to London, South wood started his career in Lon-
don as an office boy and became one of the leaders of the news-
paper industry. At the age of 21 he joined the jobbing printers
firm of Odhams Brothers. Four years later he was appointed
a director and became managing director in 1920. From 1906
Odhams published Horatio Bottomley's populist and scurri-
lous weekly, John Bull, which at its peak sold two million cop-
ies. After Bottomley was jailed for fraud, Southwood rebuilt
the firm, adding more newspapers and magazines with vast
circulations. Among them were the Labor paper Daily Herald,
which reached a circulation of 2,000,000, and the weekly, The
People, with 3,000,000. Other papers Odhams controlled were
John Bull, Illustrated, Sporting Life, Woman, and News Review.
Southwood was the only one of Britain's leading "presslords"
to support the Labour Party, serving as deputy leader of the
Labour Party in the House of Lords. Southwood associated
himself with many charities and was chairman of funds in aid
of hospitals, boys' clubs, children, and the blind. He was made
a baron in 1937, taking the title of Lord Southwood, and a vis-
count in 1946. He was buried as an Anglican; his biography,
Viscount Southwood, published in 1954 by R.J. Minney, makes
no mention of the fact that he was Jewish.

bibliography: H. Herd, March of Journalism (1952), 262; The
Times (April 11, 1946). add. bibliography: odnb online.

[Irving Rosenthal]

SOUTINE, CHAIM (1893-1943), Russian-French painter.
Soutine was born at Smilovitchi in Lithuania, the tenth of
eleven children of a poor tailor. Chaim was interested in noth-
ing but drawing, and at the age of fourteen he ran away, first

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOVERN, MICHAEL IRA

to Minsk, then to Vilna, where he enrolled at the School of
Fine Arts. Attending school during the day, Soutine worked
at night. In 1913, a physician who appreciated his talent pro-
vided him with money to go to Paris. There he met Amedeo
*Modigliani, nine years his senior, who tried to help him. At
one time, he and Modigliani shared a garret in Montmartre
that contained only one cot, on which they took turns sleep-
ing. To make a living, Soutine copied old masters at the Lou-
vre, worked as a porter at a railroad station, or as a ditch dig-
ger. Overcome by despair, he once tried to commit suicide.
His situation improved after the dying Modigliani recom-
mended him to his art dealer. Thanks to the dealers efforts,
the American art collector, Albert C. Barnes, visited Soutine's
studio and bought more than fifty of his paintings (they are
now all at the Barnes Foundation at Merion, near Philadelphia,
Pa.). After this meeting in 1922, Soutine produced many oils,
and his reputation spread to England and the United States.
When World War 11 broke out, he refused opportunities to
go to the United States. After the Nazi invasion of France he
was forced to hide in a small village in Touraine. The constant
threat of being discovered made him ill with ulcers. In Au-
gust 1943 a friend rushed him to a hospital in Paris where, af-
ter an operation, he died at the age of 50. Soutine never drew
subject matters from memories of his early life in the ghetto.
Instead, he portrayed the people, places, and scenes around
him. He was an expressionist who rendered in violent color
all the agony that he felt in his subject matter. He used paint
in heavy impasto, and his colors, even more than his tech-
nique, betrayed his troubled mind. His canvases often remind
one of bleeding, tortured flesh. Everything is broken, twisted,
distorted. Even in his landscapes, there is a continuous cata-
clysmic movement. The body of his work consists of about six
hundred oil paintings, many of which were acquired by mu-
seums all over the world.

bibliography: A. Forge, Soutine (Eng., 1965); M. Tuchman,
Chaim Soutine (Eng., 1968), catalog of exhibition (Los Angeles); R.
Cogniat, Soutine (Fr., 1945); E. Szittya, Soutine et son temps (1955).

[Alfred Werner]

SOVERN, MICHAEL IRA (1931- ), U.S. legal scholar and
arbitrator. Sovern, who was born in New York City, received
his law degree from Columbia Law School in 1955. He taught
at the University of Minnesota Law School in 1955-58, then
at Columbia Law School, becoming a full professor in i960,
the youngest modern Columbia faculty member to achieve
this rank. As a legal scholar Soverns main interest was labor
relations and employment discrimination. He published Le-
gal Restraints on Racial Discrimination in Employment (1966)
and was co-author of the text Cases and Materials on Law and
Poverty (1969). He served as special counsel on the New York
State Joint Legislative Committee on Industrial and Labor
Conditions. Working for effective legal services for the poor,
Sovern helped found the Legal Services Unit of Mobilization
for Youth. He supervised legal education for civil rights law-
yers and chaired the committee on labor and industry of the

American Civil Liberties Union. Sovern devoted effort to ad-
vancing public understanding of the U.S. legal system through
his television series Due Process for the Accused.

As a labor arbitrator in public and private disputes, he
arbitrated disputes in the New York City public schools, Pan
American World Airways, and the New York Telephone Com-
pany, among others. Active in mediation during the 1968
disorders at Columbia, he presided over the faculty execu-
tive committee, which examined the causes of the disrup-
tion and made recommendations for their alleviation, which
were adopted. In 1970 he was appointed dean of Columbia
Law School, the first Jew to hold this post. He emphasized
that skill in conciliation, as well as in adversary proceedings,
should be a task of law school education. In 1979 he was named
executive vice president for academic affairs and provost of
the university. He assumed the role of university president in
1980, serving in that capacity until 1993. During his tenure as
president he effected such achievements as creating the uni-
versity's intellectual property policy, which began to bring in
an annual revenue of $100 million; opening Columbia College
to co-education without compromising Columbia's affiliate,
Barnard College for women; increasing student scholarships
and expanding the enrollment of minority students; and ne-
gotiating the sale of Columbia's land under Rockefeller Cen-
ter to the Rockefeller family for $400 million, which enabled
the university to improve its facilities and increase salaries. In
1993 he was named president emeritus and returned to teach-
ing at the university's law school.

Sovern wrote Legal Restraints on Racial Discrimination in
Employment (1966) and Of Boundless Domains (1994).

[Ruth Beloff (2 nd ed.)]

SOVETISH HEYMLAND ("Soviet Homeland"), the only
Yiddish literary journal in the post-Stalinist Soviet Union,
published as an organ of the Soviet Writers' Union. Sovetish
Heymland made its appearance in July- August 1961, origi-
nally as a bi-monthly and, from January 1965, as a monthly.
Apart from a few books in Yiddish that began to be published
in Moscow in 1959, this magazine was a partial response of
the Soviet authorities to the continued and forceful demands,
mostly external, made upon them to reverse the process inau-
gurated at the end of 1948 of completely obliterating all mani-
festations of Jewish cultural life. This process had led to the
execution of important Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union
on August 12, 1952.

The editorial board, headed by Aaron * Vergelis, was com-
posed of the few surviving Yiddish writers and changed sig-
nificantly in the 1970s and 1980s, when some members died,
immigrated to Israel, or quarreled with Vergelis. Like other
periodicals of its kind appearing in the USSR, Sovetish Heym-
land devoted about two-thirds of its space to belles lettres and
the remainder to literary criticism, research papers, ideologi-
cal articles, memoirs, an account of Jewish cultural events in
the Soviet Union and abroad, regular columns (such as the
one on old Jewish books), polemical sections, etc. Most of the

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SOYER, RAPHAEL

contributors were Yiddish authors living in the Soviet Union.
The magazine also frequently presented translations of Soviet
authors and, from time to time, contributions by Yiddish and
Hebrew writers living outside the Soviet Union, provided, as
a rule, that they were sympathizers of the communist move-
ment. The magazine was illustrated and well edited and earned
the reputation of being one of the most attractive Yiddish jour-
nals published at the time.

The material published by Sovetish Heymland fully re-
flected the ideology of Soviet patriotism prevailing in the pub-
lications in other languages in the USSR. Thus, compared to
Soviet magazines that followed a "liberal" line in literature,
such as Novy Mir, Sovetish Heymland displayed much greater
circumspection. The literary standard was often lower than
that of Soviet Yiddish literature before the liquidation of 1948,
although every issue contained interesting and appealing
items. Most of the contributors were the disciples of the liq-
uidated writers. Their Jewish aspect was expressed primarily
by works dealing with the Holocaust and World War 11 and
by attempts to portray Soviet Jewish life; initially the liquida-
tion of Yiddish literature was only hinted at, but from 1988 it
became one of the main topics. Until 1970 the journal exer-
cised great restraint over any topic related to Israel and did not
contain the vicious attacks on the state found in other Soviet
publications, especially after the Six-Day *War (1967). On the
other hand it sharply refuted reports on the situation of So-
viet Jewry published in the West. Sovetish Heymland fulfilled
a positive role in domestic Jewish life by providing Yiddish
material to a considerable readership and serving as a symbol
of Jewish identity in a country that had so few opportunities
for Jewish expression.

From 1970, when the journal became a forum for viru-
lent anti-Zionist propaganda, it lost many readers and friends
in the country and, especially, abroad. In the 1980s the edi-
torial office trained a group of younger writers, such as Bo-
ris *Sandler (1950- ) and Velvl Chenin (1958- ). Following
the collapse of the Soviet state-sponsored publishing system,
the journal was saved by foreign sponsors and appeared spo-
radically in 1993-97 under the name of Di Yidishe Gas ("Jew-
ish Street").

bibliography: M. Abramowicz, in: Molad, 163 (1962), 11-17;
H. Sloves, in: Yidishe Kultur (n.y., Oct. 1966), 4-17; J. and A. Brum-
berg, Sovetish Heymland, An Analysis (1966); Midstream, 12 (1966),
49; E. Schulman, in: Judaism, 14, no. 1 (Winter, 1965), 6071; idem, in:
Reconstructionist, 37, no. 4 (June 11, 1970), 13-17. add. bibliogra-
phy: G. Estraikh, in: East European Jewish Affairs, 25:1 (1995), 1-12;
idem, Soviet Yiddish (1999), index; idem, in: T. Parfitt and Y. Egorova
(eds.), Jews, Muslims and Mass Media (2004), 133-43.

[Chone Shmeruk/ Gennady Estraikh (2 nd ed.)]

SOYER, MOSES (1899-1974), U.S. painter. Born into a cul-
tured family, Moses Soyer, his twin brother Raphael *Soyer,
and younger brother Isaac Soyer all became well-known art-
ists associated with the Social Realist style of painting. The
family was forced out of czarist Russia in 1912, at which time

they immigrated to the United States, ultimately settling in the
Bronx. Soyer took free art classes at the Cooper Union and the
National Academy of Design in the late 1910s; met the Ashcan
artist Robert Henri at the Ferrar Art School, whose uncompro-
mising representations of city life greatly influenced him; and
studied at the Educational Alliance, where he formed friend-
ships with Peter *Blume and Chaim * Gross. In 1923 Soyer be-
gan teaching at the Educational Alliance, where he continued
to work intermittently throughout his life.

Soyer spent a year in Europe after winning a travel schol-
arship from the Educational Alliance (1926). After enjoying
his first one-person exhibition at J.B. Neumanns Art Circle
Gallery in 1929, Soyer showed his work regularly.

As a Works Progress Administration artist, Soyer painted
ten portable murals addressing the life of the child, which
were installed at children's hospitals and libraries throughout
New York, and jointly designed a mural for the Kingsessing
Station post office in Philadelphia with Raphael. During the
Great Depression he also painted images of the unemployed
and homeless in a representational fashion.

Inspired by the work of Edgar Degas, one of his favor-
ite artists, and his dancer- wife, beginning in the 1940s Soyer
made canvases of dancers rehearsing and at rest with a ges-
tural, loose brushstroke. Throughout his life Soyer remained a
figurative painter, frequently imaging studio nudes naturalisti-
cally. Indeed, Soyer s models are often shown at introspective,
even troubled moments, and those who sat for portraits with
the painter, notably many of the artist s friends, were never
unnecessarily flattered. As Soyer accurately observed: "Most
of my paintings reflect an interest in the casual moments in
the life of plain people, the gestures and natural attitudes they
fall into when they perform habitual tasks, when they are in
thought, and when they are not observed by other people."
Soyer s work was shown at a posthumous retrospective at the
Whitney Museum of American Art in 1985.

bibliography: C. Willard, Moses Soyer (1962); A. Wer-
ner, Moses Soyer (1970); M. Soyer, Moses Soyer: A Human Approach

(1972).

[Samantha Baskind (2 nd ed.)]

SOYER, RAPHAEL (1899-1987), U.S. painter and print-
maker. Born in Borisoglebsk, Russia, Raphael Soyer was one
of three of the six Soyer children - along with his twin brother
Moses * Soyer and younger brother Isaac Soyer - who became
artists. In 1912, when the family was forced to leave Russia be-
cause their "Right to Live" permit was revoked, they immi-
grated to the United States, settling in the Bronx.

After taking drawing classes at the Cooper Union (1914-
17), Soyer studied at the National Academy of Design (1918-22)
and the Art Students League, where he attended classes inter-
mittently from 1920 until 1926. Soyer enjoyed his first one-man
show at New York's Daniel Gallery in 1929. It was there that his
painting Dancing Lesson (1926, Collection Renee and Chaim
Gross, New York), often understood as the exemplar of Jew-
ish American art, was first exhibited publicly.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPACE AND PLACE

Throughout his career, Soyer was interested in Social
Realist themes, which he both painted and showed in prints.
During the Great Depression he often created dark-hued,
compassionate renderings of the down-and-out in works such
as In the City Park (1934, private collection, New York).

Soyer retreated into his studio in the 1940s and 1950s.
Indeed, self-portraits at his easel and studio scenes of female
nudes comprise Soyer's artistic interests at this time, as did
portraits of his artist -friends and artists he admired. At a
1941 one-man show at the Associated American Artists Gal-
lery, 23 of Soyer's artist-portraits were exhibited in a section
entitled "My Contemporaries and Elders." Among the paint-
ings displayed were portraits of Phillip Evergood and Abra-
ham *Walkowitz. In the late 1950s Soyer started to paint out-
door scenes again, most of which were figurative canvases,
such as Farewell to Lincoln Square (1959, Hirshhorn Museum
and Sculpture Garden, Washington, d.c). Inspired by Soyer's
eviction from the Lincoln Arcade Building, where he kept a
studio for 14 years, the large, colorful painting includes a self-
portrait of the artist.

Remaining a representational artist in an abstract art
scene, Soyer founded the periodical Reality: A Journal of Art-
ists Opinions, published annually from 1953 to 1955 to declare
the importance of imaging "man and his world."

After meeting Isaac *Bashevis Singer in the elevator of his
New York apartment building, Soyer worked on several proj-
ects with the Yiddish writer. Soyer illustrated a Limited Edi-
tions Club publication of two Singer stories, "The Gentleman
from Cracow" and "The Mirror" (1979), and the second and
third volumes of Singer's memoirs, A Young Man in Search of
Love (1978) and Lost in America (1981). Soyer chronicled as-
pects of his life in four autobiographies.

bibliography: L. Goodrich, Raphael Soyer (1972); S. Cole,
Raphael Soyer: Fifty Years of Printmaking, 1917-1967 (1978); M. Heyd
and E. Mendelsohn. 'Jewish' Art? The Case of the Soyer Brothers"
in: Jewish Art (1993-94), 194-211; S. Baskind, Raphael Soyer and the
Search for Modern Jewish Art (2004).

[Samantha Baskind (2 nd ed.)]

SPACE AND PLACE (in Jewish Philosophy).

Philo

The term "place" has three meanings for * Philo, one physical
and two theological: (1) the space taken up by a body, (2) the
divine *logos, and (3) God Himself (Som. 1:11, 62-64). The first
definition is probably derived from Stoic philosophy and is, in
fact, similar to Aristotle's definition. In contrast to the latter,
however, Philo's conception is based on the existence of three-
dimensional space, which is itself independent of the bodies
which fill it. The second definition does not relate to physical
space; the place identified with the divine logos is said to be
wholly filled by God Himself. On the other hand, it is char-
acteristic of Philo's thought to ascribe a spatial relationship to
the place of the third definition: "God Himself is called a place,
by reason of His containing things, and being contained by
nothing whatever.. . for He is that which He Himself has oc-

cupied, and naught encloses Him but Himself. I, mark you,
am not a place, but in a place; and each thing likewise that ex-
ists. . . and the Deity, being contained by nothing, is of neces-
sity Itself Its own place."

Philo's third definition relates to Jewish tradition. Jew-
ish sources often refer to God as "Place" (Makom); a usage
which was prevalent before Philo's time. Several Greek writ-
ers who preceded Philo, in referring to the God of the Jews,
used the term makkif ("containing"), which appears in Philo's
third definition. Later midrashic texts (e.g., Gen. R. 8:10) state
explicitly that God is "the place of the world and His world
is not His place."

In the Muslim world the first Karaite thinkers accepted
the atomistic theories of the Mu'tazilites (see *Kalam), accord-
ing to which not only bodies composed of atoms are insepa-
rable, but there also exist equal and indivisible units of space,
of time, of motion, and of the different qualities. Within a
unit of motion, the atom passes from one unit of space to an
adjoining unit. The existence of void space maybe assumed,
because (according to the notion also held by Greek atom-
ists) the atoms could not move from place to place in a world
which has no void.

Saadiah Gaon

Saadiah's definition of space is "the meeting of two contigu-
ous bodies. . . each one of them becomes the place of the other.
Thus one part of the earth, as it revolves, serves as the locale for
the other" (Beliefs and Opinions, 1:4). This definition is prob-
ably based on an incorrect reading of Aristotle's conception,
and the conclusions which Saadiah derives appear contradic-
tory: at times he uses Aristotle's view as a proof that God, being
incorporeal, cannot be in a particular place; at other times he
seems to be saying that God is everywhere. In his commen-
tary to Sefer Yezirah, Saadiah speaks of two kinds of air which
are found everywhere:

(1) tangible air, and

(2) the fine air, which he identifies with the biblical "glory
of God" (see *Shekhinah).

Jewish Aristotelianism

Ibn Abi Sa'id, the first Jewish Aristotelian, appears to have
accepted, in general, Aristotle's definition of place as "the
limit of the encompassing body." This conception, which was
commonplace in Muslim and Jewish philosophy, was totally
rejected by Abu al-Barakat Hibat Allah (Nethanel) *al-Bagh-
dadi, a Jewish philosopher who converted to Islam in his old
age. He held the notion that space is a three-dimensional ex-
tension, which can be seen as both void and filled with bod-
ies. The human intellect, according to him, has an image of
void space before having an image of filled space. Contrary
to Aristotle, whose views he criticizes at length, he believes
that space is infinite.

Solomon ibn Gabirol

According to Solomon ibn Gabirol (in his Mekor Hayyim),
there is a hierarchy of different kinds of place, some of which

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPAIN

are spiritual (when the spiritual being is the place of spiritual
form, and "will" is the place of both matter and form), and
others physical. He refers to the existence of various other
types of bodies as the "known place." God (the first agent) is
the infinite place (or space).

Abraham ibn Daud

Abraham ibn *Daud attempts (in his Emunah Ramah) to es-
tablish the derivation of the three dimensions from prime
matter, "which God created in the beginning," and which in
itself is apparently non-spatial. The first form which it takes
on, the corporeal form, is identified with continuity. This form
affords something a certain measure of solidity and allows the
three dimensions to come into existence.

Maimonides

*Maimonides accepts the Aristotelian view of physical place.
He distinguishes between "particular" and "general" place
(Guide of the Perplexed, 1:8): the particular place is the place
of every individual body, which is the body referred to in Ar-
istotle's definition; the general place, which contains all bod-
ies, encompasses within its area the upper sphere, and the two
are identical since, like Aristotle, Maimonides sees the world
as finite. The term "place," when used to refer to God, desig-
nates His greatness.

Nahmanides

^Nahmanides recounts the midrashic notion that God is "the
place of the world." The sages, in his opinion, meant by this
dictum that God is the form of the world, since form is the re-
alization (the entelechy) of the perfection of what is contained
in the world, and is also its limit since it prevents the spread-
ing out of the worlds dimensions beyond its form.

Hasdai Crescas

•

A basic criticism of the Aristotelian conception of space and
place is found in Hasdai * Crescas' Or Adonai, whose point of
view and opinions are sometimes similar to those of Hibat
Allah. It appears that Crescas was influenced in this critical
attitude by the anti- Aristotelian physical theories of 14 th - and
i5 th -century Christian scholastics. Crescas substitutes for the
Aristotelian conception of two-dimensional place the con-
ception of three-dimensional space (using the term makom
("place") to designate both place and space). This three-di-
mensional space is found within the limits of the world which
is full of bodies. Crescas' notion that the world is infinite, how-
ever, leads him to reject the assumption that the existence of
a void is impossible. It is his opinion that infinite void can ex-
ist outside the limits of the world, and even within the world
itself. Crescas also assumes the possibility of the existence of
more than one world. He maintains, however, that the human
intellect is incapable of arriving at well-founded conclusions
in regard to this matter. Like Nahmanides, Crescas holds that
referring to God as "the place of the world" means that God
is the form of the world.

Apparently under Crescas' influence his disciple, Jo-
seph *Albo, substituted the three-dimensional conception of

space for the Aristotelian conception (Sefer ha-Ikkarim,
2:17).

bibliography: I.I. Efros, The Problems of Space in Jewish
Medieval Philosophy (1917); H.A. Wolfson, Crescas' Critique of Ar-
istotle (1929), index, s.v. Place; idem, Philo (1948 2 ), index s.v. Place,
Space; S. Pines, in: rej, 103 (1938), 3-64; idem, in: paajr, 24 (1955),
103-36; Ch. Touati, in: Archives d'histoire Doctrinale et Litteraire du

Moyen Age, 21 (1954), 203-4.

[Shlomo Pines]

SPAIN (in Hebrew at first X'OSOX then T1B0), country in S.W.
Europe. The use of the word "Spain" to denote "Sepharad"
has caused some confusion in research. Spain came into be-
ing long after the Jews had been expelled from the Crowns of
Castile and Aragon, which were jointly ruled by the Catholic
Monarchs, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, at the
time of the expulsion. When Spain emerged, incorporating
also the Kingdom of Navarre, there were no Jews officially liv-
ing in the Iberian Peninsula. Sepharad was used in the Middle
Ages to indicate the entire peninsula and the Jews who lived
there whose culture emerged as result of the encounter of Ju-
daism with Greco-Arabic culture that developed in Al-Anda-
lus. Many major works devoted to Jewish history and culture
treated as one unit the Jews of all the Hispanic kingdoms that
subsequently constituted Spain, leaving out Portugal. Baer's
monumental history does exactly that and he is followed by
many scholars.

According to various legends, there were Jews living in
Spain in biblical times, but no proof exists in support of such
stories. Most probably, the first group of Jews settled there
under the Roman Empire and the communities grew rapidly.
A tombstone inscription attests the presence of Jews in Adra
(the ancient Abdera) in the third century c.e. They thus wit-
nessed the conversion of the inhabitants of the Peninsula to
Christianity, which is probably why the Council of *Elvira
(305) attempted to effect or maintain a separation between the
members of the two faiths by forbidding Christians to live in
the houses of Jews, or to eat in their company, or to bless the
produce of their fields.

Under Visigothic Rule

The weakening of the empire and the arrival of the Visigoths
changed the face of Spain. From their court in Toledo they
attempted to restore the shattered Hispanic unity, initially on
the religious plane, through the conversion of their king Rec-
cared, originally an Arian, to Catholicism (587). Subsequently,
in the political sphere, King Sisebut (612-21) broke down the
last Byzantine stronghold in Spain. It is therefore hardly sur-
prising that the Church councils of ^Toledo, which were as
much political as religious assemblies, should have played so
important a role in the Visigothic state, and thus in the de-
termination of its policy toward the Jews. As in the case of all
other subjects, the policy was to have them adopt Catholi-
cism, which had by then become the state religion. Reccared
approved the decision of the third Council of Toledo (589) lay-
ing down that the children of a mixed Jewish -Christian mar-

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SPAIN

riage should be baptized by force. Going even further, Sisebut
inaugurated a policy of forcible conversion of all the Jews in
the kingdom. From 613 they were ordered to be baptized or
leave the kingdom. Thousands of Jews then left Spain, while
others were converted. Most of the latter, however, took the
opportunity of returning to Judaism under the rule of his more
tolerant successor Swintila (621-31). They were joined at this
time by a number of exiles returning to Spain. At that period
the official Church doctrine on conversion was formulated:
Jews must not be baptized by force, and the fourth Council of
Toledo (633) accepted this. King Sisenand (631-36) supported
this attitude but, like the council, insisted that those Jews who
had been converted by Sisebut and reverted to Judaism under
Swintila must return to Christianity.

However, this relatively moderate attitude was revoked
again under King Chintila (636-39) who compelled the sixth
Council of Toledo (638) to adopt a resolution proclaiming
that only Catholics might reside in the kingdom of Spain;
he even anathematized those of his successors who did not
hold to his decrees against the Jews. Numerous Jews accepted
baptism and signed a declaration that they would respect
Christian rites; others chose exile. Under Chintila's succes-
sor, Chindaswinth (641-49), the application of these laws
had been neglected to such an extent that his successor, Rec-
ceswinth (649-72) complained to the eighth Council of To-
ledo (653) about the presence of Jews in the kingdom. Probably
some of the exiles had come back and some of the converts
had returned to Judaism. The king commanded that they be
brought back within the fold of Christianity, by force if nec-
essary. Those who had relapsed had to sign a new declara-
tion, promising to be good Catholics, to reject all Jewish rites,
and to execute themselves those of their erring brethren who
backslid into Judaism. However, they were permitted to ab-
stain from eating pork, which they abhorred. The king decided
not to drive the unconverted Jews to the font but to make it
impossible for them to practice Judaism by prohibiting cir-
cumcision and forbidding them to celebrate the Sabbath and
the festivals. However, these ordinances were honored more
in the breach than in the observance and, thanks to various
allies, even among the clergy, the Jews were able to survive
in Spain; so much so that the tenth Council of Toledo had to
remind Christians that they were obliged to observe the laws
relating to the Jews.

The next king, Wamba (672-80), expelled the Jews from
Narbonne and probably also from Septimania (then part of
Spain), but they did not all leave the Visigothic kingdom. They
were there when Erwig (680-87) convoked the 12 th Council
of Toledo to obtain in spite of the traditional ruling of the
Church, the forced baptism of the Jews. Within a year every
Jew had to foreswear Judaism, accept baptism for himself and
his family, and pledge his fidelity to the Christian faith. Those
who refused were to be penalized by having their belongings
seized, by corporal punishment, and finally by exile. Simi-
lar penalties were to be imposed on those who, baptized or
not, observed Jewish rites. The priests were to gather all the

Jews in the churches to read out to them the text of the law so
that none could claim he was unaware of it. Any noble who
helped the Jews to evade these laws was to lose his rights over
the Jews and pay a heavy fine. The execution of the laws was
the task of the clergy, the king reserving several penalties for
them if they were lax in carrying out his orders. Yet the Jews
continued to Judaize and even to attack Christianity on some
occasions for the king could not count on the assistance of
his people in carrying out the whole of his anti-Jewish policy.
His successor, Egica (687-702), reversed his attitude, restating
once more the prescription on forced baptism and suppress-
ing those disqualifications which oppressed converted Jews,
while at the same time increasing the benefits to be gained
from becoming Christian. He passed several measures tend-
ing to impoverish the Jews and make it impossible for them
to buy protection from powerful nobles. They were forced to
sell, at a price fixed by the king, all slaves, buildings, lands,
and vineyards which they had acquired from Christians. On
pain of perpetual servitude and confiscation of their goods,
they were forbidden to conduct commercial transactions with
Christians or overseas. At the same time their taxes were con-
siderably increased. In spite of its ratification by the 16 th Coun-
cil of Toledo (693), this policy was unsuccessful. Soon it was
rumored that the persecuted Jews were thinking of appeal-
ing to the Muslim invaders, who had shown themselves to be
decidedly more tolerant than the Visigoths. Alarmed, Egica
convened a 17 th council on Nov. 9, 694, accusing the Jews of
treason and demanding that the severest measures be taken
against them. Declared as slaves and their possessions confis-
cated, all the Jews of Spain were given into the hands of Chris-
tian masters in various provinces. Their masters were charged
to see that they did not practice Jewish rites and to take their
children to be brought up from the age of seven by Christian
tutors and later married to Christians. Those Jews who were
able to, escaped; the rest were taken into servitude.

[Simon R. Schwarzfuchs]

Muslim Spain

When Tarik b. Ziyad in 711 crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and
overran the Visigothic Kingdom, there were no communities
of openly professing Jews in Spain. But there remained in the
country many secret Jews who welcomed the Muslims as their
saviors from long oppression and flocked to join them. Ac-
cording to reliable Arabic sources the Muslim invaders made
it their custom to call together the Jews wherever they found
them and to hand towns which they had conquered over to
them to garrison. They mention that this happened at Cor-
doba, Granada, Toledo, and Seville. Since the number of Mus-
lim soldiers was relatively small, there can be no doubt that
they appreciated the military help of the Jews who enabled
them to continue their campaigns without having to leave
behind them sizable units. So the situation of the Crypto-
Jews changed abruptly and they occupied the enviable posi-
tion of a group allied with the new rulers of the peninsula.
Probably their economic situation changed too, since most

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SPAIN

of the Visigothic nobles had fled and they could appropriate
abandoned estates. The immediate sequel of the conquest of
Spain by the Arabs was apparently that many Jews who had
left Spain at the time of the religious persecutions by the Vi-
sigothic kings or their descendants returned from North Af-
rica where they had found shelter. But soon the Jews began to
suffer from the exactions of the new rulers who imposed on
them (as on the Christians) heavy taxes. Even the party strife
and civil wars which flared up among the Arabs brought down
many calamities upon them.

umayyad rule. The * Umayyad kingdom in Spain was es-
tablished by c Abd al-Rahman i in 755 with its capital at Cor-
doba in Andalusia. There was relative economic prosperity
throughout Umayyad rule and Jews were represented in many
occupations, including medicine, agriculture, commerce, and
crafts. Jews continued to work in these fields after the fall of the
Umayyad regime. The tolerance of the Umayyad regime ren-
dered Muslim Spain a refuge for the Jews and their numbers
increased within the country. In 839 the Frank bishop *Bodo
converted to Judaism in *Saragossa, married a Spanish Jew-
ess, and wrote a tract against Christianity to which Alvaros
of Cordoba replied.

Jewish scholarship and culture flourished alongside its
Arab counterpart and was influenced by it. The Babylonian
geonim corresponded with rabbis and scholars in the centers
of *Lucena and ^Barcelona. R. *Amram Gaon sent his prayer
book to Spanish scholars. The academy at Lucena flourished
into the 12 th century and is mentioned in responsa as early
as the ninth. Later Arab geographers cited Lucena, Granada,
and ^Tarragona as "Jewish cities." The real Jewish cultural re-
vival began in the tenth century under c Abd al-Rahman in
(912-961), who assumed the title of caliph in 929 in Cordoba.
At that time Cordoba was a center of both Arab and Jewish
culture. This was the time of the political rise of the court phy-
sician *Hisdai ibn Shaprut, who attained the position of chief
of customs and foreign trade. Hisdai was also a diplomat who
negotiated with Christian rulers on behalf of the caliphate. In
addition, he was a patron of the two leading Hebrew philolo-
gists, *Dunash b. Labrat and *Menahem b. Saruk. The Jewish
literati acquired a sense of aesthetics and an appreciation of
physical beauty from the artistic accomplishment of the Arabs
in Spain. This sensitivity took root in the mid-tenth century
and found expression in the Hebrew poetry of medieval Spain
almost right up to the general expulsion in 1492.

As head of Spanish Jewry, Hisdai appointed *Moses
b. Hanokh, who came from Italy, chief rabbi and head of a
yeshivah at Cordoba. Thus, Spanish Jewry's reliance on the
Babylonian geonim in halakhic matters decreased. Hisdai is
the first example of the many- faceted Jewish statesman, com-
munal leader, and intellectual who was characteristic of the
community in Muslim Spain. After his death the post of rabbi
of the Cordoba community was disputed by Joseph b. Isaac
* Ibn Abitur, supported by the wealthy silk merchant * Ibn Jau,
and R. *Hanokh b. Moses. The latter emerged victorious and

his appointment was sanctioned by Caliph al-Hakam 11, the
patron of the Jewish geographer Ibrahim b. Yaqub. During
the reign of al-*Mansur (d. 1002) the great Hebrew philologist
*Hayyuj (Abu Zakariyya Yahya b. Da'ud), who established the
principle of the trilitteral root, lived in Cordoba.

the petty principalities. With the decline of Umayyad
rule after al-Mansur s death, the ^Berber conquest of Cordoba
(1013), and the demise of the dynasty in the 1030s, Cordoba
lost its former prominence and the capitals of the various Ber-
ber and Arab principalities became cultural and commercial
centers. Jewish taxfarmers, advisers, and physicians served at
the different courts. The relatively tolerant rulers welcomed
and esteemed Jewish financiers, advisers in matters economic
and political gifted writers, scholars, and scientists. The ethos
of this Jewish upper class was distinguished by several features:
the desire for and attainment of political power, the harmony
of religion and secular culture, the study of the Talmud along
with poetry and philosophy, equal proficiency in Arabic and
Hebrew. The epitome of the fulfillment of this ideal was the
poet and halakhist *Samuel ha-Nagid, a refugee from Cor-
doba who served as vizier and commander of the army of
Granada from about 1030 to his death in 1056; he was also
head of the Jewish community. His remarkable career and
military exploits are recorded in both Hebrew and Arabic
sources, including his own poetry. Samuel was succeeded by
his son *Joseph ha-Nagid, whose pride and ambition aroused
the enmity of certain Muslims, who assassinated him in 1066.
Inspired by fanatics, Muslims then attacked Granada Jewry
and many survivors moved to other towns, particularly Lu-
cena. The Granada massacre marked the first persecution of
Jews in Muslim Spain.

Prominent communities in the middle to late 11 th century
also included Seville, then ruled by the * Abbasid dynasty. (See
Map: Muslim Spain.) Jewish courtiers included Abraham b.
Meir ibn *Muhajir, to whom Moses *Ibn Ezra dedicated his
Sefer ha-Tarshish (Sefer ha-Anka). Under al-Mutamid, Isaac
ibn *Albalia served as court astrologer and as chief rabbi of
Seville, and the scholar Joseph *Ibn Migash was sent on dip-
lomatic missions. Lucena remained an important center of
learning. Its academy was led by the great talmudist Isaac *A1-
fasi. His successors were Isaac *Ibn Ghayyat and Joseph ibn
Migash. During Samuel ha-Nagid s term of office, the Jew *Je-
kuthiel, who was later murdered by political rivals, served as
vizier in Saragossa. A dynamic cultural center, Saragossa was
the home of the philologist and grammarian *Ibn Janah, the
controversial Bible commentator Moses ha-Kohen ibn *Gika-
tilla, the important neoplatonic philosopher and poet Solo-
mon ibn * Gabirol, and the ethical writer *Bahya ibn Pakuda.
The latter s major work, Far a id al-Qulub (Heb. Hovot ha-Le-
vavot, "The Duties of the Hearts"), shows the influence of Mus-
lim ascetic ideals. Other important communities were *Denia,
a major port in eastern Spain and the residence of the talmud-
ist R. *Isaac b. Reuben al-Bargeloni, *Tudela, *Almeria, and
*Huesca. Eleventh-century Toledo, capital of a Berber king-

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SPAIN

Map 1. Jewish communities in Muslim Spain in the 11 th century. Shaded area indicates the extent of Christian expansion by 1030.

dom, had a Jewish population of 4,000 and a * Karaite com-
munity as well. It was taken by the Christians in 1085.

thealmoravids. The advance of the reconquest prompted
al-Mutamid of Seville to request the aid of Yusuf ibn Tashfin
of North Africa, the leader of the fanatic *Almoravid sect. In
1086 the latter led the Muslim armies to victory at Zallaka
against the Castilians commanded by Alfonso vi. Yusuf at-
tempted to force Lucena Jewry to convert to *Islam, but pay-
ment of a large sum of money caused him to rescind his de-
cree. Under his son, Ali (1106-43), Abu Ayyub Sulayman ibn
Muallim served as court physician and Abu al-Hasan Abra-
ham b. Meir ibn Kamaniel was sent on diplomatic missions.
During Alis reign the poets Abu Sulayman ibn Muhajir and
Abu al-Fath Eleazar ibn Azhar lived in Seville. Cordoba con-
tinued to prosper and was a cultural center and the residence
of the gifted poet Joseph b. Jacob *Ibn Sahl (d. 1123) and the
philosopher Joseph ibn *Zaddik.

thealmohads. In 1146 the *Almohads, an even more fa-
natic Berber dynasty of ^Morocco, led by c Abd al-Mumin, be-
gan their conquest of Muslim Spain, which put an end to the

flourishing Jewish communities of Andalusia. The practice
of the Jewish religion was forbidden by the authorities. Syna-
gogues and yeshivot were closed and Jews were compelled to
embrace Islam. Many emigrated to Christian Spain; others
outwardly professed Islam but secretly observed Judaism, an
ominous portent of the Conversos in Christian Spain a cen-
tury later. R. Abraham *Ibn Ezra composed a moving elegy
on the demise of the Andalusian communities. In 1162 these
secret Jews were active in a revolt against the Almohads, par-
ticularly in deposing them in Granada. Almohad rule in Spain
lasted longer than a century.

In the mid-i3 th century the Castilians conquered a great
part of Andalusia. The Muslims retained only the kingdom
of Granada in southeastern Spain. This kingdom, which was
ruled by the Arab dynasty of Banu al- Ahmar and existed for
nearly 250 years, contained the important communities of
Granada, ^Malaga, and Almeria. Although there were peri-
ods when the rulers of Granada inclined toward religious fa-
naticism, they employed Jewish counselors and court physi-
cians. Jews from Christian Spain immigrated to Granada as
their situation deteriorated. The poet, historian, and talmud-

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SPAIN

ist Saadiah b. Maimon * Ibn Danan was rabbi of Granada in

the late 15 th century. At that time Isaac *Hamon was court

physician and very influential in government circles. When

Granada surrendered to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, the

last Muslim king stipulated that Jews enjoy the same rights

as other subjects, i.e., judicial autonomy, freedom to practice

their religion, and permission to emigrate. According to this

treaty, Conversos who had come from Christian Spain could

leave within a month. The Catholic monarchs, however, did

not keep their word and proclaimed the edict of the expulsion

of the Jews in Granada.

[Eliyahu Ashtor]

The Reconquest Period

For many years the history of the Jews in Christian Spain be-
came an element in the struggle for the reconquest. In the early
stages of this the Jews suffered alongside the Muslims from
the violence of the newly- founded Christian state in Oviedo,
which regarded itself as the successor of the Visigoths and felt
bound to punish the so-called treason of the Jews. However,
in many Christian principalities the influence of the Carolin-
gian Empire was paramount and the Jews were treated more
moderately.

Little is known about the Catalonian Jewish communities
during this period; their presence is attested by a few tomb-
stones. More records are available on the communities in the
county of Leon. In this province a problem arose which per-
plexed the Christian kings of the reconquest for many years:
how to settle, colonize, and develop regions won back from
the Muslim invaders. It is fairly clear that this preoccupation
prompted a change in their attitude toward the Jews so that
gradually they began to consider them a useful and even es-
sential section of the population. Relations with the Christian
population changed, and this period saw the emergence of
organized communities, influential in trade and industry, in
northwest Spain. In the new capital, Leon, from the tenth cen-
tury the Jews controlled the commerce in textiles and precious
stones. They also owned many estates in the kingdom. In the
young state of Castile the judicial status of the Jews was almost
equal to that of the Christians. In the meantime the Jewish
population in the small Christian states was insignificant.

At the beginning of the 11 th century, assisted by the de-
cline of the caliphate, the Christian hold in Spain increased
through the initiative of Alfonso v of Leon (999-1027), who
set himself out to attract settlers to his lands by granting them
privileges and freedom. Among these new settlers were nu-
merous Jews, who shared the same advantages as the Chris-
tians. It is difficult to establish their origins: did they come
from France or from Muslim Spain, where their situation was
now less secure than before? At any rate it is highly likely that
at the beginning of the 11 th century, especially with the onset
of the Berber invasions, many Jews from the Muslim region
made their way to the Christian kingdom, attracted by the ad-
vantages offered to new settlers, to join earlier Jewish arrivals.
The face of Spanish Jewry was transformed; for the first time
the influence of Oriental Jewry penetrated a Christian land,

dislodging the influence of Franco -German Jewry from its
monopolistic position.

In spite of the internal reverses and setbacks disturbing
the countries of Christian Spain, which also had an effect on
the Jews, Jewish communities were organized and securely
established. Their status was clearly defined: whether they
lived on territory belonging to nobles, monastic orders, or
elsewhere, the Jews belonged to the king, who protected them
and to whom they owed fealty. For some time this principle
was interpreted literally - as the blood money due on the kill-
ing of a Jew had to be paid directly to the king. The abortive
Crusade of 1063 did not affect the development of the Jewish
communities. According to legend, the great national hero El
Cid employed Jews as treasurers, financial agents, lawyers, and
administrators. Alfonso vi certainly employed as his physician
and financier the Jew Joseph ha-Nasi * Ferrizuel, called Cidel-
lus or little Cid, who did a great deal to help his coreligionists.
It appears that Alfonso was the Spanish king who inaugurated
a tradition that lasted as long as Spanish Jewry itself: that of
the Jewish courtiers who, while still remaining faithful to their
religion, exercised considerable authority over the inhabitants
of the kingdom. During Alfonso's reign the reconquest suf-
fered a setback with the defeat of Zallaker in 1086; no doubt
there were some who cast aspersions on the Jews of the king
who had refused to fight.

In the meantime in ^Barcelona the Jews continued to be
important landowners. According to some estimates, in the
11 th and 12 th centuries they owned around one-third of the es-
tates in the county, which explains why the second Council
of Gerona demanded that they continue to pay the tithes due
to the Church on land that they had purchased from Chris-
tians. In 1079 there were at least 60 Jewish heads of families in
Barcelona. This was the milieu which produced the first great
figures of Spanish Jewish culture: the rabbi Isaac b. Reuben al-
Bargeloni ("from Barcelona") the many-faceted ^Abraham b.
Hiyya ha-Nasi, and the rabbi * Judah b. Barzillai al-Bargeloni.
Writing in a Christian land, these three authors belonged to
a totally different cultural environment from their contem-
porary, Rashi, and attest the originality of Spanish Jewish
thought which, from the end of the 11 th century, gained in im-
portance and impact.

The Golden Age in Spain

When Toledo fell to Alfonso 1 of Castile in 1085 the Jewish
inhabitants, unlike the Muslims, did not flee the town, and it
seems that they continued to live in their old quarter, joined
there by newcomers from old Castile and Leon and refugees
from Muslim lands. On the death of the king in 1109, the se-
curity of the Jews was revealed as illusory since it was based
solely on royal favor, which more tardily was again extended
by Alfonso's successor. In the meantime Christianity gained
ground in Spain. * Tudela fell to King Alfonso 1 of Aragon in
1115. Jews and Muslims alike were granted full religious free-
dom, but while the Muslims were ordered to leave the town
itself the Jews were granted permission to remain in their own

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SPAIN

quarter, which lay within the city walls. Thus, preferred to
the Muslims, they were no longer an object of fear to the
Christians. The Jews of *Saragossa, conquered in 1118, en-
joyed the same privileges and this precedent was followed in
almost all towns on the way of the triumphant Christian ad-
vance.

The county of Barcelona, united with the kingdom of
Aragon in the time of Count Ramon Berenguer iv (1131-62),
had also taken part in the reconquest. In 1148 *Tortosa fell to
the count who, having given important possessions to the Jews
there, promised supplementary freedoms to any of their core-
ligionists who wished to settle in the town. When * Lerida was
conquered in 1149, the Jews were once more asked to stay and
preferred to the Muslims. Nevertheless they were not always
protected from the maneuve rings of the Christian lords, who
cared more for immediate gain than for future settlement. At
this time the focal point of Spanish Jewry had shifted from
the Muslim south to the Christian north, where the Jewish
population had increased considerably. However, the inter-
nal structure of the communities changed little and the rule
of the notables remained firmly established. The court Jews
still occupied all important positions, which scarcely troubled
newcomers, who were above all concerned with establishing
themselves and finding a means of livelihood. They tended to
settle in the towns more than in the countryside. Occasion-
ally the Christian kings gave them the citadel of a conquered
town and there they established themselves, assuring at the
same time their internal communal autonomy and external
security. Engaged largely in commerce and industry and in
the administration of the possessions of the nobles, the Jews
were barely concerned with moneylending.

The Jews were serfs of the king, property of the royal trea-
sury alone, but in times of stability this meant no more than an
obligation to pay taxes; the king took no interest in the internal
structure of the communities, which remained autonomous
organizations. Known as *aljama (the Arabic name being re-
tained), the Jewish communities were each independent po-
litical entities paying taxes directly to the royal treasury, with
full administrative and judicial autonomy, under the very gen-
eral supervision of a royal functionary. In the case of suits with
Christians, the Jews had to take a special *oath more judaico
and were forbidden to engage in judicial duels. From the end
of the 12 th century, however, municipal legislation weighed
more heavily on the Jews: the municipalities were desirous of
curbing the power of rich Jewish businessmen. But in spite of
their efforts they did not succeed in supplanting the king as
the supreme authority over the Jews. Meanwhile in Barcelona,
Toledo, and Saragossa the Jewish courtiers, an aristocracy in
their own right, acquired even greater importance. They were
tax farmers and undertook diplomatic missions and were fre-
quently looked upon askance by the communities too, whose
authority they sometimes tried to avoid. It is therefore hardly
surprising that from the early 13 th century the first signs of a
democratic reaction were apparent, the poorer demanding
a voice in the communal councils alongside the rich. In this

period the *Maimonidean controversy split Spanish Jewry.
Beginning in Provence, it spread through the Midi, develop-
ing into a dispute on the very validity of philosophy within
Judaism. It was the first sign of self-examination by the com-
munities and of the renunciation of ideas absorbed from the
Muslim and then from the Christian background. This ten-
dency was expressed in the condemnation of the writings of
Maimonides, several of them being suppressed. The contro-
versy simmered down, only to break out with renewed feroc-
ity some time later.

In the meantime the reconquest proceeded apace. James 1
of Aragon (1213-76) took the Balearic Islands (1229-35) an d
Valencia (1238). Ferdinand in of Castile (1217-52) captured
*C6rdoba (1236), *Murcia (1243), and ^Seville (1248). Al-
fonso x (1252-84) extended the conquest so far that only the
kingdom of Granada remained in Muslim hands. All these
kings had employed Jews in their armies and all had requested
them to settle in towns evacuated by Muslims. Everywhere
the Jews who had lived under Muslim rule were permitted to
remain in their old quarter, were preferred to Muslims, and
their previous privileges were confirmed. Their ownership of
land expanded, for the kings frequently granted them lands
and other possessions in order to attract them to settle. More
Jewish shops opened in the towns, arousing the opposition
of the municipalities, who wished to limit their commerce.
Around the middle of the 13 th century King *Alfonso x pre-
pared a code of laws covering all the inhabitants of his king-
dom. This code, known as Las Siete Partidas> was formulated
around 1263, but was only very gradually applied, especially
from 1348. It defined with great precision the principles of
royal policy toward the Jews and in this respect was extremely
influential. The Jews were accorded complete religious liberty,
on condition that they did not attack the Christian faith; mea-
sures were taken to prevent the possibility of *blood libels; and
they were forbidden to leave their homes during Easter. They
were also prohibited from holding positions of authority over
Christians. The number and size of synagogues were strictly
limited, but it was forbidden to disturb the Jews on the Sab-
bath, even for legal reasons. No force was to be used to induce
them to adopt Christianity, while those who had converted
were not to be taunted with insults about their origins, nor to
lose their rights of succession to the property of their former
coreligionists. By contrast, any Christian who converted to
Judaism was to be put to death and his property declared for-
feit. Jews and Christians were not to occupy the same house,
and Jews could not own Christian slaves. They were also to
carry a special badge which identified them as Jews. Thus the
policy of the Church triumphed. The aljamas y turned more
in on themselves, reinforced their autonomy. Under the di-
rection of their *muqaddamin (or *adelantados) they estab-
lished their own courts of law, but maintained the right of ap-
peal before the royal court. At this period the king appointed
a functionary, known as the rab de la corte y to supervise the
affairs of the Jewish communities. It appears that his nomina-
tion by the king did not give rise to any special problems, for

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SPAIN

he generally did not interfere with the internal organization
of the communities.

Jewish courtiers, largely in Castile, rose to the highest po-
sitions. Therefore their fall was usually attended by the most
brutal consequences for the communities to which they be-
longed, and thus the latter could not consider them as shtad-
lanim, but rather as high functionaries and financiers whose
influence depended more on their talents than on any repre-
sentative status. The Castilian monarchs seem to have been
well satisfied by their services. As Jews they could not aim for
political power nor could they ally themselves with the nobil-
ity or the clergy. Thus there developed in the Christian lands
the custom, long widespread in the Orient, of employing Jews
in the highest administrative and financial positions. The no-
bles imitated the kings in employing Jewish experts. Some of
these Jewish courtiers, while still holding to the Jewish faith,
were influenced by the Christian environment; wishing to live
as nobles, they competed for royal favor. Veritable dynasties
of courtiers emerged: the powerful families wielded consid-
erable importance in their communities. Don Solomon *Ibn
Zadok of Toledo, known as Don (Julema, was ambassador and
almoxarife major. His son and successor, Don Isaac ibn Zadok,
known as Don Qag de la Maleha, played an important role
in reestablishing the finances of Alfonso x, who granted him
and his associates authority to farm taxes owing on the pre-
vious 20 years in return for payment of the enormous sum of
80,000 gold maravedis for the years 1276 and 1277. This kind
of contract could be very remunerative although the king fre-
quently went back on his word. It sometimes happened that,
as in the case of Don Qag, a Jewish courtier fell from royal fa-
vor and, as a result, lost his life. The very financial success of
the courtiers tempted the kings to impose enormous taxes on
the Jewish communities, which were impoverished by their
efforts to pay them. The Church, the Cortes, and the nobil-
ity frequently cast a jaundiced eye on the rise of the Jewish
courtiers, who competed with them for royal favor and gave
too powerful a hand to the strengthening of the monarchy.
Thus they frequently put pressure on the king to dislodge his
Jewish courtiers. In spite of all efforts, however, the institu-
tion of the Jewish courtier increased in influence in Castile,
rather than the contrary.

In Aragon Jewish courtiers were to be found at the court
of James 1, who used them as interpreters in his survey of the
Arab lands he had reconquered. The king also invited the Jews
to settle in his newly acquired lands; they were to receive their
share of the conquered territory on the sole condition that
they settled on it. There too they were preferred to Muslims,
for the problem of resettling the former Arab lands was ever
present. Thus Jews from the north of Aragon spread gradu-
ally southward, establishing new communities. By the edict
of Valencia, March 6, 1239, the king confirmed the authority
of the bet din in suits between Jews, except in cases of murder.
He also recognized the need for witnesses of each religion in
cases involving Christians and Jews. The validity of the oath
more judaico was reaffirmed. Any Jew who was arrested had

to be freed between midday on Friday and Monday morning.
The king took the Jews and their property under his protection
and forbade anyone to harass them except for a debt or crime
which could be firmly established. This charter often served as
the model for similar charters in towns throughout Aragon.
James 1 also undertook to protect the Jews of newly conquered
Majorca. As these measures proved insufficient to populate the
new communities, on June 11, 1247, James promised safe con-
duct and citizenship to any Jew coming by land or sea to settle
in Majorca, Catalonia, or Valencia. As far as the internal life of
the communities was concerned, he confirmed and extended
their autonomy. By the privilege granted to the community of
*Calatayud on April 22, 1229, he authorized the community to
appoint a rabbi and four directors (adenanti) to control their
affairs, and to dismiss these officials if they deemed it neces-
sary. They were also authorized to arrest and even sentence
to death any malefactors in their midst. The community did
not have to account for any death sentences it passed but had
to pay the king 1,000 solidos for every one of these. The four
adenanti directing the community could, with the agreement
of the aljama, pronounce excommunication. Thus the elected
heads of the community exercised considerable power, espe-
cially the authority to impose the death sentence, which in
fact was only pronounced against informers. The king rarely
attempted to interfere with this autonomy, leaving the com-
munities to direct their own affairs.

Beginning of the Christian Reaction

However, early in the 13 th century, a Christian reaction made
itself felt, under the influence of ^Raymond de Penaforte, Do-
minican confessor to the king. From Barcelona he attempted
to limit the influence of the Jews by fixing the interest rate on
moneylending at 20%, by limiting the effectiveness of the Jew-
ish oath, and restating the prohibition on Jews holding pub-
lic office or employing Christian servants (Dec. 22, 1228). The
Council of Tarragona (1235) restated these clauses and forbade
Muslims to convert to Judaism or vice versa. The Cortes in-
creased their attempts to suppress Jewish moneylending.

Thus the climate had changed. Following the exam-
ple of France, the kingdom of Aragon initiated a large-scale
campaign to convert the Jews through exposing the "Jewish
error." From 1250 the first blood libel was launched in Sara-
gossa. Soon the example of Louis ix found Spanish imitators:
James 1 found himself obliged to cancel debts to Jews (1259).
Soon after, an apostate Jew carried over to Spain the work of
Nicholas *Donin of France, provoking a disputation between
Pablo *Christiani and the most famous rabbi of the day, *Nah-
manides. Held before the king, the bishops, and Raymond
de Penaforte, the disputation took place in Barcelona on July
20, 27, 30, and 31, 1263 (see ^Barcelona, Disputation of). Cen-
tral to the disputation were the problem of the advent of the
Messiah and the truth of Christianity; probably for the last
time in the Middle Ages, the Jewish representative secured
permission to speak with complete freedom. After a some-
what brusque disputation, each side claimed the victory. This

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPAIN

constituted no check to Christian missionary efforts; forced
conversion remained prohibited but the Jews were compelled
to attend conversionist sermons and to censor all references
to Jesus or Mary in their literature. Nahmanides, brought to
trial because of his frankness, was acquitted (1265), but he
had to leave Spain and in 1267 settled in Jerusalem. By his
bull Turbato corde y proclaimed at this time, Pope Clement iv
gave the Inquisition virtual freedom to interfere in Jewish af-
fairs by allowing the inquisitors to pursue converted Jews who
had reverted to their old religion, Christians who converted
to Judaism, and Jews accused of exercising undue influence
over Christians and their converted brethren. It was becom-
ing apparent that the Jews had outlived their usefulness as
colonizers, except in southern Aragon. The old hostility to-
ward Judaism reappeared, but for the time being was content
with efforts to convince the Jews of the truth of Christianity.
At this period Raymond *Martini, one of the opponents of
Nahmanides, published his Pugio Fidei, a work which served
as the basis for anti-Jewish campaigns for many years. But
the economic usefulness of the Jews was still considerable: in
1294 revenue from the Jews amounted to 22% of the total rev-
enue in Castile. In spite of mounting hostility on the part of
the burghers, the state was very reluctant to part with such a
valuable source of income.

The very existence of the Jewish communities posed
problems for the burgher class. The aljama was a neighbor
of the Christian municipality but was free from its authority
because of its special relationship with the king. The juderia
thus often seemed to be a town within a town. The aljama it-
self in this period reinforced its authority and closed its ranks,
limiting the influence of the courtiers, who were increasingly
becoming a dominant class with no real share in the spiritual
life of the people. The different communities in Aragon had
developed on parallel lines without any centralized organiza-
tion. At times their leaders met to discuss the apportionment
of taxes, but this had never led to the development of a na-
tional organization. Within the communities the struggle con-
tinued between the strong families who wielded power and the
masses. In general the oligarchy succeeded in dominating the
communal council with the assistance of the dayyanim who,
since they were not always scholars, had to consult the rabbini-
cal authorities before passing judgment according to Jewish
law. Around the end of the 13 th century the dayyanim began
to be elected annually, the first step toward greater control by
the masses. Soon after, these masses managed to secure a rota-
tion of the members of the council, but nevertheless these were
nearly always chosen from among the powerful families.

Such a climate of social tension, aggravated by the anxi-
ety caused by the insecure state of the Jews, proved fruitful for
the reception of kabbalistic teachings, transplanted at the be-
ginning of the 13 th century from Provence to Gerona. Mainly
due to the works of Nahmanides, the kabbalistic movement
developed widely (see *Kabbalah). Between 1280 and 1290 the
Zohar appeared and was enthusiastically received. Philosophy
appeared to be in retreat before this new trend. At this very

moment the Maimonidean controversy broke out once more,
beginning in Provence where the study of philosophy had re-
ceived a new impetus through the translations of works from
Arabic by the Ibn *Tibbon and *Kimhi families. The quar-
rel reached such dimensions that the most celebrated rabbi
of the day, Solomon b. Abraham *Adret, rabbi of Barcelona,
was obliged to intervene. A double herem was proclaimed on
those who studied Greek philosophy before the age of 25 and
on those who were too prone to explain the biblical stories al-
legorically Exceptions were made on works of medicine, as-
tronomy, and the works of Maimonides. This ban was prob-
ably another sign of the decline of the Jewish community of
Aragon and its increasing tendency to withdraw into itself.
During the same period Jewish courtiers lost their influence
and left the political arena.

In Castile, on the other hand, Jewish courtiers continued
to play an important role in spite of the efforts of other court-
iers to be rid of them and of the Church to condemn them as
usurers. Apostates were at the fore in this struggle, especially
*Abner of Burgos who, becoming a Christian in 1321 and, tak-
ing the name Alfonso of Valladolid, tried to remain in close
contact with the Jewish community, the better to influence
it. Around the same period, Gonzalo ^Martinez de Oviedo,
majordomo to the king, obtained the temporary dismissal of
Jewish courtiers and planned the eventual expulsion of all
the Jews of the kingdom. Soon himself accused of treason, he
was put to death (1340) and his plan fell into abeyance. At the
beginning of the 14 th century *Asher b. Jehiel became rabbi of
Toledo, the principal community in the kingdom, holding this
office from 1305 to 1327. After the imprisonment of his master,
*Meir b. Baruch of Rothenburg, he had been the leading rab-
binic authority in Germany, a country he fled from in 1303.
Practically as soon as he arrived in Spain he was involved in
the philosophic controversy and signed the ban proclaimed
by Solomon b. Abraham Adret. On the latter s death he be-
came the leading rabbinic scholar in Spain, where he dis-
seminated the methods of the tosafists and the ideals of the
*Hasidei Ashkenaz. The attitude of the Catholic monarchy to-
ward the Jews continued to vacillate. Alfonso xi resolved to
root out Jewish usury but to permit the Jews to remain (1348).
The *Black Death, which reached Spain at this period, did not
give rise to persecutions like those which swept central Eu-
rope. Alfonso's successor, Pedro the Cruel (1350-69) brought
Jewish courtiers back into his employment and allowed Don
Samuel b. Meir ha-Levi *Abulafia, his chief treasurer, to build
a magnificent synagogue in Toledo in 1357 (it was later turned
into a church and subsequently into a museum). Despite the
fall of Don Samuel, who died in prison, other Jewish court-
iers retained their positions and influence. During the civil
war between Pedro and his bastard half-brother, Henry of
Trastamara, the Jews sided with the king, who, therefore, was
even called the king of the Jews. When Burgos was taken by
the pretender (1366), the Jewish community was reduced to
selling the synagogue appurtenances to pay its ransom. Some
of its members were even sold into slavery. Henrys victory,

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPAIN

augmented by the capture of Toledo (in which many Jews fell
victim), reduced the local community to destitution: the king
had seized at least 1,000,000 gold maravedis. However, this
did not prevent the king from appointing Don Joseph * Picho
as tax farmer and other Jews from filling important positions.
Incited by the Cortes, he imposed the Jewish badge and for-
bade Jews to take Christian names, but he did not dismiss
his Jewish courtiers. Meanwhile the condition of the Jews
in the kingdom deteriorated. In 1380 the Cortes, as a result
of the secret execution of Don Joseph Picho as an informer
on the orders of the rabbinical tribunal, forbade the Jewish
communities to exercise criminal jurisdiction and to impose
the death penalty or banishment. In Castile the first part of
the 14 th century was dominated by the personality of * Jacob
b. Asher, third son of Asher b. Jehiel, who was dayyan in To-
ledo. Around 1340 he published his Arba'ah Turim y a codifi-
cation of the law combining the Spanish and the Ashkenazi
traditions, which was widely distributed. His brother * Judah
b. Asher succeeded his father in Toledo and became in effect
the chief rabbi of Castile.

The situation in Aragon was generally both less brilliant
and less disquieting. There the influence of the Jews at court
had practically disappeared with the dismissal of the Jewish
courtiers. The Jews were tolerated and had the right to royal
protection within the limits of Church doctrine on the matter.
The taxes raised from the Jews were an important source of
revenue and so they were allowed to pursue their commercial
ventures and direct their own internal affairs. Under the reign
of James 11 (1291-1327) the Inquisition had begun to show an
interest in the Jews but the king declared that their presence
was an affair of state and not a religious concern, an attitude
characteristic of the monarchy for many years. James gave no
assistance to the efforts to convert the Jews. When the *Pas-
toureaux arrived in Aragon, the king resisted them vigorously
in his efforts to spare the Jews from this menace. During his
rule (1306) Jews expelled from France were permitted to settle
in Spain. Unlike in Castile, in Aragon the Black Death gave
rise to anti- Jewish excesses. In Saragossa only 50 Jews survived
and in Barcelona and other Catalonian cities the Jews were
massacred. So shattered were the communities by these riots
that their leaders convened in Barcelona in 1354 to decide on
common measures to reestablish themselves. They resolved to
establish a central body to appeal to the papal curia to defend
them against allegations of spreading the plague and to secure
for them some alleviation in their situation. A delegation sent
to Pope Clement vi in Avignon succeeded in having a bull
promulgated which condemned such accusations.

It would seem that the attempt to create a central orga-
nization did not succeed, but the Aragon communities had
nevertheless to reorganize. From 1327 the Barcelona commu-
nity succeeded in abolishing all communal offices which were
acquired by royal favor. Authority and power within the com-
munity were henceforth vested in the Council of 30, elected by
the community notables. The 30 were trustworthy men, judges
or administrators of charities, who were empowered to issue

takkanot and apportion taxes. They were elected for three -year
terms and could serve more than one term; however, close rel-
atives could not sit on the same council. Although in effect the
aristocracy remained in power, they were no longer all-power-
ful. The presence in Barcelona of eminent masters of the law
counterbalanced the ambition of the powerful families. Nis-
sim b. Reuben *Gerondi (d. c. 1375), av bet din in Barcelona,
exercised great influence over all Spanish Jewry, as attested
by his many responsa (the majority of which are unfortu-
nately no longer extant). Hasdai *Crescas, born in Barcelona
around 1340, who seems to have been close to court circles, be-
came the most venerated authority in Spanish Jewry. * Isaac b.
Sheshet Perfet, also born in Barcelona (1326), rapidly became
known as a leading rabbinic authority. A merchant by trade, he
later served as rabbi in various communities. On April 2, 1386,
Pedro iv approved a new constitution for the Barcelona com-
munity which constituted slight progress toward democrati-
zation. The community was divided into three classes, almost
certainly according to their tax contribution. Each class was
empowered to nominate a secretary and elect ten members
of the council. With the secretaries, the 30 elected members
made up the grand council of the community. Five represen-
tatives of each class and the secretaries constituted the smaller
council. The secretaries served for one year only and could
only be renominated after two years had expired. One-third of
the 30 members had to be renewed each year. The council had
limited powers only, being unable to establish tax allocations
without the approval of the 30. Tax assessors had to be chosen
from among the three classes. The influence of the powerful
families was thus curbed, extending only over the class of the
community of which they were members.

The smaller communities, of course, established a less
complex system of administration. Councils were not ap-
pointed there until the second half of the 14 th century. In many
places the local oligarchy seems to have maintained its power.
In Majorca, essentially a mercantile community, this oligarchy
was composed of merchants who prevented any democrati-
zation of the administration. The royal administration recog-
nized the existence of judios francos, descendants of courtly
Jewish families who paid no taxes to the community and took
no part in communal life. They married among themselves
and generally remained true to their faith. The communities
were also concerned with the moral life of their members. An
institution almost unique to Spain in the Middle Ages was the
*berurei averah, notables who watched over the religious life
of their communities. The latter also exercised authority over
^informers, punishing them with loss of a limb or death, with
the approval of the king. The death sentence was generally car-
ried out immediately, which to some seemed dangerous or ar-
bitrary. To avoid the possibility of abuse, in 1388 Hasdai Crecas
was appointed judge over all informers in the kingdom.

The Persecutions of 1391

Soon the face of Spanish Jewry was brutally altered. In 1378 the
archdeacon of Ecija, Ferrant ^Martinez, launched a campaign

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPAIN

of violent sermons against the Jews, demanding the destruc-
tion of 23 local synagogues. On the death of the archbishop in
1390, he became virtual ruler of the diocese, using this situa-
tion to intensify his anti- Jewish campaign and declaring that
even the monarchy would not oppose attacks on the Jews. Af-
ter unsuccessful interventions by the communities, the death
of King John 1 of Castile (1390) left the crown in the hands of a
minor who did not attempt to check the redoubtable preacher.
On the first of Tammuz 5151 (June 4, 1391) riots broke out in
Seville. The gates of the juderia were set on fire and many
died. Apostasy was common and Jewish women and children
were even sold into slavery with the Muslims. Synagogues
were converted into churches and the Jewish quarters filled
with Christian settlers. Disorder spread to Andalusia, where
Old and New Castile Jewish communities were decimated by
murder and apostasy. In Toledo, on June 20, Judah, grandson
of Asher b. Jehiel, refused to submit and was martyred. At-
tacks were made in ^Madrid, * Cuenca, Burgos, and Cordoba,
the monarchy making no efforts to protect the Jews. So many
people had been involved in the riot that it proved impossible
to arrest the leaders. In July violence broke out in Aragon; the
Valencia community was destroyed on July 9 and more than
250 Jews were massacred. Others, including Isaac b. Sheshet
Perfet, managed to escape. The tardy measures taken by the
royal authorities were useless. Many small communities were
converted en masse. In the Balearic Islands the protection of
the governor was to no avail: on July 10 more than 300 Jews
were massacred. Others took refuge in the fortress, where
pressure was put on them to compel them to convert. A few
finally escaped to North Africa. In Barcelona more than 400
Jews were killed on August 5. During the attack on the Jewish
quarter of Gerona on August 10 the victims were numerous.
The Jews of *Tortosa were forcibly converted. Practically all
the Aragon communities were destroyed in bloody outbreaks
when the poorer classes, trying to relieve their misery by burn-
ing their debts to the Jews, seized Jewish goods. Yet the motive
behind the attacks was primarily religious, for, once conver-
sion was affected, they were brought to an end.

Although he did not encourage the outbreaks, John 1 of
Aragon did nothing to prevent or stop them, contenting him-
self with intervening once the worst was over. Above all he
was concerned to conserve royal resources and on Sept. 22,
1391 ordered an enquiry into the whereabouts of the assets of
the ruined communities and dead Jews, especially those who
had left no heirs. All that could be found he impounded. At
this point Hasdai Crescas became in effect the savior of the
remnants of Aragonese Jewry, gathering together the funds
necessary to persuade the king to come to their defense, ap-
pealing to the pope, and offering assistance to his brethren.
The assassins were barely punished, but when a fresh outbreak
seemed imminent early in 1392 the king swiftly suppressed
it. Subsequently he took various measures to assist Hasdai
Crescas in his efforts to reorganize the communities and re-
unite the dispersed members. Meanwhile, in Barcelona and
Valencia, the burghers, freed from their rivals, seemed op-

posed to the reconstitution of the shattered Jewish commu-
nities. A small community was reestablished in Majorca. In
the countryside the communities could reorganize more eas-
ily; there the Jews were indispensable and less a target of the
jealousy of the Christian burghers.

The Conversos

In this period the problem of Jews who had converted by force
became acute. Illegal though forced conversion was, in the
eyes of the Church a Converso was a true Christian and thus
forbidden to return to Judaism. There were indeed a number
of Jews who took their conversion to heart and, filled with
the zeal of neophytes, reproached their former coreligionists
for their "errors" and launched a campaign to bring them to
the font. Chief among these was Solomon ha-Levi of Burgos
who became *Pablo de Santa Maria in 1391 and later bishop
of Burgos. In their desperate state, the Jews could hardly re-
spond energetically. The Christian missionary spirit did not
rest content with the successes achieved. The notorious friar
Vicente *Ferrer preached in the towns of Castile in 1411-12. Al-
though opposed to forced conversion, he was ready to compel
Jews to listen to him and was unconcerned by the anti- Jewish
violence which was consequent on his sermons. Following on
his activity the government of Castile proclaimed on Jan. 2,
1412, new regulations concerning Jews. Henceforth, in towns
and in villages, they were to inhabit separate quarters and, to
distinguish them from Christians, had to grow their hair and
beards, and could no longer be addressed by the honorific,
"Don." They were forbidden to take employment as tax farm-
ers or fill any other public office, nor could their physicians
treat Christians; lending on interest was also prohibited. All
professions were closed to them and all commerce by which
they might ameliorate their miserable existence forbidden. For
a time even their internal autonomy and freedom of move-
ment were in question.

In Aragon the situation was more favorable. The com-
munity of Saragossa, spared because of the presence of the
king in the town, was able to play an important role in the re-
constitution of the Aragonese communities. The action of the
king gave a semblance of stability to the new Jewish groups.
In 1399 the aljama of Saragossa, where Hasdai Crescas was
rabbi, obtained a new statute from Queen Violante defining
its power and organization. In June 1412 Ferdinand 1 became
new king of Aragon, thanks to the assistance and support of
Vicente Ferrer, who seized the opportunity to extend his ac-
tivities against the Jews of Aragon. At that moment Joshua
*Lorki, who had previously disputed with Pablo de Santa Ma-
ria, decided to accept baptism under the name of Geronimo
de Santa Fe. In August of the same year he sent a pamphlet
to the antipope Benedict xin which served as the basis for
the public disputation soon to be held in Tortosa. The pope
invited the Aragonese communities to send representatives
to a public disputation to be held in Tortosa on Jan. 15, 1413;
it actually took place the following February (see *Tortosa,
Disputation of). Probably the antipope wished to achieve a

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPAIN

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great religious success at the moment the split Church was
attempting to reunite at the Council of Constance. The Jew-
ish delegates presented themselves without great enthusiasm
for the issue of the disputation was in no doubt and freedom
of expression had been virtually refused. The leading Jewish
delegates were *Zerahiah b. Isaac ha-Levi from Saragossa and
the philosopher Joseph Albo; as was to be expected Christi-
anity triumphed and the defeat of the Jews resulted in a wave
of conversion. The rabbis were given no real opportunity to
defend themselves. The major topics of the disputation were
the messianic problem and the veracity of the Talmud, and
the Jewish delegates, despairing of being truly heard, wished
to end the disputation. Only Zerahiah b. Isaac ha-Levi and Jo-
seph Albo defended Judaism against all attack but they failed
to convince their colleagues that there was any point in reply-
ing. The disputation finally ended in December 1414 and the
Jewish delegates returned home.

Acting on a bull promulgated by Benedict xin on May
11, Ferdinand 1 ordered on July 23, 1415 the Jews to submit
their copies of the Talmud so that all passages deemed anti-
Christian might be censored. The Jews were also forbidden to

read the *Toledot Yeshu. Any attack on the Church was pro-
hibited. Jewish judges lost their authority over criminal cases,
even those involving informers. They were also forbidden to
extend their synagogues. Christians could no longer employ
Jewish agents and the Jews were confined to a special quar-
ter. Apostates could inherit from their Jewish parents. With
this even heavier burden to bear, many Aragonese commu-
nities were destroyed and conversions were numerous, espe-
cially among the higher classes. Aragon Judaism was close to
the abyss when Benedict xin was dismissed from the papacy
(1416). On the death of Ferdinand in the same year they ac-
quired a temporary respite.

John 11, the new king of Castile (1406-54), and his con-
temporary, Alfonso v of Aragon (1416-58), had little taste for
the religious fervor of their predecessors. The new pope was
similarly disinclined to reopen this particular battle. Almost
all anti- Jewish measures were therefore abrogated (1419-22).
Copies of the Talmud and synagogue buildings were restored
to the Jews. In the meantime the Aragonese communities were
greatly reduced; those of Valencia and Barcelona had disap-
peared altogether. In Majorca, the Jews who remained were

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPAIN

dispersed by a blood libel in 1432. Only the rural settlements
in the province of Aragon had escaped persecution. At the
moment of the expulsion there was an estimated 6,000 Jew-
ish families in Aragon, a meager percentage indeed of the
country's total population.

In Castile there were around 30,000 Jewish families,
aside from innumerable Conversos, many of whom were in
fact Jews. The large communities, Seville, Toledo, and Burgos,
had lost their former influence as a result of the apostasy of
many members of the ruling class. Henceforward the decisive
weight in the Jewish life of the kingdom was maintained by the
small rural communities whose numbers rarely exceeded 50
families. The Jews were merchants, shopkeepers, or artisans,
with a number of physicians. Some Jewish courtiers managed
to retrieve their positions at court; Abraham *Benveniste de
Soria was the treasurer of John 11, who also appointed him rab
de la corte, chief rabbi of the kingdom. Abraham Benveniste
used his position to undertake the reorganization of Castil-
ian Jewry, convoking in 1432 a convention of representatives
of Spanish communities in Valladolid to formulate and adopt
new regulations. Their primary concern was to reorganize sys-
tems of instruction, to be effected through a tax imposed on
slaughter, on wine, on marriages, and on circumcisions. Any
community of 15 families or more was to support one primary
school teacher, and a community of 40 families must employ
a rabbi. It was also laid down that a community consisting of
ten families must maintain a place of prayer. Various measures
were formulated to regulate the election of judges, who had to
act in accord with the rabbi and notables. It was also possible
to appeal to the rab de la corte. The former laws covering in-
formers and slanderers were abrogated; in future the rab de la
corte could, under certain conditions, sentence informers to
death. Forced betrothals and marriages were strictly forbid-
den. The rab de la corte also had to approve the appointment
of any Jew to royal commissions. No Jew was allowed to ob-
tain from the king exemption from payment of the communal
taxes. Other decisions of the convention concerned sumptuary
laws. Through this strict centralization the Castilian commu-
nities found a solution to their problems. It is difficult to as-
certain if the regulations of ^Valladolid were strictly applied,
but they were an answer to the plight of communities greatly
reduced in numbers and wealth.

Yet the most pressing problem of Spanish Jewry no lon-
ger concerned the communities, for the question of the Con-
versos became progressively more acute. Showing their aware-
ness and suspicion of the true nature of the mass conversions,
Spanish Christians were in the habit of referring to "New" and
"Old" Christians and effecting a veritable racial distinction be-
tween them. It is undoubtedly true that many Conversos were
Christians in name only, acquiring their new status through
force alone, and many others had accepted baptism as a means
of breaking down social, economic, and political barriers. In
pursuit of these aims they had begun to marry into the great
Toledan families. Yet they too became concerned when in 1449
the rebels of Toledo issued a statute proclaiming that all New

Christians - regardless of the fervor of their faith - were in-
famous and unfit for all offices and benefices, public and pri-
vate, in Toledo and all its dependencies. They could be neither
witnesses nor public notaries. The king and pope condemned
this proclamation, more through the desire to hasten the con-
version of the Jews, which it rendered henceforth impossible,
than through any sense of justice. Great harm was done by
this proclamation, giving rise to a widespread policy of eradi-
cation of real or suspected Jewish influence. Subsequently all
religious and political agitation tended to this end.

Steps Toward the Expulsion

The marriage of Isabella, heiress to the throne of Castile, and
Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Aragon, in 1469 had disas-
trous consequences for Spanish Jewry. The two kingdoms
were united in 1479. At first they took no heed of the Jewish
communities as such, but they considered the Conversos a
danger to national unity. The Catholic monarchs continued
to employ Jewish functionaries - such as Don Abraham *Se-
neor, chief rabbi of Castile and tax controller for the whole
kingdom, and Isaac *Abrabanel, tax farmer for part of Cas-
tile - and a number of Conversos as well. However, in 1476
the right of criminal jurisdiction was taken from the Jewish
communities. Soon the Catholic monarchs launched a direct
attack on the Conversos, inviting the ^Inquisition to extend
its activities to the kingdom, which their predecessors had al-
ways refused to countenance, fearing the great power of this
institution. On Sept. 27, 1480, two Dominicans were named
inquisitors of the kingdom of Castile, and they began their
activities in Seville in January 1481. Soon after, the first Con-
versos condemned as Judaizers were sent to their deaths. Ac-
cording to the chronicler Andres Bernaldez, more than 700
Conversos were burned at the stake between 1481 and 1488
and more than 5,000 reconciled to the Church after endur-
ing various punishments. Inquisitors were appointed in 1481
for Aragon, where the papal Inquisition, which had been in
existence for some time, was considered insufficiently effec-
tive. From 1483 the Jews were expelled from Andalusia, no
doubt because it appeared to the inquisitors to be impossible
to root out Jewish heresies from among the Conversos while
practicing Jews still lived in their midst.

Tomas de *Torquemada, confessor to the queen, was ap-
pointed inquisitor-general in the autumn of 1483, providing
the Inquisition with a new impetus and stricter organization.
His activities stretched from town to town throughout the
whole kingdom, bringing terror to Jewish communities ev-
erywhere since they were inevitably linked with the Conver-
sos. In less than 12 years the Inquisition condemned no less
than 13,000 Conversos, men and women, who had continued
to practice Judaism in secret. Yet these were no more than a
fraction of the mass of Conversos. When the last bastion of
Muslim power in Spain fell with the triumphant entry of the
Catholic monarchs into Granada on Jan. 2, 1492, the urge to-
ward complete religious unity of the kingdom was reinforced.
The scandal of the Conversos who had remained true to Ju-

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPAIN

daism had shown that segregation of the Jews and limita-
tion of their rights did not suffice to suppress their influence.
They must be totally removed from the face of Spain. Thus on
March 31, 1492 the edict of expulsion was signed in Granada,
although it was not promulgated until between April 29 and
May 1. All Jews who were willing to accept Christianity were,
of course, to be permitted to stay.

In May the exodus began, the majority of the exiles -
around 100,000 people - finding temporary refuge in Portu-
gal (from where the Jews were expelled in 1496-97), the rest
making for North Africa and Turkey, the only major coun-
try which opened its doors to them. A few found provisional
homes in the little kingdom of Navarre, where there was still
an ancient Jewish community in existence, but there too
their stay was brief, for the Jews were expelled in 1498. Con-
siderable numbers of Spanish Jews, including the chief rabbi
Abraham Seneor and most of the members of the influential
families, preferred baptism to exile, adding their number to
the thousands of Conversos who had chosen this road at an
earlier date. On July 31 (the 7 th of Av), 1492, the last Jew left
Spain. Yet Spanish (or Sephardi) Jewry had by no means dis-
appeared, for almost everywhere the refugees reconstituted
their communities, clinging to their former language and cul-
ture. In most areas, especially in North Africa, they met with
descendants of refugees from the 1391 persecutions. In Erez
Israel they had been preceded by several groups of Spanish
Jews who had gone there as a result of the various messianic
movements which had shaken Spanish Jewry. Officially, no
Jews were left in Spain. All that were left were the Conversos,
a great number of whom remained true to their original faith.
Some later fell victim to the Inquisition; others managed to
flee from Spain and return openly to Judaism in the Sephardi
communities of the Orient and Europe.

See also *Anusim; *Conversos; *Marranos; *New Chris-
tians; ^Portugal; *Sephardim.

Cultural Life

From the beginning, the cultural life of Spanish Jewry under
the Christian reconquest followed on the style set under Mus-
lim rule. Eastern influence lost none of its force even though a
frontier henceforward separated the communities of the north
from those of the south. In fact, the contrary was the case,
since the Jews of Christian Spain often appeared to be indis-
pensable agents in the diffusion of the Eastern cultural tradi-
tion. Consequently, many of them were translators of Arabic;
some, like the *Kimhis and the Ibn *Tibbons, even carried
their work as translators to the north, to Provence. In Chris-
tian Spain the Jews continued to study the sciences, medicine
in particular, and the Christian kings employed numbers of
Jewish physicians. They were also well versed in astronomy
and shortly before the expulsion Abraham * Zacuto prepared
the astronomical tables that Christopher Columbus used on
his voyage. The Jewish nobility" had frequently received the
same education as their Christian counterparts, reaching a
cultural integration rarely equaled in Jewish history. Of course

this process only affected the families of Jewish courtiers, but
this type of assimilation goes a long way toward explaining
both the phenomena of Marranism - entailing the need to
lead a double life - and the ability to abandon the Jewish her-
itage without regret and join the Christian fold. Yet the ma-
jority of people still looked to their traditional Jewish cultural
heritage, which remained central to their lives. The relation
of the journey of ^Benjamin of Tudela to the communities of
Europe and Asia, and the work of the historian Abraham *Ibn
Daud in his account of the continuity of Jewish tradition are
well worthy of mention. The main stress, however, lay on the
study of the Hebrew language and of the Bible and Talmud,
and on the development of a style of Hebrew poetry which
took the profane as well as the sacred for its subject matter.
In all fields there was no real break with the Judeo-Arab mi-
lieu. For many years the Babylonian academies continued to
be a major influence, but rabbinical scholarship in Spanish
Jewry came to maturity in the 11 th century with the work of
Isaac b. Jacob ha-Kohen *Alfasi. The latter, assisted by his pu-
pils, especially Joseph b. Meir ha-Levi *Ibn Migash, created
a Spanish Jewish talmudic academy which proceeded to de-
velop its own methods. The theories of the grammarians in
Muslim Spain were already known in the north and were ac-
cepted there. Poets flourished in the retinue of Jews who were
wealthy or well placed at court. Poetry often remained a pro-
fession. Along with many of his contemporaries, * Judah Ha-
levi left Muslim Spain for the Christian part of the country
without finding success there. His poems were torn between
the two worlds and Judah Halevi finally left for the Holy Land.
Along with Judah Halevi and Moses *Ibn Ezra, Solomon ibn
* Gabirol brought Hebrew poetry to a peak of perfection. Their
religious poems, the main body of their work, permanently
enriched the liturgy. At the same time they gave a new dimen-
sion to Hebrew poetry by extending it beyond its liturgical
framework to cover every variety of a benevolent patron. The
interest in poetry also gave rise to liturgical and biblical stud-
ies; biblical Hebrew once more predominated over rabbini-
cal Hebrew. Following in the path of Menahem b. Saruk and
*Dunash b. Labrat were such grammarians as Judah b. David
*Hayyuj, Jonah *Ibn Janah, Moses ha-Kohen ibn *Gikatilla,
and above all Abraham *Ibn Ezra, who produced their gram-
matical treatises in Hebrew and so enabled the Jewish gram-
marians of France and Germany to become aware of and adopt
the theories of their Spanish counterparts. The same writers
often produced biblical commentaries: Joseph b. Isaac *Ibn
Abitur on Psalms, Moses ha-Kohen ibn Gikatilla on Isaiah, the
Latter Prophets, Psalms, and Job, and Abraham ibn Ezra on
the entire Bible (although some portions of his commentary
are no longer extant). In this period the *maqdma - an Ara-
bic verse form - made its debut in Jewish literature with the
Tahkemoni of Judah *A1-Harizi. Yet the golden age of Hebrew
poetry in Spain was already drawing to a close.

During the 11 th century talmudic studies took root in
Spain with the arrival of Isaac b. Jacob *Alfasi and continued
to be greatly influenced by his work. With the aim of summing

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPAIN

up the discussions of the sages and pointing out the correct
halakhah, he prepared a resume of the Talmud. In this work,
he stressed practical observance, an attitude which was char-
acteristic of the great Spanish talmudists. His main pupil, Jo-
seph b. Meir ha-Levi ibn Migash, followed in his footsteps and,
like his teacher, wrote a number of responsa clarifying points
of the law. The greatest stimulus to talmudic studies was the
work of Maimonides, who spent his formative years in Spain
and can be considered a Spanish scholar. He, too, produced
works of * codification of the law, the Mishneh Torah and Sefer
ha-Mitzvot, and wrote numerous responsa. Like other Spanish
rabbis, he did not hesitate to bring out his works in Arabic so
that they could be understood by all. This bilinguality in He-
brew and Arabic was a mark of the first era of Spanish Jewry.
Another equally important characteristic was its enthusiasm
for philosophical debates. Spanish Jewry's integration into
the contemporary Arab culture obliged it to face the same
problems, though generally with an avowedly polemic in-
tent. Writers were largely concerned with demonstrating that
revelation and philosophy were not necessarily contradictory
and that in any case Judaism represented the superior truth.
Although Ibn Gabirols philosophical work Fons Vitae has no
specifically Jewish character, Judah Halevi devoted himself to
a vigorous apology for Judaism. *Bahya ibn Paquda, a moral-
ist, attempted to show the superiority of ethical conduct over
the ceremonial law, which becomes falsified if the "duties of
the heart" are neglected. However, the greatest representa-
tive of the philosophic trend was Maimonides, who followed
it to formulate his classic definition of the dogmas of Juda-
ism. Nevertheless, from the beginning of the 13 th century the
supremacy of philosophy was challenged in the controversy
over Maimonides' works (see *Maimonidean Controversy),
especially in the north of Spain, which had then reverted to
Christian rule. The change in attitude was influenced by disil-
lusionment arising from the changed conditions of Jewish life,
by the renewed interest in talmudic studies due to the work of
the Franco-German tosafists, and by the new trends in Jewish
mysticism which first appeared in Provence before reaching
Spain. At the beginning of the 14 th century the Franco-German
talmudic tradition came face to face with the Spanish through
the arrival of *Asher b. Jehiel, resulting in the preservation of
unity in the field of Jewish law. Warmly received by the great-
est Spanish scholar of the day, Solomon b. Abraham *Adret,
Asher b. Jehiel cooperated with him in restoring peace: the
study of philosophy was permitted, but under clearly defined
conditions. Time, too, had done its work and the controversy
was soon stilled. In the meantime the Kabbalah became in-
creasingly important, especially in the group at Gerona. The
celebrated talmudist Nahmanides became one of its leading
advocates. The appearance of the *Zohar, the largest part of
which was produced by *Moses b. Shem Tov de Leon between
1280 and 1286, gave a powerful impulse to the development
of the kabbalistic trend which became predominant in Spain.
Talmudic studies too gained a new impetus through the com-
mentaries, novellae, and responsa of Nahmanides, Solomon

b. Abraham Adret, Asher b. Jehiel, and Nissim b. Reuben
* Gerondi. * Jacob b. Asher, son of Asher b. Jehiel, produced
his codification of the law, the Arba'ah Turim y which remains
to this day the archetype of the rabbinic code and was one of
the bases of the Shulhan Arukh. Another code, Sefer Abudar-
ham> was compiled by David b. Joseph *Abudarham of Seville.
Following in the same path, *Menahem b. Aaron ibn Zerah of
Navarre composed his Zeidah la-Derekh. *Yom Tov b. Abra-
ham Ishbili was especially noted for his many novellae; Isaac b.
Sheshet Perfet, who had to leave Spain in 1391, wrote many re-
sponsa. Biblical commentaries (frequently showing kabbalistic
influences) also came to the fore once more with the works of
Nahmanides, Bahya b. Asher, and Jacob b. Asher, although the
latter resolutely avoided kabbalistic speculation. Nevertheless
the persecutions had grave consequences for scholarship too.
The Judeo-Arab heritage began to disappear. Those conditions
which had drawn Spanish Jews toward the study of science,
medicine, and astrology in particular ceased to exist. This de-
cay became more marked in the 15 th century. Apart from the
philosophic works of Hasdai Crescas and Joseph Albo, whose
Sefer ha-Ikkarim was a new attempt to define the dogmas of
Judaism, the creative period had passed. The messianic up-
heaval, exacerbated by persecution, only prolonged it slightly;
the spirit of this period is best expressed in the works of Isaac
b. Judah Abrabanel, who in 1492 preferred exile to apostasy.
Probably stimulated by fear for the future, interest in kabbal-
istic speculation continued unabated. The expulsion itself did
not mark a final end of the development of this specific type
of culture. Abraham Zacuto finished his rabbinical history on
the way to exile. The intellectual activity of Spanish Jewry was
transferred to Eastern and European centers. Even the use of
the Spanish language continued unchanged (see *Ladino; *Se-
phardim). Such was the vitality of this outlook that it remained
seminal in Jewish life for many centuries

[Simon R. Schwarzfuchs]

Modern Period

Though the edict of expulsion of 1492 was not formally re-
pealed until December 1968 and was consequently, on the
Spanish statute book until that date, Jews had been allowed to
live in Spain as individuals, though not as an organized com-
munity, from the late 19 th century. The Republican Constitu-
tion of 1868 introduced for the first time in modern Spain the
principle of religious tolerance. This was maintained in sub-
sequent legislation and transformed into the more enlight-
ened formula of religious freedom by the amendment to the
Fuero de los Espanoles, adopted by the referendum of Decem-
ber 1966. The new statute guaranteed the right of non-Catho-
lics to maintain their organized institutions, public worship,
and religious education. Jews, as such, were not specifically
mentioned in any legal enactment but, as non-Catholics, they
enjoyed equal rights with their Catholic fellow citizens. The
only instance of "Jewish legislation" is a decree of December
1924 which granted to Sephardi Jews living abroad the right to
claim Spanish nationality and settle in Spain, if they wished.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPAIN

This decree, although initially referring only to the Sephardi
groups of ^Salonika and * Alexandria, afforded the legal ba-
sis for extending the protection of the Spanish authorities to
many Jews in Nazi-occupied countries during World War n.

[Jeonathan Prato]

Holocaust Period

From 1933 until the Civil War, Spain became a haven for about
3,000 Jewish refugees. The Civil War caused most of them to
leave, and after the nationalist victory, when all non- Catho-
lic communities had to close their institutions, Jewish public
and religious life was destroyed. After the fall of France, Spain
served for tens of thousands of refugees as a landbridge to the
high seas, which were dominated by the Allies. By the sum-
mer of 1942, over 20,000 Jewish refugees had passed through
Spain, 10,500 of whom were assisted by the *hicem office in
Lisbon. Less than 1,000 were unable to continue the journey,
however, and were imprisoned with other refugees in jails or
in the *Miranda de Ebro concentration camp. Some refugees
who crossed the border illegally were sent back to France. In
the summer of 1942, when the "Final Solution" was initiated
by Germany, a new wave of Jewish refugees reached Spain, and
their numbers grew after the occupation of southern France.
Initially there was no change in Spain's policy: refugees were
accepted and arrested, and some were deported. In Decem-
ber 1942, however, when the Allies wanted French deserters to
cross the Spanish border, Spain had to agree to stop deporting
refugees and allow them to leave for North Africa and Portu-
gal. In April 1943, Spain permitted the establishment in Ma-
drid of the Representation of American Relief Organizations,
most of whose budget came from the American Jewish * Joint
Distribution Committee (ajdc). About 5,600 Jews survived
by fleeing to Spain during the second half of the war. In 1943,
Spain was faced with an additional rescue problem. Four thou-
sand Jews - of whom 3,000 were in France and the rest in the
Balkans as well as a number of Jews from Spanish Morocco
who were living in French Morocco, possessed partial or full
Spanish citizenship. Most of the Spanish consuls protected
these Jews, even when they were instructed to act only when
Spanish sovereignty was affected. On Jan. 28, 1943, *Eichmann
and his associates presented Spain with the alternative of ei-
ther recalling these Jewish subjects within a specified time or
abandoning them to slaughter. On March 18, 1943 Spain de-
cided that only those who could prove their Spanish citizen-
ship would be permitted to enter the country. They would have
to live in specified towns and would remain in Spain until they
could be removed elsewhere. As long as there was one group
of these "repatriates" in Spain, the next group could not en-
ter the country. This policy was strictly adhered to. Since the
Allies delayed for a year and a quarter the establishment of a
refugee center in North Africa, which they had agreed upon
at the ^Bermuda Conference, the ajdc could not remove the
"expatriation" by Spanish consuls without having recourse
to repatriation; the rest died or saved themselves. In the last
stages of the Holocaust, Spain joined the rescue operation in

Hungary by giving protection certificates to 2,750 Jews who

were not Spanish citizens.

[Haim Avni]

After World War 11

The improving economic, social, and general conditions pre-
vailing in Spain after World War 11 attracted an increasing
number of Jews. According to an unofficial estimate some
8,000 Jews lived in Spain in 1968, distributed as follows: 3,000
in Barcelona, 2,500 in Madrid, 1,400 in Melilla, 600 in Ceuta,
300 in Malaga, and 50 in Seville. Individual Jews were scat-
tered in many other cities. Until 1945 the bulk of the commu-
nity was constituted of families originating from East Medi-
terranean, Balkan, and East and Central European countries.
Since then a considerable number of Jews from former Span-
ish and French Morocco settled in the Peninsula: about 85%
were of Sephardi origin. Until 1967 a Jewish community could
not obtain legal recognition as a religious body (the commu-
nity of Madrid was registered as a corporation under the law of
private associations). Nevertheless they maintained an almost
complete range of religious activities and services. In Barce-
lona a community center housed the synagogue, a rabbinical
office, and a cultural center. In Madrid a new synagogue was
officially inaugurated in December 1968 in the presence of
government and ecclesiastical authorities. To mark the im-
portance of the event, the Spanish government issued a for-
mal repeal of the edict of expulsion. An increasing effort was
made to provide Jewish education to the new generation. In
Madrid a primary school had some 80 children in 1968. He-
brew lessons were given to pupils attending private schools.
Two summer camps in Madrid and Barcelona were attended
by 200 youngsters. A Maccabi movement, functioning in Ma-
drid and Barcelona, afforded a framework for an increasing
number of young people. The Council of Jewish Communities
of Spain, established in 1963 for the coordination and study of
common activities and problems, issued a monthly bulletin
in Spanish, Ha-Kesher (1963- ), dealing with local and gen-
eral Jewish affairs.

In the 1960s, Spain saw a revival of studies of general and
Hispanic Jewish culture. The universities of Madrid, Barce-
lona, and Granada had chairs of Hebrew language, Jewish his-
tory, and Jewish literature. In 1940 the Arias Montano Institute
of Jewish and Near Eastern Studies was established in Madrid
under the guidance of distinguished Hebrew scholars; its quar-
terly publication Sefarad acquired a reputation in the field of
Sephardi culture. The Spanish Council of Scientific Research,
in conjunction with the World Sephardi Federation, organized
an Institute of Sephardi Studies in Madrid for the study of all
aspects of Sephardi culture since the expulsion, throughout
the world. In 1964 a Sephardi Center was created in Toledo
by a decree of the head of state: its board included the presi-
dent of the Jewish Community of Madrid and a professor of
Jewish history of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, both
ex officio, a representative of the World Sephardi Federation,
and three outstanding personalities of the Sephardi world. The
new climate created in the Catholic world as a result of Vati-

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPAIN

can Council n made possible the organization of the Amistad
Judeo- Christiana with the approval of the Church hierarchy
in Madrid and Barcelona. This organization revised school
textbooks, eliminating from them passages offensive to the
Jewish people and religion.

In the post-Franco era (from 1975) the position of the
Jews in Spain improved to a considerable extent, mostly as
a result of the radical social changes which took place in the
country. During the 1970s the number of Jews in Spain grew
to about 12,000, the majority (90%) of Moroccan, Algerian
and Tunisian origin, and the remainder from Eastern Europe,
France, Turkey and the Balkan countries.

At the end of 1978 a major change in the constitution of
Spain took place when, following a national referendum, the
Catholic Church was disestablished as the state religion, as a
result of which Jews were given equality with all the other re-
ligious denominations, such as the Protestant Church. Orga-
nized communities existed in Madrid, Barcelona, and Malaga.
Madrid's impressive new synagogue, built in 1968, served as
a center for social activities. Both Madrid and Barcelona had
rabbis. Educational and social activities in Barcelona took
place in the spacious communal hall attached to the syna-
gogue and courses for youth were conducted by emissaries
from Israel. There was no rabbi in Malaga, with communal
affairs in the hands of a lay committee. Kosher meat was im-
ported from Morocco.

In 1992, in a symbolic gesture, King Juan Carlos re-
pealed the 1492 expulsion order. The two major Jewish cen-
ters remained Madrid (with about 3,000 Jews in the early 21 st
century) and Barcelona (also with about 3,000), followed by
Malaga and with smaller communities in Alicante, Benidorm,
Cadiz, Granada, Marbella, Majorca, Torremolinos, and Valen-
cia. The total Jewish population in the early 21 st century was
around 12,000. The majority of Jews were Sephardi. In Span-
ish North Africa there were communities in Ceuta and Melila.
The 1970s and 1980s saw immigration from Latin America.
The Latin Americans took the initiative in forming groups that
brought Jews together for cultural and intellectual events. The
communities were united in the Federacion de Comunidades
Israelitas de Espana. Jewish day schools operated in Barcelona,
Madrid, and Malaga.

In the absence of laws restricting hate propagation or Ho-
locaust denial, Spain served as a publishing and distribution
center for neo-Nazis and other extreme rightists.

relations with Israel. Though no diplomatic relations
existed between Spain and Israel until 1986, Spain neverthe-
less maintained a Consulate General in Jerusalem, which had
existed prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. There
was no parallel Israel representation, however, in Spain. In the
Israel- Arab conflict, Spain adopted a markedly pro- Arab line,
seeing itself as a bridge between Western Europe and the Arab
world. However, sympathy for Israel was not negligible. Trade,
tourist, and shipping relations between Israel and Spain de-
veloped substantially. Exports from Israel to Spain increased

from $500,000 in i960 to $616 million in 2004, imports from
$100,000 to $652 million. In 2004, 21,400 Spanish tourists ar-
rived in Israel, up from 7,800 in 1980.

[Jeonathan Prato]

bibliography: general: add. bibliography: C.

Sancez-Albornoz, Spain, a Historical Enigma, 2 vols. (1975), 2:757-873;
L. Suarez Fernandez, Judios espanoles en la edad media (1980) (French
trans. Les Juifs espagnols au Moyen Age (1983)); idem, Los Reyes
Catolicos: la expansion de lafe (1990), 75-120; J. Stampfer (ed.), The
Sephardim: A Cultural Journey from Spain to the Pacific Coast (1987);
Y. Assis, in: Encuentros and Desencuentros, Spanish Jewish Cultural
Interaction (2000), 29-37; idem, in: A. Rapoport- Albert and S.J. Zip-
perstein (eds.), Jewish History, Essays in Honour ofChimen Abramsky
(1988), 25-59; A. Mirsky, A. Grossman, and Y. Kaplan (eds.), Exile
and Diaspora; Studies in the History of the Jewish People Presented to
Professor Haim Beinart (1991) (2 vols, one in Hebrew, the second in
other languages); J.L. Lacave, Sefarad: La Espana judia (1987); idem,
Juderias y sinagogas espanolas (1992); D. Romano, in: Proceedings
of the 10 th World Congress of Jewish Studies (1900), Division B, vol.
2, 135-42; H. Beinart, ed., The Sephardi Legacy (1992), 2 vols.; idem,
The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain (2002) (trans, from Hebrew);
E. Kedourie (ed.), Spain and the Jews; The Sephardi Experience, 1492
and After (1992); V.B. Mann, J.D. Dodds, and T.F. Glick (ed.), Con-
vivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval Spain (1992); H.
Mechoulan (ed.), Les Juifs d'Espagne; histoire d'une diaspora (1992).
Muslim period: Ashtor, Korot; E. Ashtor, in: Zion, 28 (1963), 34-56;
Ibn Daud, Tradition; R. Dozy, Spanish Islam (1913); E. Levi- Provencal,
Histoire de VEspagne Musulmane, 2 vols. (1950); H.J. Schirmann, in:

ymhsi, 2 (1936), 117-212; 4 (1938), 247-96; 6 (1945)* 249-347; idem,
in: Zion, 1 (1936), 261-83, 357 _ 76; idem, in: jsos, 13 (1951), 99-126;
Schirmann, Sefarad, 1-2 (1960-61 2 ), passim; L. Torres-B albas, in: Al-
Andalus, 19 (1954), 189-97; A.S. Halkin, in: L. Finkelstein (ed.), The
Jews, 2 (i960 3 ), 1116-49; M. Margaliot, Hilkhot ha-Nagid (1962), 1-11;
S.D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society (1967), index, add. bibliog-
raphy: S.D. Gotein, in: Orientalia Hispanica, 1:1 (1974), 331-50; N.
Allony, in: Sefunot, n.s., 1 (1980), 63-82; A. Pinero Saenz, in: J. Pelaez
del Rosal (ed.), The Jews in Cordoba (x-xn) Centuries (1987), 9-27.
christian period: Baer, Spain; Baer, Urkunden; Neuman, Spain;
H. Beinart, Anusim be-Din ha-Inkvizizyah (1965); J. Juster, in: Etudes
d'histoire juridique offertes a Paul Frederic Girard (1912), 275-335; F.
Cantera Burgos, in: C. Roth (ed.), World History of the Jewish People,
2 (1966), 357-81; J. Regne, Catalogue des actes de Jaime Ier, Pedro in
et Alfonso in, rois d'Aragon, concernant les Juifs (1911-14); I. Epstein,
Responsa of R. Solomon ben Adreth of Barcelona (1235-1310) as a
Source of History of Spain (1925); I.S. Revah, in: rej, 118 (1959), 29-77;
Sefarad, 1 (1941-71); R. Cansinos-Assens, Espana y los judios espa-
noles. El retorno del exodo (1917); idem, Los judios en Sefarad: episo-
dios y simbolos (1950). add. bibliography: Y.H. Yerushalmi, in:
Salo Wittmayer Baron Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of His Eighti-
eth Birthday (1974), 1023-58; M. Kriegel, Les Juifs a la fin du Moyen
Age dans VEurope mediterraneene (1979); D. Romano, in: Sefarad, 39
(1979), 347-54; idem, in: ibid., 51 (1991), 353-67; idem, in: Hispania
sacra, 40 (1988), 955-78; H. Beinart, in: Zion, 51 (1986), 61-85; Y. As-
sis, in: Zion, 46 (1981), 251-77 (Heb.); idem, ibid., 50 (1985), 221-40
(Heb.); idem, in: rej, 142 (1983), 209-27; idem, in: Sefunot, 3:18 (1985),
11-34; idem, in: J. Dan (ed.), Tarbut ve-Historiyah {Culture and His-
tory) (Heb., 1987), 121-45; idem, in: Jewish Art, 18 (1992), 7-29; idem,
in: D. Frank (ed.), The Jews of Medieval Islam (1995) 111-24; idem, in:
S. Kottek (ed.), Medical Ethics in Medieval Spain (13 th -i4 th Centuries)
(1996), 33-49; idem, The Golden Age of Aragonese Jewry (1997); idem,
Jewish Economy in the Medieval Crown of Aragon (1997); E. Gutwirth,

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPANIER, ARTHUR

in: Misceldneo de Estudios Areabes y Hebraicos, 30:2 (1981), 83-98;
idem, in: ibid., 34:2 (1985), 85-91; idem, in: Sefarad, 49 (1989), 237-62;
M. de Menaca, in: Lespays de la Mediterranee occidentale au Moyen
Age; etudes et rech.erch.es (1983), 235-53; J. Hacker, in: R.I. Cohen, Vi-
sion and Conflict in the Holy Land (1985), 111-39; idem, in: Sefunot,
n.s. 2 (1983), 21-95; B. Leroy, Laventure sefarade (1986); J.R. Magda-
lena Nom de Deu, in: Calls, 2 (1987), 7-16; J. Riera i Sans, in: Calls, 3
(1988-89), 9-28; P. Leon Tello, in: Anuario de estudios medievales, 19
(1989), 451-67; D. Schwatz, in: Peamim, 46-47 (1991), 92-114 (Heb.);
holocaust period: N. Robinson, Spain of Franco and its Policies
Towards the Jews (1953). add. bibliography: H. Avni, Spain, the
Jews and Franco (1982). contemporary period: J. Goodman, in:
ajyb, 68 (1967), 332-41; H. Beinart, Ha-Yishuv ha-Yehudi he-Hadash
bi-Sefarad, Reka, Meziut ve-Haarakhah (1969).

SPANDAU, city in Germany; since 1920 part of the metropoli-
tan area of ^Berlin. Jews settled in Spandau as early as the 13 th
century. Although a source dated 1307 gave Jews permission to
maintain a communal slaughterhouse, meat selling was lim-
ited to those who maintained a house in the city. Jews were en-
gaged mostly in moneylending, having been given permission
to do so providing they charged a reasonable rate of interest
and refrained from debasing the coinage. In part, the granting
of the privilege was intended to help provide the funds for the
building of the city walls. As an additional stimulus to Jew-
ish settlement, Duke Rudolph submitted to the city council
(1324) a plan for exempting Jews from all taxes for a period
of two years. A cemetery was noted in 1324 and a synagogue
in 1342. (In 1955-56, 19 Jewish gravestones which dated from
1284 to 1947 were unearthed in Spandau.) The Jews of Berlin
buried their dead in Spandau until the 15 th century. While
some Jews reached high levels of governmental administra-
tion in the financial service of Duke Louis, the Jewish com-
munity itself went through a period of considerable unrest
at the time of the *Black Death persecutions. In 1496 there
were 50 Jews in the city. In 1510, however, Jews were accused
of desecrating the *Host and were driven from the city. Their
cemetery and synagogue were confiscated. No Jews lived in
Spandau until the 18 th century. In 1782 there were eight Jews
in the city, and in 1812 there were 52. Religious services were
held in a private home, and a religious school was established
in 1854. The Jews of Spandau joined with those of Nauen and
Kremmen as a single community until 1894. After that time
the Jews of Spandau again maintained a separate community,
building a synagogue in 1895. Expanded commercial activity
brought additional Jews to the city. By 1880 there were 165 Jews
in Spandau; 316 in 1910; 514 in 1925; 725 in 1933. In 1937 there
were 381. On the eve of the Nazi accession to power, the com-
munity maintained a religious school and three philanthropic
organizations. Its fate during the Holocaust was part of that of
the Jews of all Berlin. In 1989 a memorial was consecrated to
the former synagogue that was destroyed in 1938.

bibliography: Germania Judaica, 2 (1968), 772-4; vol. 3
(1987), 1382-84; F. Kohstall, Aus der Chronik der Spandauer Juedi-
schen Gemeinde (1929); fjw, 62. add. bibliography: A. Kaulen
and J. Pohl, Juden in Spandau. Vom Mittelalter bis 1945 (1988) (Reihe
Deutsche Vergangenheit, vol. 33; Staetten der Geschichte Berlins);

Juedische Buerger Spandaus nach 1933: Informationen zur Ausstellung
einer Arbeitsgruppe der Carl-Diem-Ob erschule Spandau (1991).

[Alexander Shapiro]

SPANEL, ABRAM NATHANIEL (1901-1985), U.S. industri-
alist, inventor, philanthropist. Spanel was the founder of one
of the biggest corset and brassiere companies in the U.S. and
an inventor who held more than 2,000 patents. He was prob-
ably best known, however, for the editorials he wrote as paid
advertisements in scores of newspapers all over the country
for more than 40 years. In them, he offered his opinions on
world affairs, with particular emphasis on matters affecting
the State of Israel, whose cause he championed.

Born in Odessa, Russia, the son of a tailor and a laun-
dress, he was taken to Paris by his family at an early age, and
then to Rochester, n.y., when he was 10. He was a student at
the University of Rochester for three years, then invented a
garment bag that could be aired and moth-proofed with a
vacuum cleaner. He made his first million dollars with his
first business, the Vacuumizer Manufacturing Company. In
1932 he founded the International Latex Corporation, which
later became the International Playtex Corporation. Playtex
was the first company to make a bra with elastic, the first to
package intimate apparel and sell it as a brand, and the first
to advertise it on television. It was also the first to use live
women modeling bras in tv commercials. Spanel retired as
chairman of International Playtex in 1975, but remained ac-
tive as head of the Spanel Foundation and Spanel Interna-
tional Ltd., a business he started in 1976 to manufacture some
of his inventions. Spanel was awarded patents on an eclectic
range of products, including a hair-cutting device to be used
in the home and a pneumatic stretcher for transporting mili-
tary personnel wounded in combat. His philanthropic inter-
ests focused on medical research, especially child care. He
established the Spanel Foundation for Cancer Research in
New York City and the Playtex Park Research Institute at his
company's headquarters in Dover, Delaware. His employees
were provided with free Vitamin c tablets and were among
the first workers to have air-conditioning, paid health and life
insurance, and a profit-sharing plan. During World War 11,
Spanel contributed more than $1.5 million to the war effort,
the profits he had made on war contracts. A staunch advocate
of Franco- American relations, he was made a Commander of
the Legion of Honor by France.

bibliography: W.H. Waggoner, New York Times (April 2,

1985).

[Mort Sheinman (2 nd ed.)]

SPANIER, ARTHUR (1889-1944), German scholar and li-
brarian. Spanier, who was born in Magdeburg, studied clas-
sical languages at the University of Berlin and Hebrew at the
Lehranstalt fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums (1908-13).
In 1914-15 he worked as a school teacher in Berlin, and then
served in the German army. After the war he resumed teach-
ing, first in Berlin, and then in Koenigsberg. He was appointed

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE LITERATURE

a research fellow at the newly founded *Akademie fuer die
Wissenschaft des Judentums in 1919-20. He received his Ph.D.
in Freiburg/Breisgau in 1920. In 1921 he entered the service of
the Prussian State Library, becoming head of the Hebraica and
Judaica division in 1926, specializing also in the Armenian lan-
guage. As a "non- Aryan" he was pensioned off in 1935. From
1937 he lectured at the *Hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft
des Judentums. In 1938 he was taken to the Sachsenhausen
concentration camp, but was released, whereupon he immi-
grated to the Netherlands in 1939. He perished at *Bergen-
Belsen.

Spanier's main scholarly interests and works were in
Talmudics. He wrote Die Toseftaperiode in der Tannaitischen
Literatur (1922), in which he suggested that Tosefta had its
origin in marginal notes to the Mishnah; Die Massoretischen
Akzente (1927); Das Berliner Baraita Fragment (1931); Zur
Frage des Liter or ischen Verhaeltnisses zwischen Mischnah und
Tosefta (1931).

bibliography: E. Taeubler, in: hj, 7 (1945), 96; E.G. Lowen-
thal (ed.), Bewaehrung im Untergang (1965), i62ff. add. bibliog-
raphy: W. Schochow, in: Mitteilungen der Staatsbibliothek Preus-
sischer Kulturbesitz 1 (1990), 36-38.

[Archive Bibliographia Judaica]

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE LITERATURE.

Biblical and Hebraic Influences

One result of the Christian struggle against Muslim invad-
ers of the Iberian peninsula from the eighth century onward
was the blending of national and religious aspirations, which
revealed itself in Spanish literature. Jews and Christians co-
operated in translating the Bible into the vernacular, and the
Old Testament version was taken direct from the Hebrew in
renderings that antedate 1250. Thus, although Juan 1 of Ara-
gon prohibited such activities in 1233, *Alfonso the Wise (Al-
fonso x of Castile, 1221-1284) enthusiastically encouraged the
translation of the Bible into Spanish. Indeed, Alfonso himself,
in his General egrande Estoria, linked the history of the world
as known in his time with the Hebraic history of the Bible.
In the 15 th century further biblical projects were promoted by
Jews or Conversos. The version by Moses *Arragel (1422) was
followed by that published by Abraham * Usque, whose Fer-
rara Bible (1553) appeared in two slightly differing editions. Us-
que's Bible inspired Jewish translations into Judeo-Spanish or
*Ladino, the dialect of Spanish which Jewish exiles took with
them after the Expulsion of 1492. With the official Catholic
ban on Spanish versions of the Bible a century later, these be-
came a Jewish monopoly, and after 1600 Spain ceased to be
a Bible- reading country until the Spanish hierarchy changed
its policy at the end of the 18 th century.

During the Renaissance, however, the Bible was a signif-
icant influence in Spanish and Portuguese literature, though
more especially among writers of Jewish or *Marrano origin,
whether in the Iberian peninsula or abroad. Luis de *Leon
(1527-1591), a humanist scholar and poet whose New Chris-
tian descent was responsible for his spending five years in the

cells of the Inquisition, is said to have translated the Song of
Songs from the Hebrew, and biblical themes and metaphors
greatly influenced his original verse. Much the same may be
said of the mystical poets of the Spanish Renaissance, notably
Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591). Biblical echoes can even
be found in the works of a completely secular writer such
as Garcilaso de la Vega (1503-1536). Diego Sanchez (c. 1530)
composed a Farsa de Salomon and other plays on Abraham,
Moses, and David; Micael de Carvajal (c. 1575) wrote a drama
about Joseph; and the 96 biblical autos of the Madrid Codex
(1550-75) include 26 on Old Testament subjects. Solomon
*Usque (c. 1530-c. 1596), a professing Jew of Marrano origin,
wrote a Spanish Purim play, Ester, first staged in the Venice
ghetto in 1558.

biblical drama. Biblical drama and poetry really became
prominent, however, from the 17 th century. In Spain the pro-
lific Tirso de Molina (Gabriel Tellez, c. 1584-1648) composed
La mejor espigadera (1634), based on the story of Ruth; and La
venganza de Tamar (1634), a drama about Absalom. The Old
Testament played an even more important part in the writ-
ings of Pedro Calderon de la Barca (1600-1681), who made
use of the biblical themes of the Babylonian captivity (in La
cena de Baltasar), the Ark of the Covenant, David, Solomon,
and Job for his autos sacramentales (religious plays). The
auto of Spain's Golden Age had been anticipated to a great
extent by the religious plays and moralities of Gil Vicente
(c. 1465-c. 1536), a Portuguese court dramatist, many of whose
works were written in Spanish. Writers of Jewish origin in-
spired by the Bible include Felipe *Godinez (c. 1588-c. 1639),
a Seville dramatist and preacher, who wrote plays about Isaac,
David, Haman and Mordecai, Job, and Judith. Others who left
the peninsula to take refuge abroad were Francisco (Joseph)
de *Caceres, whose Los siete Dias de la Semana (1612) was an
adaptation of a Creation epic, La Semaine, by the French Prot-
estant *Du Bartas; David *Abenatar Melo, a Marrano revert to
Judaism, who published a Spanish verse rendering of the
Psalms (1626); and Antonio Enriquez *G6mez, an immensely
popular writer, whose works include the biblical epic, El
Sanson Nazareno (1656) and La Torre de Babilonia (1647).
Two Portuguese Marrano poets who found inspiration in
the Bible were Joao (Mose) *Pinto Delgado (d. 1653), a leader
of the Crypto-Jewish community in Rouen, who dedicated
to Cardinal Richelieu his Poema de la Reyna Ester, Lamenta-
ciones del Prof eta Jeremias, and Historia de Rut (Rouen, 1687);
and Miguel de * Silveyra, whose baroque masterpiece, El Ma-
cabeo (Naples, 1638), was written in Spanish. The early 18 th -
century author Isaac Cohen de *Lara wrote a graceful Come-
diafamosa de Amdn y Mordochay (Amsterdam, 1699), based
on the Book of Esther and the related midrashic traditions,
and a ballad about Jacob which was printed in the same vol-
ume. The works of Abraham de *Bargas, a refugee Marrano
author and physician, included ethical discourses on the
Bible, Pensamientos sagrados y educaciones morales (Leg-
horn, 1749).

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE LITERATURE

During the 18 th and 19 th centuries biblical and other He-
braic themes became less common in Spanish and Portuguese
literature, perhaps as a result of political and social conserva-
tism and the disappearance of the Jews. Even in the 20 th cen-
tury, interest in these subjects has been largely restricted. A
remarkable exception was the eminent Spanish novelist and
critic Rafael Cansinos-Assens (1883-1964) of Marrano descent.
Reverting to Judaism, he studied Hebrew and wrote a series
of works on Jewish themes. These include Psalmos. El cande-
labro de los siete brazos (1914), love poems in "biblical" style;
Las bellezas del Talmud (1919), translated selections; Salome
en la literatura (1919); Cuentos judios (1922); Las luminarias de
Hanukah; Un episodio de la historia de Israel en Espaha (1924),
a novel; and El amor en el Cantor de los Cantares (1930), with
texts in Hebrew and Spanish.

The Image of the Jew in Spanish Literature

Jews have generally been portrayed in Spanish literature in
an unfavorable guise. Their earliest appearance is in the epic
Poems del Cid (or Cantor de Mio Cod (c. 1140)) in which two
moneylenders, Raquel and Vidas, are cheated by El Cid, the
national hero, giving him 600 marks on the security of a richly
decorated chest filled with sand. The episode has been vari-
ously interpreted, but it must have appealed to the antisemi-
tism of the audiences listening to a troubadour telling the
story. In his Milagros de Nuestra Senora y the poet Gonzalo
de Berceo (c. 1195-c. 1265) repeats several miracles involving
Jews, tales which enjoyed a European vogue: the Jews who are
converted are saved, the others are portrayed as diabolical fig-
ures deserving the punishments of Hell. The 13 th - century Dis-
puta entre un cristiano y unjudio> typical of the disputation
literature written by Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Spain,
is remarkable only for its coarseness and for the Christians
prurient interest in the Jewish rite of circumcision. Perhaps the
most favorable medieval Spanish treatment of the Jew is found
in the works of the infante Don Juan Manuel (1282-1348). In
his Libro de los castigos Juan Manuel wrote with great sym-
pathy of his doctor, Don Salamon, and recommended him in
glowing terms to his son. In the 14 th century, the poet and his-
torian Pedro Lopez de Ayala (1332-1407) castigated the pow-
erful court Jews in his Rimado de Palacio, a work satirizing all
the contemporary ills of the nation as he saw them, and not
specifically antisemitic. In the same century, the archpriest of
Hita (Juan Ruiz, c. 1283-c. 1350) composed songs for Moor-
ish and Jewish dancing girls, as well as for Christians. The
late 14 th - or early i5 th -century Danza de la muerte (Dance of
Death) hispanicizes a widespread European type of satire in
that it includes a Moorish alfaqui and a rabbi among those
whom Death invites to dance, treating them no better and no
worse than the other victims.

Conversos and Marrano s

Not surprisingly, the literature of the 15 th century, reflecting
the mounting tensions and hatreds of the period, is full of an-
tisemitic references. Both Jews and Conversos (especially the
latter) are objects of scorn, and are depicted as cowardly, sly,

and mercenary. Juan Alfonso de *Baena's Cancionero (1445),
an anthology of the 14 th - and i5 th -century verse, contains sev-
eral attacks on Jews and Conversos, as well as one or two con-
tributions by Jews. The somewhat later Coplas del Provincial, a
vicious libel on the highest nobility of the country, accuses the
hidalgos mainly of sexual deviation and Judaizing. The Con-
verso poet Rodrigo de *Cota de Maguaque (c. 1460), who al-
luded to Jewish customs of his time, was outspokenly hostile to
both Jews and Marranos. For this he was vigorously attacked
by another Converso poet, Anton de *Montoro, who also en-
gaged in a poetic feud with a third New Christian writer, Juan
(Poeta) de *Valladolid.

The post-expulsion literature of the 16 th and, even more,
of the 17 th centuries - Spain's Golden Age of letters - had its
share of anti- Jewish attacks and plays on words and concepts.
Ecclesiastical censorship limited the range of satire, but the
Conversos were one of the acceptable targets. To call a man
a "Jew" was a serious insult, and even the slightest reflection
on his *limpieza de sangre ("purity of blood") was considered
grossly offensive. Satirical references were made to the sup-
posed physical imperfections of the Jew, to his desire for social
position, and to his beliefs and practices. Names suggestive of
Jewish identity were ridiculed, and the allegation that a person
had an aversion to pork was a stock-in-trade insult. Even the
verb esperar (to wait) became a cliche, referring to the patience
of the Jews awaiting the Messiah. The satirist Quevedo (Fran-
cisco Gomez de Quevedo y Villegas, 1580-1645) attacked his
literary rival, Luis de Gongora (1561-1627), with allusions to
his nose - it was commonly believed that the nose revealed a
man's Jewish origin - and threatened to anoint his own poems
with bacon so that Gongora would be deterred from stealing
them. Quevedo's writings were probably the most insistently
anti-Jewish of the period, except for specifically anti- Jewish
literature, such as sermons at *autos-da-fe, which were printed
and widely read. By contrast, the Navarrese physician and
writer Juan *Huarte de San Juan displayed marked sympathy
for the Jews in his Examen de ingeniospara las ciencias (1575),
where he even suggested that Jews were especially suited to the
practice of medicine. The great novelist Miguel de * Cervantes
Saavedra who (like Huarte de San Juan) has been claimed as
a Marrano, occasionally indulged in anti- Jewish poems, but
derided the doctrine of limpieza. Two of his plays barely dis-
guise his admiration for the Jew's religious tenacity and na-
tional vitality.

Other writers who used conventional attacks and jokes at
Jewish expense were Tirso de Molina, Lope de Vega, Alonso
Castillo Solorzano (1854-c. 1648), and Calderon. A more vi-
cious accusation (found in Tirso's La Prudencia en la mujer,
1634) was that Converso doctors murdered their Christian
patients. Lope de Vega's play, El nino inocente de la Guardia
(1617), repeated the charge that the Marranos committed ritual
murder (see *Blood Libel). Such an accusation was rare after
1492, when New Christians often occupied positions of power
and could be formidable enemies. The story of the * Jewess of
Toledo, the mistress of Alfonso vin, provided the theme for

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE LITERATURE

comedias by Lope de Vega (Las paces de los reyes y judia de
Toledo, 1617), Antonio Mira de Amescua (c. 1574-1644), and
Juan Bautista Diamante (1625-1687) whose La judia de Toledo
(1673) endows the Jews with noble characters. The best work
of the i8 th -century neoclassical theater in Spain is La Raquel
(1778), a tragedy on the same theme by Vicente Garcia de la
Huerta (1734-87).

Modern Spanish Writers

Jewish characters are relatively unimportant in modern Span-
ish literature. The i9 th -century romantics, Becquer, Larra,
and Zorrilla, occasionally wrote of exotic Jewish types, but
displayed little sympathy for them. Among novelists, Benito
Perez Galdos (1843-1920) in Misericordia (1897) created
the delightful character of Almudena, who is described as
a Moor but whose patois is based on some linguistic ele-
ments of *Ladino speech. In Fortunata y Jacinta (1886-87)
Galdos shows that in the late 19 th century Marranos were still
thought to dominate Madrid business circles. Pio Baroja y
Nessi (1872-1956), who was opposed to almost everything,
also displayed literary antisemitism. In the 20 th century, Vi-
cente Blasco Ibanez (1867-1928), a revolutionary writer who
claimed Jewish descent, dealt with the problem of Major-
ca's *Chuetas in his novel, Los Muertos mandan (1909; "The
Dead Command," 1919). Another liberal writer, Salvador de
Madariaga (1886-1978), recreated in his novel El corazon de
piedra verde (1943; "The Heart of Jade," 1944) the violent and
romantic world of the 16 th - century half- Jewish conquistador
Sebastiano Garcilaso (d. 1559), father of the Peruvian historian,
Garcilaso de la Vega ("El Inca," c. 1540-1616). A monumen-
tal work is the three-volume Judios en la Espana moderna y
contempordnea (1962) of Julio Caro Baroja. Among works by
R. Cansinos Assens in the same field are Espana y los judios
espanoles... (1917) and Los judios en la literatura Espanola en
Sefard; episodios y simbolos (1950).

The Image of the Jew in Portuguese Literature

In general, the attitude toward Jews in Portuguese literature
parallels that of Spanish writers. Portuguese literature is of
somewhat later origin than Castilian, and medieval references
are rare. There are occasional anti-Jewish remarks in the Can-
tigas descarnho e maldizer (i3 th -i4 th century), and it is worth
recording that Alfonso x of Castile wrote his Cantigas de Santa
Maria in Galician, a dialect of Portuguese. Fifteen of the mira-
cles described here deal with Jews, who are portrayed as child-
murderers, cheats, and agents of the devil. The Cancioneiro
Geral (1516) of Garcia de Resende (1470-1536) contains many
satirical references to Jews, and Anrique da Mota pokes fun
at the misfortunes of a Jewish tailor in his Farsa do Alfaiate.
Jewish characters appear in several works by the versatile dra-
matist Gil Vicente who wrote in both Portuguese and Span-
ish and who witnessed the expulsion and forced conversion
of the Jews in Portugal. In his religious Autos de Moralidade
das Barcas and the Didlogo sobre a Ressurreicdo y he presented
the stereotyped arguments about the Jews as deicides, iden-

tified with the devil, but elsewhere he portrayed Jews more
realistically. In the farces Ines Pereira (1523) and Juiz da Beira
(1525), Vicentes Jewish characters and customs are based on
personal observation, and if there is in them an element of
caricature, this is also true of his other characters. In the first
part of the Auto da Lusitdnia (1532) the main characters are
a Jewish tailor, D. Juda, and his wife and daughter, who are
treated with remarkable delicacy and respect. In other works
Vicente discreetly protested against the forced conversion of
Jews and brutal attacks on New Christians.

After the expulsion of 1497, Portuguese Conversos and
their descendants were subjected to literary attacks. In his
Apologos Dialogaes (1721) Francisco Manuel de Melo (1608-
1666) wrote satirically of the converts in business, as did Ma-
noel Monteiro, in Academia nos monies (1642). During the 16 th
and 17 th centuries there were also many anti- Jewish doctrinal
works, some by baptized Jews such as Joao Baptista de Este,
but these were not of a literary nature.

In the 19 th century the theme of love between a Chris-
tian youth and a beautiful Jewess was used by the Visconde de
Almeida Garrett (1799-1854) in his Romanceiro e Cancioneiro
Geral (3 vols., 1843-51) and by the Brazilian romantic poet An-
tonio de Castro Alves (1847-71). The same theme is the basis
of the much-recited romantic poem "A Judia" of Tomas Ri-
beiro (1831-1901). A defense of the Jews was put forward by
Alexandre Herculano de Carvalho e Araujo (1810-1877) m his
classical Historia da origem e estabelecimento da Inquiscao em
Portugal (3 vols., 1854-59). Other writers who championed the
Jews were the novelists Camilo Castelo Branco (1825-1890),
himself of Jewish descent, and Jose Maria de Eca de Queiros
(1846-1900), who wrote a scathing denunciation of German
antisemitism and Bismarck's anti- Jewish policy in the sixth
of his Cartas de Inglaterra (1903) and gave a remarkably vivid
picture of life in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus in his novel A
Reliquia. The martyred i8 th -century playwright Antonio Jose
da *Silva, was the central character of several works, including
Castelo Branco s novel, O Judeu (2 vols., 1866), and the roman-
tic drama, Antonio Jose - o Poeta e a Inquisicao y by the Brazil-
ian Domingos Jose Goncalves de Magalhaes (1811-1882).

The Jewish Contribution to Spanish Literature

The contribution of the Sephardim to Spanish literature was
from the 12 th to the 17 th centuries, but a distinction must be
made between the literary role of professing Jews and that of
Conversos or New Christians, who were merely of Jewish or-
igin. Spanish literature's earliest monuments, whose impor-
tance was discovered only in the 20 th century, are intimately
related to the two Semitic peoples living in Andalusia. These
are the jarchas - short poetic endings, in colloquial Arabic or
Mozarabic transcribed into Arabic or Hebrew characters, to
longer compositions in classical Arabic or Hebrew, known as
muwashashat. Of the more than 50 jarchas that are known, at
least 20 form the endings to Hebrew muwashshat. The earliest
was part of a muwashshat ("girdle poem") written by Joseph
the Scribe and dedicated to Ismail ibn Nagrela (i.e., *Samuel

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SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE LITERATURE

ha-Nagid) and his brother Isaac. Believed to have been writ-
ten before 1042, it constitutes the oldest known lyric poetry
in any language of western Europe, antedating even the earli-
est Provencal poems. Jarchas are to be found in muwashshat
of the great Hebrew poets of Spain, Moses * Ibn Ezra, * Judah
Halevi, and Meir ben Todros ha- Levi *Abulafia.

translators and poets. The Jews of medieval Spain also
distinguished themselves as translators, forming an important
bridge between Oriental, scientific, and ethical knowledge and
the nascent European culture (see Translations). Possessing
a knowledge of Arabic, Hebrew, and one or another of the
Romance languages, they were invaluable collaborators. The
task of imparting Arabic learning to the western world was
not limited to any one center, but of them all the most impor-
tant was Toledo. In the 12 th century Archbishop Raimundo
(d. 1152) gathered Jews, Christians, and Moors there to trans-
late Arabic scientific and philosophical texts. The prologue to
the Latin version of *Avicenna's De Anima tells how the work
was done. Juan Hispano, a Converso, translated orally from
Arabic into Romance, which Dominicus Gundisalvi in turn
translated into Latin. The Latin was written down by a scribe.
In the 13 th century Toledo was again a center of cultural activ-
ity, but now works were translated from Arabic into Castilian,
reflecting the wish of Alfonso x to make the spoken language
of his country that of government and culture. Alfonso's Jew-
ish translators were Isaac ibn Cid, Don Abraham, and R. Judah
ben Moses ha-Kohen (Judah Mosca). Judah (Jafuda) *Bonse-
nyor of Barcelona (d. 1331) compiled for James 11 of Aragon
a volume of maxims in Catalan, mainly derived from Arabic
and Jewish sources, titled Libre de Paraules e dits de Savis e
Filosofs (c. 1300). Another Jewish savant was Isaac al-Carsoni,
whose Hebrew astronomical tables, compiled for Pedro iv
(1336-1387), were later translated into Latin and Catalan.

An early and famous Jewish composer of Spanish verse
was Shem Tov b. Isaac Ardutiel, known to Spaniards as *San-
tob de Carrion and Don Santo. His Proverbios morales, writ-
ten probably between 1355 and 1360, are the first examples of
aphoristic verse in Spanish. Moses de Zaragua *Acan (c. 1300)
rivals Santob as a Jewish literary pioneer in Spain. His Cata-
lan verse treatise on chess was translated into Spanish in 1350.
Jews also contributed to medieval Spanish culture through the
literatura aljamiada y the name given to works in Spanish writ-
ten in Arabic or Hebrew characters. An example of the latter is
to be found in one of the four manuscripts in the Cambridge
University Library of Santob's Proverbios (ed. by Ig. Gonza-
lez Wubera, 1947). This also contains a poetic treatment of
the biblical story of Joseph, called Coplas de Yocef y which was
influenced by * Josephus and the Midrash, and later became
important in Ladino literature.

Jewish and converso writers. The writers active in
Spain from the 15 th century onward were invariably Marranos
or Conversos, rather than professing Jews. The massacres that
began in 1391, mass conversions, and the expulsion of 1492

combined to bring to an end Spanish Jewry's Golden Age and
the open practice of Judaism in Spain. There were, of course,
Converso writers before 1492, such as the moralist *Petrus
Alfonsi in the 12 th century (Disciplina clericalis y 1120), or the
Christian apologist Alfonso de Valladolid (*Abner of Burgos)
in the 14 th . But the 15 th century saw a completely new internal
situation in Spain: a whole class of "New Christians" came
into being, and at the same time popular antisemitism made
a sharp cleavage between peoples and religions that had pre-
viously at least coexisted. The intellectual elite was composed
largely of Conversos, and many of the writers and humanists
who set the tone of the century were New Christians. They
also rose to fame in the Church and at court. Ferdinand and
Isabella, who signed the decree of expulsion, were not averse
to having their deeds recorded by Conversos. Diego de Val-
era (c. 1412-88), who wrote the Cronica de los Reyes Catolicos y
was the son of Alonso *Chirino (d. 1430?), the baptized physi-
cian of Juan 11 of Castile and author of some curious works on
medicine. The official chronicler of the Catholic monarchs and
secretary to the queen was Hernando del Pulgar (1436-1493),
also thought to have been a Converso.

New Christians were among the poets active in the reign
of Juan 11 (1458-79), and later in the century several writ-
ers of minor stature testified to the psychological state of the
converts. As members of a minority group scorned and up-
braided by the majority, they often took refuge in satire di-
rected against each other - or even against themselves. In lit-
erary polemics of the era, the accusation of being a Marrano
(Crypto- Jew) was frequently leveled, whether or not with jus-
tification. Among Spanish writers of real or imagined New
Christian extraction were Juan *Avarez Gato, Rodrigo de Cota
de Maguaque, Juan (Poeta) de Valladolid, Juan de Espana, el
Viejo, Juan de Mena (1411-1456), Anton de Montoro, and Al-
fonso de la *Torre. Beneath the badinage and cynical laughter,
however, one feels the bitterness of the outcast. Two famous
prose works written in the reign of Isabella of Castile were by
New Christians: the Cdrcel de Amor (1492) of Diego de San
Pedro and La Celestina (1499), written either entirely or in
large part by Fernando de *Rojas. Both works are the products
of the sadness and suffering of the Conversos.

The Later Conversos

While New Christians undoubtedly played an important part
in Spanish cultural life throughout the 16 th and 17 th centuries,
it is not easy to determine their contribution with any preci-
sion, since they found it advisable to conceal their origin. As
a result of the statutes on purity of blood (see limpieza de san-
gre) y known Conversos found their opportunities for ecclesi-
astical, social, and political advancement severely limited, and
even the most orthodox Catholics were affected. The grandfa-
ther of Spain's greatest saint and mystic, Santa Teresa of Avila,
had been penanced by the Inquisition for Judaizing, and there
is evidence that the father of the great i6 th -century humanist,
Juan Luis *Vives, was burned as a Judaizer, and that he him-
self attended a secret synagogue as a child.

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SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE LITERATURE

Conversos also distinguished themselves as innovators in
Spanish prose. The first pastoral novel written in Spanish was
Diana (1559?) by Jorge de Montemayor (c. 1520-1561), a writer
of Portuguese origin who was taunted with Jewish ancestry by
one of his contemporaries. The picaresque novel, considered
a peculiarly Spanish invention, owes much to Converso writ-
ers. The anonymous author of the first such work, La vida de
Lazarillo de Tormes (1554), may have been a New Christian, as
a brief passage at the beginning of the work is a veiled satire
on racial prejudice. No picaresque novels appeared during the
reign of Philip 11 (1556-98), but the year following his death
saw the publication of the first part of Guzman de Alfarache
(1599) by Mateo *Aleman. Luis Velez de Guevara (1579-1644)
contributed to the genre with El diablo Cojuelo (1641), as did
Antonio Enriquez Gomez (see above), with El siglo pitagorico y
Vida de don Gregorio Guadana (1644). No Converso appeared
in the first rank of dramatists during Spain's Golden Age, but
several had their works produced on the Madrid stage. Apart
from Enriquez Gomez, they include the prolific Juan Perez de
Montalvan (1602-1638), the son of a New Christian bookseller
and publisher, who nevertheless was appointed a notary of the
Holy Office and who became a friend and follower of Lope
de Vega; and Felipe Godinez (see above). From the 18 th cen-
tury onward, there were undoubtedly many Spanish writers
of Jewish descent, but by then the question had become less
important. In the 19 th century, Jose *Taronji y Cortes, a Span-
ish priest and Catalan poet of Marrano origin, testified to the
prejudice besetting the Chuetas of Majorca. So far as Spanish
literature is concerned, however, marranismo was unimport-
ant after the 17 th century.

refugee writers. In the Marrano diaspora, on the other
hand, professing Jews - refugees or their descendants - made
an important contribution to Spanish letters throughout the
17 th and 18 th centuries. Refugees active in Amsterdam in the
latter half of the 17 th century were Joseph Semah (Zemah)
*Arias, a former Spanish army captain; Francisco (Joseph) de
Caceres; two poetesses, Isabel (Rebecca) de *Correa and Isa-
bel *Enriquez; Isaac * Gomez de Sossa, whose father had been
physician to the infante Fernando of Spain; Isaac Cohen de
Lara; and Nicolas (Daniel Judah) de * Oliver y Fullana, a for-
mer Spanish colonel. Miguel (Daniel Levi) de *Barrios was
one of the most eminent of these exiles. His travels took him
to the West Indies and to the Low Countries, where he led a
double life as a Spanish army captain in Brussels and as a Jew
in Amsterdam.

The Jewish Contribution to Portuguese Literature

In medieval Portugal there were Jewish, as well as Moorish,
troubadours, one of whom was called "O Judeu de Elvas" (the
Jew of Elvas). Most Portuguese writers of Jewish descent were
Marrano s, and many fled their native land in the 16 th and
17 th centuries. Samuel *Usque's Consolacam as Tribulacoens
de Israel, though published abroad (Ferrara, 1553), is consid-
ered a classic of Portuguese literature. The novelist and poet
Bernardim *Ribeiro, known as the father of Portuguese bu-

colic literature (Hystoria de Menina y Moca y Ferrara, 1554),
was probably a Marrano. Manoel *Fernandes Villereal was
one of the many i7 th -century Portuguese authors who wrote
mainly in Spanish. Perhaps the most famous victim of the
Portuguese Inquisition was Antonio Jose da Silva ("O Judeu,"
1705-1739), who was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Da Silva
was one of the few important Portuguese dramatists of the 18 th
century, and although his career was cut short at the age of
34, his works continued to be performed and published, albeit
anonymously, long after his death. Although many Portuguese
writers from the 19 th century onward proudly claimed Jewish
ancestry, specifically Jewish contributions to the literature of
Portugal effectively came to an end by 1700.

[Kenneth R. Scholberg]

The Jewish Contribution to Latin- American Literature

During the 16 th and 17 th centuries many writers of Marrano
origin left Spain and Portugal for the New World, in the hope
of finding greater freedom there. Marranos were among the
most cultivated members of the new American society. In
Mexico, the martyred Luis de Carvajal El Mozo (1566-1596; see
*Carvajal family), nephew of the governor of New Leon, was a
competent poet; in Peru, Antonio de Leon Pinelo (1591-1658)
was one of the first American bibliographers. Two eminent
Marrano writers denounced to the Brazilian Inquisition were
Ambrosio Fernandes *Brandao, author of the Didlogos das
Grandezas do Brasil (c. 1618), and Bento *Teixeira Pinto, au-
thor of the epic Prosopopeia (1601 2 ), the first literary work
written in Brazil.

By the 19 th century, Marrano culture had disappeared,
and only a few Latin Americans were still conscious of their
Jewish descent. In Venezuela, Abigail Lozano (1821-1866)
and Salomon Lopez Fonseca (1853-1935) were noted poets.
Two other writers were Abraham Lopez- Penha, a Domini-
can writer, and Efraim Cardozo, a Paraguayan historian.
The Colombian novelist, Jorge ^Isaacs, author of the classic,
Maria (1867), was not of Sephardi origin, being the son of a
converted English Jew. In time more liberal ideas promoted a
somewhat romantic reassessment of the Crypto -Jews of Latin
America, exemplified by La hija del judio y a story by Justo
Sierra (1814-1861), and the novel Moisen (1924) by Julio Jime-
nez Rueda, both Mexican non-Jews. Moisen is notable for its
bizarre presentation of the Marranos and their secret religion.
Exotic Jewish characters frequently appear in the short sto-
ries of Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), one of the outstanding
Argentine writers of the 20 th century. Borges, who was partly
of Marrano descent, used kabbalistic and other Jewish ele-
ments to heighten the suspense in his tales of mystery, some
of which were collected in ElAleph (1949; TheAleph and Other
Stories 1933-1969, 1970). His admiration for the Jewish State
prompted two poems about Israel written in June 1967 at the
time of the Six-Day War. Four years later, in April 1971, Borges
was awarded the Jerusalem Prize for his contribution to the
freedom of the individual at the Fifth International Book Fair
held in Israel's capital.

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SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE LITERATURE

Contemporary Jewish Writers

Toward the end of the 19 th century, Ashkenazi Jewish commu-
nities grew steadily, especially in Argentina, where the * Jew-
ish Colonization Association (ica) resettled thousands of Jews
from Russia. Two of Argentina's foremost Jewish writers, Al-
berto *Gerchunoff, author of Los Gauchos Judios (1908-10),
and Samuel * Eichelbaum were raised in the Argentine Jewish
colonies. Carlos Moises Gruenberg (1903-1968), a prominent
lawyer and poet, was known for his Mester de Juderia (1940);
a keen Zionist, he translated Hebrew poetry into Spanish,
and he was considered a masterly stylist. Salomon Resnick
(1895-1946), an essayist and translator, who edited the weekly
Mundo Israelita and the literary periodical Judaica y made Yid-
dish literature known to the Spanish- speaking reader. Lazaro
*Liacho (1897-1969), a journalist and poet, and his father,
Jacob Simon Liachovitzky (1874-1937), a journalist and a lead-
ing Zionist, both wrote on Jewish themes. Enrique Espinoza
(Samuel Glusberg, 1898-1987) wrote tales of Jewish life in Bue-
nos Aires and edited Babel, a literary magazine, first in Buenos
Aires and later in Santiago, Chile. Cesar *Tiempo (Israel Zeit-
lin, 1905-1980), a leading poet and playwright, played a promi-
nent part in the fight against Argentine antisemitism. Bernardo
Verbitzky (1902-1979), a journalist and novelist, portrayed
Jewish life and the fate of the poor. Some other Argentine writ-
ers were the novelist Max Dickmann (1897-1991), Maximo Jose
Kahn (1897-1953), and Marcelo Menasche (1913- ). Literary
essayists and historians included Albert Palcos (1894-1965),
Leon *Dujovne, and Antonio Portnoy (1903-1958).

Max *Aub (1903-1972), who settled in Mexico, was a
staunchly anti- Fascist poet, playwright, and novelist. His trag-
edy, San Juan (1943), dealt with the fate of Jewish refugees on
a doomed ship in the Mediterranean. Jewish writers in Bra-
zil included Fernando Levisky (1910-1982), author of Israel
no Brasil (1936); the poet Idel Becker; the playwright Pedro
Bloch; the novelist Clarice Lispector; Kurt Loewenstamm; and
Henrique Iussim (who wrote under the name Zvi Yotam after
emigrating to Israel).

Despite their strong Zionist sympathies, Latin Ameri-
ca's Jewish writers rarely dealt with Erez Israel in their works.
One exception was Samuel Eichelbaum, whose short story,
Una buena Cosecha, is set in Rosh Pinnah. A non-Jewish
Venezuelan poet, Vicente Gerbasi (1913-1992), who was his
country's ambassador to Israel (1960-68), included poems on
Jerusalem and its Jewish inhabitants in his verse collection,

Poesia de viajes (1968).

[Paul Link]

Younger Judeo- Argentinian writers continued to explore
the process and problems of acculturation and assimilation
which appear in the works of earlier writers like Gerchunoff.
German Rozenmacher (1936-1971) presented an intergenera-
tional conflict between an immigrant cantor and his Argen-
tinian-born son in his play Requiem para unviernes a la noche
(1964). Mario Szichman (b. 1945) in his novels, Cronica falsa
(1969) and A las 20:3s ^ a senora entro a la inmortalidad (1981),
depicted the odyssey of a Jewish family against the background

of the Peronist era. David Vinas (b. 1929), Marcos Aguinis
(b. 1935), Gerardo Mario Goloboff(b. 1939), Alicia Steimberg
(b. 1933), and Marion Satz (b. 1944) were other writers of this
new generation of Jewish intellectuals.

Although Argentina, because of the size of the commu-
nity and the vigor of the cultural milieu, contained the largest
nucleus of Jewish authors, there were a number of writers in
other Latin American countries, such as the Peruvian novelist
Isaac Goldemberg (b. 1945), who told the story of an eastern
European Jewish immigrant in The Fragmented Life of Don
Jacobo Lerner (1976). In Venezuela Isaac Chocron (b. 1932),
one of the country's most prominent playwrights, examined
his Sephardi background in a novel, Rompase en caso de in-
cendio (1975).

Despite maintaining strong Zionist sympathies, Latin
America's writers only occasionally set their works in Israel.
In El caramelo descompuesto (1980), a novel by Ricardo Fei-
erstein, a young Argentinian narrator looks critically at life
on a kibbutz.

A non-Jewish Venezuelan poet, Vicente Gerbasi
(1913-1992), who was his country's ambassador to Israel
(1960-68), included poems on Jerusalem and its Jewish in-
habitants in his verse collection Poesids de viaje (1968).

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict from a pro-Arab point
of view was dealt with by the well known Mexican novelist,
Carlos Fuentes, in his La cabeza de la hidra (1978; "The Hy-
dra Head," 1978).

[Edna Aizenberg]

Latin American Jewish literature developed specifically
in the 1970s and 1980s, and can be defined as the treatment
of Jewish values in two languages - Spanish and Portuguese,
as conceived and spoken in Latin America; and more par-
ticularly, as the way in which these languages have left their
mark on Latin American Jewry, through those authors who
use them as their vehicle.

In other words, the Jewish literature of Latin America ex-
ploits the possibilities of expression offered by the Portuguese
and Spanish languages to translate, both at the personal and
the collective level, the way in which basic Jewish values are
experienced and interpreted in the framework of living con-
ditions in this part of the world. In the words of literary critic
Saul Sonowski, "Jewish literature in Latin America is not built
exclusively on the basis of motifs which can easily be identified
as Jewish, but as a function of the relationship of these motifs
to concrete realities which are in a process of development and
transformation: the realities of the Latin American societies
in which they must evolve." What he means basically is that
the Latin American Jewish writers are an inseparable part of
their respective national literatures. Their acknowledgment of
their Jewishness resides in their perception of themselves as
Uruguayan, Brazilian, Mexican, Venezuelan, Chilean, or Ar-
gentine writers whose works and thought integrally include a
Jewish thematic variation, which may be more or less frequent,
more or less intense, and can be formulated and reelaborated
in an infinite variety of ways. The Jewish variation cannot be

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SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE LITERATURE

isolated from the totality which gives it meaning, nor placed
in a hierarchy to the detriment of the totality Nevertheless,
Latin American Jewish writers, in order to consolidate their
respective identities as Latin American writers, also have to
take their positions as Jews. In their work, Jewish and Latin
American themes, far from constituting an irreconcilable an-
tithesis, as is often alleged by explicitly antisemitic and implic-
itly discriminatory theses, have become strongly complemen-
tary and inseparable.

For many years, in the Latin American cultural arena, the
need for an alternative was solicited equally zealously by both
the nationalist right and the Marxist- Leninist left: strictly spe-
cific characteristics, such as those implicit to the Jewish con-
dition, were to be merged into the national identity (right) or
the international proletariat identity (left). Considered "for-
eign" by the former and "reactionary" by the latter until well
into the 1970s, Judaism seemed to have no future as a varia-
tion in the composite profile of the Latin American writer.
However, the situation began to change in the 1970s. Gov-
ernment terrorism, which raged in every corner of the conti-
nent, but with an especially bloody genocide in the southern
tip of Latin America, gave rise to a new phenomenon in the
region - a diaspora. This bitter experience strongly paralleled
Jewish memories.

Discrimination, censorship, persecution, torture, im-
prisonment, and death were practiced with systematic tenac-
ity by the successive dictatorships, especially against anyone
daring to challenge the regime in force; fearing for their lives,
many fled their country or even the continent. Jewish writ-
ers naturally drew parallels between past and present. At the
same time, the seeds of today's Communist crisis were already
present. Against this background, the meaning of Judaism, as
a constituent element of the personal and historic identity of
so many writers, underwent an intense process of redefini-
tion, inspired not only by the suffering but also by its dialectic
complement - the spirit of struggle, the capacity to confront
adversity. Judaism was beginning to be seen as a determined
demand for pluralism, for democratic ideals, for a thirst for
dialogue, in open opposition to dogmatism and contempt
for differentness. Beyond its possible adherence to theologi-
cal arguments and religious options of one kind or another,
Judaism was conceived, by contemporary Latin American
writers, as a moving metaphor of their own experience, and
was thus ultimately acknowledged as an inalienable part of
an individual identity.

"In the countries of Latin America, which have experi-
enced a repression unprecedented in their history, survival -
perhaps the basic motif of all Jewish literature - has obviously
played a major role" (Saul Sosnowski). And "it is under identi-
cal circumstances that some Jewish motifs have become pre-
cision instruments in interpreting a reality that centuries of
persecution and exile have imprinted in the cultural tradition
of the historic Jew" (Saul Sosnowski).

In addition to the decisive theme of survival, other fun-
damental themes began to appear in poetry, fiction, and

drama. Man's dialogue with God, with its innumerable varia-
tions, the sufferings imposed by prejudice and intolerance,
the intensity of nostalgia, exile and its indelible shadow,
the meaning of death, the value of memory, mysticism, the
warmth of family life, the immigrant origin, the Jewish hol-
idays and history, the unexpected recording of one's own
life as an "immigrant," and the presence and ethical and
even esthetic weight of tradition, all to a great extent shape
the repertory of themes which, in numerous forms, run
through Latin American Jewish literature. And just as Euro-
pean or North American Jewish literature, for instance, have
distinctive traits, specific only to a country or a continent,
so Latin American Jewish literature has its own, unique char-
acteristics. Its treatment of proverbially Jewish questions
has an unmistakably Latin American emphasis, in that the
Jewish models are presented through the subjective, social,
and historic experience of the countries of Latin America,
with their specific conflicts, resources, and conditions. The
Jewish statement is made through the Spanish and Portu-
guese languages, with their own cultural imprint, and thereby
receives a specific bias - accorded by the distinctive intonation
of the language in every country and region where it is spo-
ken. This intonation is not only that of the language's rhythm,
its euphony, but also that of its semantic weave, which, in each
locality, and in each consciousness, links the repertoire of
resources offered by the language to its users, giving birth to
that fertile "hybrid" condition noted by writer Ricardo Feier-
stein; and to the theme which, among so many other nation-
alities, both incorporates the Jewish element in, and separates
it from, the Bolivian, Peruvian, Colombian, or Cuban ele-
ment and elegantly frames a Jewish individuality which, while
obviously related to others, is not one of them. This "hy-
bridism" is simply the permanent interweaving of two origi-
nally separate traditions - the Jewish and Latin American,
which, through the meeting of circumstances, ultimately
shaped a new expression. The value and quality of this pos-
sibility of expression characterizes Latin American Jewish
literature.

In other words, Spanish and Portuguese are not the lan-
guages into which the universal nature of Judaism is trans-
lated, but the means through which it is constituted and con-
ceived in Latin America. Based in these languages, Jewish
poetry, fiction, and drama, as well as essays and critical re-
views, are seen as the highest grade of conceptual elaboration
which Jewish experience has attained in Latin America. While
Latin American Jews do not have to be aware of this in order
to be what they are, it is no less true that this knowledge con-
stitutes for them a privileged resource for a greater and better
understanding of their identity.

Since the reestablishment of democratic institutions in
the 1980s, in particular, Latin American Jewry has encoun-
tered a fertile terrain in which to shape itself, demonstrating
that a complete manifestation of the universality of Jewish
values is possible only when inspired by a concrete historic
circumstance. It is in the light of their experience as Latin

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPARTA

Americans that the validity of the meaning of Jewishness can
be projected in the contemporary world. Every literary work,
beyond its value as a comparative model, expresses that mo-
ment of luminous encounter between past and present which
imbues the experience it describes, the statement it makes,
with both an individual, specific, and even regional nuance,
and an archetypal, metaphoric, and revealing dimension
whose symbolic stature is universal. In this way the yesterday
of previous generations who sustained, enjoyed, and suffered
the Jewish condition, becomes the today shaped by our cir-
cumstances, which are no less worrying or fascinating than
those of the past. Through looking at the past one learns to see
those who observe from the present; observations of the pres-
ent bring to the acknowledgment of the validity of this millen-
nia-old message. Latin American Jewish literature proves this
eloquently. It is one of the basic indications of Latin American
Jewry's intense desire to attain self-understanding. Indeed, to
a very great extent literary activity in the 1980s evidenced the
resolute initiative and great persistency of this community
in examining its condition. Among the events demonstrat-
ing this orientation should be noted: two encounters of Latin
American Jewish writers held in Buenos Aires in 1986 and in
1988; the proliferation of poetry, fiction, and essays, which
join together with remarkable elegance the double source of
personal identity - Jewish and Latin American; the appear-
ance of Noajy the first Jewish literary review in Spanish and
Portuguese edited in Israel; the creation, also in Israel, of a
Jewish writers' association in both languages. All these proved
decisive acts and showed the extent of Latin American Jewry's
eagerness for self- exploration and self-expression. Certainly
it is not by chance that all these developments were taking
place at a time when the values of political democracy were
being progressively restored. Democracy is the most propi-
tious condition for the institution of pluralism; and Judaism,
freed from the oppressive yoke placed upon it by totalitarian
thinking, finds itself with an auspicious opportunity to say
and affirm what it is, and to begin once again to question its

own meaning.

[Santiago Ezequiel Kovadloff]

bibliography: L. Magnus, in: E.R. Bevan and C. Singer
(eds.), Legacy of Israel (1927), 483-505; R. Cansinos Assens, Losjudios
en la literatura espanola (1937); J.RW. Crawford, Spanish Drama Before
Lope de Vega (1937); A. Portnoy, Losjudios en la literatura espanola
medieval (1942); S. Resnick, Cinco ensayos sobre temas judios (1943);
R.A. Arrieta, Historia de la literatura argentina, 6 vols. (1958-60),
incl. bibl.; A. Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil (i960), incl. bibl.;
J. Caro Baroja, Los judios en la espana moderna y contempordnea,
3 vols. (1962), incl. bibl.; C. Lafer, O Judeu em Gil Vicente (1963);
Baer, Spain; E. Weinfeld, in: Judaica (Buenos Aires, Jan. 1944), 1-13;
S. Resnick, in: Hispania, 34, no. 1 (1951), 54-58; E. Glaser, in: Nueva
revista de Filologia Hispdnica, 8 (1954), 39-62; F. Lehner, in: L. Fin-
kelstein (ed.), The Jews, Their History, Culture and Religion, 2 (i960),
1472-86; Echad: An Anthology of Latin American Jewish Writings, ed.
by R. and R. Kalechofsky (1980); D. McGrady, Jorge Isaacs (1972); K.
Schwartz, in: The American Hispanist (Sept. 1977), 9-12; E. Aizenberg,
in: Anuario de letras (Mexico), 15 (1977), 197-215; idem, in: Revista
Iberoamericana, 46 (1980), 533-44.

SPARROW (Heb. "im "li3S> zippor deror or TTH, deror, but
sometimes the word zippor "bird" refers to the sparrow), the
Passer domesticus biblicus, the house sparrow, which is the
most common bird in Israel during all seasons of the years. It
"dwells in the house as in the field" and its name zippor deror
("free bird") is explained by the fact that "it does not submit
to authority" (Bezah 24a); and, despite the fact that it lives in
populated areas, it cannot be domesticated. It nests in the in-
terstices of rooftops and stone walls. It is referred to as nest-
ing between the stones of the Temple (Ps. 84:4), and to this
day some make their nests between the stones of the * West-
ern Wall. It possesses the characteristics of a kasher bird (see
^Dietary Laws) and there are Jewish communities which per-
mit it for food. "Two zipporim" were used for the purification
ceremony of the leper (Lev. 14:4) and for the house cleansed
from leprosy (ibid., 14:49); according to the Mishnah (Neg.
14:1) zipporei deror, i.e., house sparrows, are meant. Some
would identify the deror with the swallow, but the descrip-
tions of the deror in rabbinical literature leave no doubt that
it refers to the sparrow.

bibliography: Lewysohn, Zool, 187 (no. 237), 206-9 (nos.
256 and 257); F.S. Bodenheimer, Animal and Man in Bible Lands
(i960), 56, 119, 120 (no. 20); J. Feliks, Animal World of the Bible (1962),
61. add. bibliography: J. Feliks, Ha-Zomeah, 222.

[Jehuda Feliks]

SPARTA, city in Greece; ancient city-state in the Peloponne-
sus, called Mistra in Crusader times. The earliest information
on the relations between Sparta and the Jews is the letter said
to have been sent by Areus, king of Sparta (309-265 b.c.e.), to
the high priest *Onias 1 (1 Mace. 12:20-23). I n this letter Areus
sends his greetings to the Jews and proposes a full alliance in
the words, "your cattle and goods are ours, and ours yours."
It also refers to a written tradition that the two peoples are of
the stock of Abraham (cf. Jos., Ant., 14:255; see *Pergamum).
This was apparently included in one of those books dealing
with the genealogy of the various nations, which were wide-
spread in the Hellenistic era, or it may have been based on the
well-known work of *Hecateus of Abdera. It is possible that
the contemporary political situation, the relations between
the *Ptolemies and Sparta on the one hand and the Jews on
the other (idem, 109) forms the background to this alliance,
as well as perhaps some sympathy of ideas (cf. Y. Baer, in:
Zion 17 (1952), 35). Josephus, who quotes the text of the let-
ter (Ant. 12:22-26), adds some details which do not appear
in 1 Maccabees. 1 Maccabees (12:6-18) also quotes a letter of
Jonathan the Hasmonean to the Spartans and (14:20-23) a let-
ter of the Spartans to Simeon the Hasmonean. Some scholars
regard these letters as either wholly or in part fictitious (see
KM. Abel, Les Livres des Maccabees (1949), 231-3). Corrobo-
rating evidence for these relations is to be found in 11 Macca-
bees (5:9) which describes the flight of the high priest Jason
to Sparta because its people were close to his. The inhabitants
of Sparta are also mentioned in 1 Maccabees (15:23), but it is
doubtful whether the existence of a Jewish settlement can be

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPATH, JOHANN PETER

inferred from there, as some scholars have attempted to do.
There is no explicit mention of a Jewish settlement in Sparta,
though Jews were living in the Peloponnesus during the first
century c.e. (Philo, Legatio and Gaium, 281).

[Uriel Rappaport]

During the tenth century there were Jews in Sparta;
they were engaged in commerce. When a plague broke out in
Sparta, the monk Nikon (10 th century) refused to come to the
villages aid as long as the Jews, who were an obstacle in the
spreading of Christianity, were not expelled. His incitement
was without effect. The presence of Jews is mentioned during
the reigns of the Palaeologi emperors (1261-1453). When Si-
gismondo Malatesta conquered Mistra in 1465, he burnt down
the Jewish quarter. There is evidence of the presence of Jews
again during the 16 th and 17 th centuries. They were engaged in
the silk industry and in commerce. The French author Cha-
teaubriand, who visited Greece in 1806, mentions the Jewish
quarter of Sparta. During the Greek Revolution (1821-1829),
the Albanians, who invaded Peloponnesus, destroyed the Jew-
ish community.

[Simon Marcus]

bibliography: F.R. de Chateaubriand, Itineraire de Paris a
Jerusalem, 1 (1859), 161, 166; M. Schwab, Rapport sur une Mission de
Philologie en Grece (1913), ii7f.; A. Andreades, in: Economic History,
3 (!934 - 37)> 1-23; Rosanes, Togarmah, 3 (1938), 129-200.

SPATH, JOHANN PETER (Moses Germanus; 1642/45-
1701), German Christian Hebraist who converted to Judaism.
Spath was born either in Augsburg or in Vienna between 1642
and 1645 to a Roman Catholic family. He became a teacher in
a Protestant family and this contact made him question his
own faith. Influenced by the Protestant theologian Philipp
Jacob Spener (1635-1705), Spath converted to the Lutheran
church and he became a follower of Spener. His religious
doubts, however, did not weaken. On the contrary, he became
disappointed because of the controversy among the Luther-
ans, and this made him decide in 1681 to return to the Roman
Catholic Church. However, he continued to have doubts. Sev-
eral years later Spath appeared to be living in Amsterdam,
where he met people from various religious movements such
as the Mennonites, the Collegiants, and the Socians. During
that period, he converted once again to become a Quaker.
Thus he came into contact with the Christian Hebraist and
Kabbalah scholar Francis Mercury of Helmont (1614-1699).
At that time, Spath moved to Sulzbach to help with a Latin
translation and the publication of a large corpus of Kabbal-
istic texts.

The chronological records of the subsequent years are
not very clear, but in 1696 we find Spath in Amsterdam once
again, where he officially converted to Judaism. From then on
he was known as Moses Germanus. A year later he was cir-
cumcised and was accepted into the Portuguese -Jewish com-
munity in Amsterdam. He had previously married a Jewish
woman, and was appointed as a teacher. Spath died in Am-
sterdam on April 27, 1701.

His conversion to Judaism caused the customary scandal
in those days. Many of his contemporary Christian scholars
expressed their disapproval of the facts. The most complete
record of his life and his conversion written at that time is
to be found in the work of Johann Jacob Schudt (1664-1722)
entitled Judische Merckwiirdigkeiten (= Jewish curiosities) in
which he also talks about the dismay of the Christian schol-
ars. Spath defended his conversion in a number of letters ad-
dressed to scholars in his area.

A great deal of that correspondence has been preserved,
such as several letters to Johannes Leusden (1624-1699) dat-
ing from the period in which Spath converted, addressed by
Leusden to Moses Germanus Judaus.

bibliography: J.J. Schudt, Judische Merckwiirdigkeiten, vor-
stellende was sich Curieuses und Denckwiirdiges in den neuern Zeiten
bey einigen Jahrhunderten mit Denen in alle iv Theilen der Welt,
sonderlich durch Teutschland zerstreuten Jiiden zugetragen, sammt
einer vollstandigen Franckfurter Juden-Chronik, darinnen der zu
Franckfurt am Mayn wohnenden Jiiden von einigen Jahrhunderten,
biss auff unseren Zeiten, 4 vols. (1714-1718); H.J. Schoeps, Philosemi-
tismus im Barock. Religions- und Geistesgeschichtliche Untersuchungen
(1952), 81-87; idem, Barocke Juden - Christen - Judenchristen (1965),
83-92; A. P. Coudert and J.S. Shoulson, Hebraica Veritas? Christian
Hebraists and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe (2004);
A. P. Coudert, in: M. Mulshow and R.H. Popkin (eds.), Secret Conver-
sions to Judaism in Early Modern Europe (2004).

[Monika Saelemaekers (2 nd ed.)]

SPECTER, ARLEN (1930- ), U.S. senator, chairman of the
Judiciary Committee. Spector was born in Kansas, the son
of Russian immigrants. His family moved to Russell, Kan-
sas, the home town of another United States senator, Robert
Dole. Specter was educated at the University of Oklahoma,
and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he
received his B.A. (1951). He was in the Air Force from 1951
to 1953 during the Korean War. He returned to attend Yale
Law School, where he edited the law journal and graduated
in 1956.

He served as assistant district attorney in Philadelphia as
a Democrat from 1959 to 1963 and then went to Washington,
where he was assistant counsel to the Warren Commission
investigating the assassination of President John F. * Kennedy.
He devised the single bullet theory, contending that one bul-
let hit the president and Texas Governor John Connally, who
was riding in the limousine and was also wounded. He sought
the Democratic nomination for district attorney but was re-
buffed by the Democratic machine so he ran as a Republican
reform candidate and won an upset victory. He narrowly lost
the race for mayor of Philadelphia the next year. He served
for eight years as district attorney and then suffered a series
of political losses that ordinarily doom a political candidate.
Specter lost a race for district attorney in 1973; he lost for the
U.S. Senate in 1976 and lost for governor in 1978. He won the
1980 race in the Reagan landslide and then proceeded to vote
against the Reagan Administration more often than any other
Republican senator.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPECTOR, MORDECAI

He played a major role during the Iran- Contra hearing,
where his talent as a cross examiner came into play again.
He concluded that the intelligence system was in need of an
overhaul and proposed the creation of an inspector general
of the cia. His role on the Senate Judiciary Committee was
controversial vis-a-vis his Republican colleagues. He voted
against Robert Bork for the Supreme Court. He was an ardent
defender of Judge Clarence Thomas' nomination to the Su-
preme Court and an intense interrogator of Anita Hill, whom
he accused of perjury. His performance did not endear him
to women. In 1996 he was a candidate for president, but with-
drew before the first primary as it was clear that the Republi-
can Party was not going to nominate a pro-choice Republican
moderate. After Orrin Hatch completed his six years as chair-
man, Specter was in line to become chairman of the Judiciary
Committee, a move opposed by some Republican colleagues,
who were fearful of his moderation and his support of abor-
tion. He further enraged his colleagues by warning the admin-
istration not to appoint someone who was going to overturn
Roe v. Wade. He was forced to clarify - some say disavow -
his statement. Surrounded by his Republican Judiciary Com-
mittee colleagues, he said: "I have no reason to believe that I
will be unable to support any individual President Bush finds
worthy." In addition to tackling the major legislative business
before the Senate in 2005, Specter also engaged in a personal
battle with Stage ivb Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer. He under-
went nearly five months of chemotherapy but still maintained
all of his senatorial duties, including chairing hearings, vot-
ing, and brokering important legislative initiatives. On July 22,
2005, Specter received his last chemotherapy treatment and
subsequently received a clean bill of health.

In 2005 and early 2006 his leadership was tested in the
nomination of John Roberts to be chief justice of the Supreme
Court, the nomination and withdrawal of nomination of Har-
riet Miers, and finally the nomination of Samuel Alito as as-
sociate justice. His wife, Joan, is a former City Council mem-
ber in Philadelphia.

bibliography: K.F. Stone, The Congressional Minyan: The

Jews of Capitol Hill (2000); L.S. Maisels and I. Forman (eds.), Jews in

American Politics (2001).

[Michael Berenbaum (2 nd ed.)]

SPECTOR, JOHANNA (1920- ), U.S. ethno-musicologist,
filmmaker, and educator. Johanna Spector was born and grew
up in Latvia where her husband, Robert Spector, was killed
by the Nazis in 1941. She spent the war years in concentration
camps. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1947. She received her
doctorate in Hebrew Letters from the Hebrew Union College
(Cincinnati, 1950) and obtained a masters degree in anthro-
pology from Columbia University in i960. She was a research
fellow at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem (1951-53) and until
1957 she spent half the year in Israel, undertaking fieldwork
on the Yemenite, Kurdish, and Samaritan communities. In
1954 she joined the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York,
and founded its department of ethno-musicology in 1962, be-

coming associate professor in 1966 and full professor in 1970.
In the course of her research in Jewish music, she made an
extensive collection of recordings. Her personal archive of
11,000 tape recordings includes Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Sa-
maritan, Yemenite, and Indian (Cochin and Bombay) music of
Jewish communities. They are accompanied by thousands
of photographs, and later films from which she made docu-
mentaries, particularly on the Yemenites and Samaritans; she
published several studies on them. A large part of her col-
lection is at the National Archives of the Hebrew University.
She helped to found the Society for the Preservation of Sa-
maritan Culture and the Friends of the Samaritan Museum
in 1968, with the object of establishing a museum at Shechem

(Nablus).

[Amnon Shiloah (2 nd ed.)]

SPECTOR, MORDECAI (1858-1925), Yiddish novelist and
editor. Born in Uman, Ukraine, of a hasidic family, he came
under the influence of Haskalah literature and began to write
realistic sketches based on his personal experiences and ob-
servations of ordinary people in workshops and marketplaces.
A. *Zederbaum, editor of the St. Petersburg Yidish.es Folksblat,
published Spector s first novel in weekly installments under
the title Roman On a Nomen ("Novel without a Title," 1883).
Spector later became assistant editor of this paper. His sec-
ond novel, Der Yidisher Muzhik ("The Jewish Farmer," 1884),
aroused great interest since it advocated the return of Jews to
productive labor on their ancestral soil, a doctrine then prop-
agated by the Hovevei Zion. Spector also influenced *Shalom
Aleichem to set his literary sights on the provinces and on
shtetl life, then a neglected area in Yiddish literature. In 1887,
he settled in Warsaw, where, during the following decade,
he reached the height of his fame, writing feuilletons, travel
sketches, short stories, and novels, and editing a series of an-
thologies, Der Hoyzfraynd ("The Family Friend"), a landmark
in the development of modern Yiddish literature. In 1894, to-
gether with I.L. *Peretz and D. *Pinski, he launched the Yon-
tev Bletlekh ("Holiday Leaflets"), another literary landmark.
Other literary ventures followed during the ensuing two de-
cades. After the Communist Revolution, he experienced hard-
ships in Odessa. He escaped in 1920, and arrived in the U.S. in
1921. Living in New York, he completed a volume of memoirs,
Mayn Lebn ("My Life," 1927), which has great literary, histori-
cal, and cultural value. Spector was a writer for the masses,
whom he tried to entertain, educate, and uplift. Though nei-
ther an original thinker nor a subtle psychologist, he was an
excellent observer of reality, faithfully reproducing the col-
loquial speech of Jewish men and women in their homes,
shops, and alleys. He was a pioneer of Yiddish folklore and
of Yiddish writing for children, and was one of the first Yid-
dish writers to take a positive attitude toward Hasidism. His
collected works appeared in 10 volumes (1927-29). His stories
have been translated into eight languages, including English
(cf. I. Howe and E. Greenberg, ed. A Treasury of Yiddish Sto-
ries (i953)> 250-5).

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPECTOR, NORMAN

bibliography: Spektor-Bukh (1929), incl. bibl.; Rejzen, Lek-

sikon, 2 (1927), 691-708; lnyl, 6 (1965), 518-27; Dertseylers un Ro-

manistn (1946), 11-129; S. Niger, Bleter Geshikhte fun der Yidisher

Literatur (1959), 382-403; Y. Yeshurin, in: M. Spektor, Der Yidisher

Muzhik (1963), 264-8. add. bibliography: D. Roskies,A Bridge

of Longing (1995), 170-2.

[Moshe Starkman]

SPECTOR, NORMAN (1949- ), Canadian diplomat, public
servant, and media commentator. Spector was born and raised
in Montreal, where he attended Talmud Torah and Herzliah
day schools, worked part time as a packer for Steinberg's gro-
cery chain, and graduated from McGill University After ob-
taining his doctorate in political science from Columbia and a
masters degree in communications from Syracuse, he taught
for a year at the University of Ottawa in 1974-75 before taking
a position in the Ontario Ministry of Communications.

Spector moved to British Columbia, where he served as
deputy minister to Social Credit Premier Bill Bennett from
1982 to 1986. He was heavily involved in the government's bat-
tle with labor unions. His talents and fluency in French drew
him to employment in the federal government, and he became
secretary to the cabinet for federal-provincial relations in 1986,
then chief of staff to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in 1990.
Spector became one in a series of Jews who held very senior
positions with Canadian prime ministers of different political
stripe. These include Mel Cappe, Eddie Goldenberg, Stanley
Hartt, Chaviva Hosek, Hugh Segal, and David Zussman. In
Ottawa Spector played a major role in negotiating the unsuc-
cessful 1987 Meech Lake Accord, which would have had Que-
bec accept the Canadian Constitution passed by the Trudeau
Liberals in 1982. In 1992 Spector became Canadian ambassa-
dor to Israel and the Palestinian Authority. As Canada's first
Jewish ambassador to Israel, and as someone not from the
ranks of the diplomatic corps, his appointment caused some
opposition within the established foreign service community.
Spector proved evenhanded and studied Arabic to go along
with his fluency in Hebrew.

Returning to Canada in 1995, Spector became president
of the Atlantic Canada Opportunity Agency and an execu-
tive with Imperial Tobacco. He returned to Israel briefly in
1997 as publisher of The Jerusalem Post. Following his tenure
at The Jerusalem Posthe settled in Victoria, British Columbia.
He remains a frequent columnist for The Globe and Mail and
commentator on Canadian television news, often on Middle
East affairs. In 2003 he published Chronicle of a War Foretold:
How Mideast Peace Became America's Fight, based on his ar-
ticles in the Middle East.

[Morton Weinfeld (2 nd ed.)]

SPECTOR, PHIL (Harvey Philip; 1940- ), vastly influen-
tial rock music producer, who produced, arranged, and co-
wrote some of rock & roll's earliest classic tunes in the late
1950s and early 1960s; member of the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame. Spector was born in the Bronx to Bertha and Benjamin,

a Russian Jewish immigrant who committed suicide in 1949.
Spector, his mother, and sister, Shirley, moved to Los Angeles
in 1953, where Spector quickly proved proficient on numer-
ous instruments and became acquainted with L.A. rhythm
and blues musicians, including songwriters Jerry * Leiber and
Mike *Stoller, with whom he would later collaborate on the
No. 1 hit "Spanish Harlem." By 1958, having secured a small
recording contract, Spector wrote and performed what be-
came his first No. 1 hit, "To Know Him Is To Love Him," in-
spired by words written on his father's gravestone. In i960,
having apprenticed himself to Los Angeles music veterans,
including Lee Hazlewood, Spector began producing numer-
ous pop singles for journeyman singers. Two years later, hav-
ing become a millionaire from "Spanish Harlem" and other
early hits, Spector developed his own, innovative production
method. Later known as the "Wall of Sound," Spector massed
Los Angeles musicians and instruments into elaborate ar-
rangements that produced pop classics of undisputed emo-
tional and sonic impact. The lyrics for Spector's songs were
often produced by the mainly Jewish songwriting teams Car-
ole *King and Gerry Goffin, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry,
and Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. His hits included "Be My
Baby," by the Ronettes, and "Da Doo Ron Ron," by the Crys-
tals, both "girl groups," a genre Spector is credited with hav-
ing defined. The Ronettes were led by Veronica "Ronnie" Ben-
nett, later one of Spector's three wives. In 1965, "You've Lost
That Loving Feeling" by the Righteous Brothers reached No.
1, despite being nearly four minutes long - one- third longer
than the accepted standard. Spector got around that rule by
deliberately misprinting the song's time on the record's label.
Spector's rule of the charts faded after that, and he went into
self-imposed exile. He repeated his success in the early 1970s
with individual members of the Beatles, producing memorable
albums for George Harrison (All Things Must Pass) and John
Lennon (Plastic Ono Band), but Spector earned the longstand-
ing enmity of Beatle Paul McCartney for adding strings, horns,
and chorus to the uncompleted tapes of the Beatles' Let Lt Be
album. He was named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in
1989. Spector's litigious and eccentric behavior tarnished his
reputation, and he was accused of pulling weapons on sev-
eral of his artists, including Leonard *Cohen, with whom he
worked in the 1970s. In 2003, an actress was found shot dead
in Spector's Los Angeles home, and he was slated to stand trial

for murder in 2006.

[Alan D. Abbey (2 nd ed.)]

SPEISER, EPHRAIM AVIGDOR (1902-1965), U.S. Orien-
talist and archaeologist. Born in Skalat, Galicia, Speiser emi-
grated to the United States (1920). In 1926-27 he surveyed
northern Iraq, discovering Tepe Gawra, whose excavation,
along with that of the adjacent Tell Billa, he directed during
1930-32 and 1936-37. In 1927 Speiser taught comparative Se-
mitics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 1928 to
the end of his life he lectured in Semitic languages and litera-
tures at the University of Pennsylvania. During World War 11,

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPEKTOR, ISAAC ELHANAN

Speiser served as the chief of the Near East section of the Re-
search and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services.
From 1955 he was a key member of the translation committee
of the Jewish Publication Society of America that produced a
new English version of the To rah (1962).

Speiser was one of the pioneers in the discovery of the
*Hurrians and their culture. He clarified the scope and sig-
nificance of the Hurrian component in Western Asia during
the second millennium b.c.e. and investigated the structure
of their language in the still standard Introduction to Hurrian
(1941). In The United States and the Near East (1947, 1950 2 )
he illuminated the modern problems of the region by his ex-
pert knowledge of its long history. Speiser s philological and
synthetic studies in Mesopotamian civilization displayed its
values, with emphasis upon the centrality of law and the in-
fluence of Mesopotamian legal conceptions on peripheral
peoples, including Israel. During the last decade of his life he
devoted much time to the origin of Israel's history and faith.
He regarded these as both a reflex of, and a critical reaction to,
the Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures from which Israel
emerged. His biblical research culminated in the volume on
Genesis in the Anchor Bible (1964).

Speiser s scholarly, humanistic, and professional dis-
tinction was nationally recognized. He was a president of the
American Oriental Society, a member of the American Phil-
osophical Society, and a fellow of the American Academy for
Jewish Research.

bibliography: D.D. Finkelstein and M. Greenberg (eds.),

Oriental and Biblical Studies: Collected Writings ofE.A. Speiser (1967),

587-616; J.B. Pritchard et al. in: basor, 79 (1965), 2-7; M. Greenberg,

in: jaos, 88 (1968), 1-2.

[Moshe Greenberg]

SPEKTOR, ISAAC ELHANAN (1817-1896), Lithuanian
rabbi. Spektor was born in the province of Grodno, Russia,
and one of his teachers was Benjamin Diskin. After serving
as rabbi in various towns, Spektor went to Kovno, where he
officiated until his death. In Kovno he attained eminence as a
rabbinic authority and established a yeshivah (kolel avrekhim)
for the training of outstanding rabbis. He was unsuccessful in
his struggle to obtain official recognition for rabbis who were
not government appointees. On the other hand he struggled
successfully against a law requiring an official examination in
Russian from Jewish teachers and also secured the withdrawal
of a government decree prohibiting Jewish instruction in the
heder. At Spektor s instigation Samson Raphael *Hirsch wrote
his book on the relationship of the Talmud to Judaism, which
was submitted to the Russian government. He supported Isaac
*Dembo of Petersburg in his successful campaign against the
ban on shehitah in Russia. He frequently organized aid for
stricken communities in Russia, Lithuania, and other coun-
tries. Individuals and communities in distress, from all areas
of Jewish settlement, turned to him. He sought government
permission for the provision of kasher food to Jewish soldiers,
and maintained a soup kitchen in Kovno until his death. He

was the only rabbi invited to the conference of Jewish leaders
held in St. Petersburg (Leningrad) in 1881-82 to discuss the
deteriorating position of the Jews. He later dispatched a mani-
festo to David *Asher, secretary of the chief rabbi of London,
which resulted in protest meetings being held in England,
France, Italy, and the U.S. These meetings, whose resolutions
were submitted to the Russian government, attracted much
publicity and led to the establishment of welfare funds. In later
years he made similar pleas and participated in subsequent
conferences of Jewish leaders, maintaining confidential con-
tact with influential Jewish circles.

With the increasing Jewish emigration from Russia, he
supported the efforts of the Hovevei Zion movement, thereby
adding greatly to the movements prestige. The preparatory
meetings for the appointment of representatives to the *Kat-
towitz conference were held in his home, two delegates being
appointed, though he refused to accept nomination as hon-
orary trustee at the Hovevei Zion conference held in Druski-
ninkai in 1887. After the movement was given official recog-
nition, he publicly proclaimed the religious duty of settling in
Erez Israel, signing an appeal for the collection of funds for
this purpose in synagogues on the eve of the Day of Atone-
ment. On the question of agricultural labor in Erez Israel in
a shemittah ("sabbatical") year, he favored its permission by
the nominal sale of land to a non-Jew, a measure which is
employed to the present day. His ban on Corfu etrogim en-
abled the Palestinian variety to enter the market. He also
concerned himself with the amelioration of the spiritual and
religious needs of Jewish settlers in Argentina and the U.S.
Spektor won universal admiration for his broad-mindedness
and peace-loving disposition. In 1889 he was elected an hon-
orary member of the * Society for the Promotion of Culture
among the Jews of Russia. He was frequently requested to
serve as arbitrator. In a dispute over shehitah, referred to him
from London in 1891, he supported the chief rabbi against the
ultra- Orthodox element.

His works are Beer Yizhak (1858; 1948 2 ); Nahal Yizhak (2
pts., 1872-84); Ein Yizhak (2 pts., 1889-95); EzPeri (1881; 1903);
Devar ha-Shemittah (1889). His letters have been printed in
various collections. His works contain commentaries and no-
vellae to the Shulhan Arukh, particularly responsa to ques-
tions submitted to him from the various Jewish communities
in which he was regarded as the leading authority of his gen-
eration. Spektor exercised leniency, particularly in relieving
the burden of many *agunot. His 158 responsa on this subject
reveal only three cases where he could not find a basis for
permitting the woman to remarry. Many Torah institutions,
including the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary in
New York, were named after him.

bibliography: E. ShimofF, Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Spektor
(Eng. and Heb., 1961); J. Lipschitz, Toledot Yizhak (1896); L.P. Gart-
ner, Jewish Immigrant in England, 18/0-1914 (i960), index; Mirsky,
in: Guardians of our Heritage, ed. by L. Jung (1958), 301-15; A. Druy-
anov, Katavim le-Toledot Hibbat Ziyyon..., 1 (1919), xiii (index); 2
(1925), 28 (index); 3 (1932), 400-1; J. Nissenbaum, Ha-Dat ve-ha-

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPELLING, AARON

Tehiyyah ha-Leummit (1920), 130; J. Mark, Gedoylim fun Undzer

Tsayt (1927), 105-24; J. Lipschitz, Zikhron Yaakov (1924-30), passim;

Mirsky, in: Talpioth, 3 (1947/48), 121-5; Hill, ibid., 7 (i960), 558-81;

J.L. Maimon, Lemaan Ziyyon Lo Ehesheh, 1 (1954), 34; S.B. Hoenig,

in: jba, 28 (1970/71).

[Geulah Bat Yehuda (Raphael)]

SPELLING, AARON (1923-2006). U.S. television producer,
writer, and actor. Born in Dallas, Texas, Spelling enlisted in
the U.S. Army Air Force in 1942 and served in Europe during
World War 11. He briefly worked as a reporter for the Army's
newspaper, Stars and Stripes, and produced theatrical events
for the Army's special services branch. After attending the
University of Paris for one year, Spelling returned to Texas in
1946 to study drama at Southern Methodist University under
the gi Bill. There he wrote several plays, two of which took
Eugene O'Neill Awards. After graduating in 1950, he directed
local theater and then moved to Los Angeles, where he began
acting in television programs. He returned to writing and in
1956 sold a script, Unrelenting Sky, to Zone Grey Theater. Spell-
ing continued writing for the program and in i960 was named
producer of the series. He continued creating and producing
shows, including The Lloyd Bridges Show (1962-63) and Burkes
Law (1963-66). In 1968, Spelling hit it big with the action series
The Mod Squad (1968-73), kicking off similar shows, such as
The Rookies (1972-76), s.w.a.t. (1975-77), Starsky and Hutch
(1975-79), and Charlies Angels (1976-81). In 1976, Spelling and
Mike Nichols took a chance with Family (1976-80), but the
Emmy- nominated series about a middle-class family that was a
win with critics failed to find its audience. Spelling also sought
to balance his lighter fare with socially responsible television
movies, such as The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976) and The
Best Little Girl in the World (1981). Riding high from his success
with Charlies Angels, Spelling introduced shows that blended
action with glitz, such as Love Boat (1977-84), Fantasy Island
(1978-84), Vega$ (1978-81), and Hart to Hart (1979-84). In 1981,
Spelling further refined his formula for commercial success by
focusing on the trials and tribulations of the wealthy with Ho-
tel (1983-88), Dynasty (1981-89), and its spin-off The Colbys
(1985-87). His first feature film was the hit family comedy, Mr.
Mom (1983). Just as the late 1980s saw a decline in Spelling's
appeal, the launch of the Fox network helped reinvigorate his
empire with more youth -oriented shows, such as Beverly Hills,
90210 (1990-2000) and Melrose Place (1992-9). In 1993, Spell-
ing produced hbo's And the Band Played On, an expose of the
social, political, and personal realities of aids. After produc-
ing more than 200 television shows, Spelling said he had found
personal satisfaction in the success of y th Heaven (1996-2006),
a television series about a functional religious family.

bibliography: A. Spelling, in: St. James Encyclopedia of Pop-
ular Culture, 5 vols. (2000); A. Spelling, in: Contemporary Authors

Online (Thomson Gale, 2004).

[Adam Wills (2 nd ed.)]

SPELLMAN, FRANK (1922- ), weightlifter, Olympic and
Maccabiah medalist, member of the U.S. Weightlifting Hall of

Fame and the Helms Hall of Fame. Born in Malvern, Pennsyl-
vania, Spellman was orphaned at the age of seven and raised
in a Jewish orphanage in Philadelphia. Originally trained in
track and gymnastics, in his late teens Spellman came under
the tutelage of weightlifter Dan Leone, and in 1942 he won
the U.S. junior middleweight title. In December of that year
he was drafted into the Army Air Corps, where he served
until his honorable discharge in December 1945. Spellman,
who had maintained his training, returned to Pennsylvania
and was accepted to the well-known York Barbell team. At
the 1946 U.S. Amateur Athletic Union (aau) competition, he
took first place in the middleweight division, and later that
year finished 3 rd at the World Championships in Paris, while
helping the American weightlifters win the world team title.
In 1947, Spellman moved down a notch to second place at the
aau Nationals, but moved up to second place at the World
Championships in Philadelphia. Now at the peak of his form,
in 1948 for the second time in his young career he won the aau
middleweight national title. Then, as the No. 1 middleweight
lifter for the U.S. Olympic team, Spellman won the gold medal
at the 1948 London games. After 1948, Spellman remained a
force in weightlifting, finishing in second place in the aau Na-
tionals four times between 1949 and 1954. In addition, he won
a gold medal at the 1950 Maccabiah games. Spellman did not
compete in the national or world championships after 1954,
though he did compete in the California State Championships,
taking first place in 1954, 1957, and 1958. At the age of 38 and
after a two-year hiatus from participation in any competitions,
Spellman decided to close out his career by making one final
appearance at the 1961 aau National Championships, in Santa
Monica, California. To the surprise of many weightlifting en-
thusiasts, Spellman overcame the odds to win the middle-
weight division for his third U.S. title. Besides his champion-
ship titles and two gold medals over the course of his 16 -year
career, Spellman set four American records and two Olym-
pic world records. From 1957 to 1961, Spellman was the coach
and mentor of Carl Miller, who became a highly- acclaimed
weightlifting and strength trainer. Spellman eventually settled
in Florida, and was still lifting into his eighties and acting as
an unofficial coach of aspiring weightlifters.

[Robert B.Klein (2 nd ed.)]

°SPENCER, JOHN (1630-1693), English theologian and He-
braist. Spencer was master of Corpus Christi College, Cam-
bridge, from 1667 onward and in 1677 became dean of Ely. He
published a Dissertatio de Urim et Thummim (1669), a kind
of prologue to his more famous work, De legibus Hebraeorum
Ritualibus et earum Rationibus (1685), which laid the founda-
tions of the science of comparative religion. In this work Spen-
cer maintained that many Jewish laws and customs could be
linked with those of other Semitic peoples, producing exam-
ples from sacrificial rites, the Temple and its appurtenances,
and the institution of the scapegoat.

In the second work (2 vols., 1727), which only appeared
years after his death, he expanded his thesis to include rabbinic

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPERO, NANCY

institutions (e.g., tefillin), basing much of his speculation on
*Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed. A third edition of the
work, also in two volumes, was published at Tuebingen in 1732.
Some of Spencers writings appeared in Blasio Ugolino's The-
saurus Antiquitatum Sacrarum (Venice, 1744-69).

bibliography: CM. Pfaff, in: J. Spencer, DeLegibus... (Tue-
bingen, 1732); W.R. Smith, Religion of the Semites (1956), v-xi; J. Gutt-
mann, in: Festschrift .. . D. Simonsen (1923), 258-76. add. bibliog-
raphy: odnb online.

SPERBER, DAN (1942- ), French social and cognitive sci-
entist. His father was the Galician-born novelist and essayist
Manes Sperber. Born in France, Dan Sperber was educated at
the Sorbonne, where he earned a Licence es Lett res in 1962,
and at Oxford, where he received a B.Litt. in 1968. The direc-
tor of research at the Centre National de Recherches Scienti-
fiques (cnrs) in Paris, Sperber was well known for his work
in developing what he terms an "epidemiology of representa-
tions" in his naturalistic theory of culture.

Sperber s early research focused on the anthropology of
religion from the perspective of innate mental structures; he
argues that these structures have played an important role in
the development of religious beliefs and in the way that beliefs
"fixate" in the human mind and are "extraordinarily catching."
His studies of linguistics, experimental psychology, the phi-
losophy of science, and evolutionary biology led to his further
exploration of cultural theory, using a naturalistic approach
linked to evolution. His works include Rethinking Symbolism
(1975); On Anthropological Knowledge (1985); and Explaining
Culture: A Naturalistic Approach (1996). His "epidemiology of
representations," which may be conceived as a "contagion" of
ideas, concerns the processes of replication and transforma-
tion of cultural beliefs, which Sperber likens to models of the
transmission of disease.

Sperber also developed, with British linguist Deirdre Wil-
son, a cognitive approach to communication that has become
known as "relevance theory." Their 1986 work, Relevance: Com-
munication and Cognition, has received much attention; their
theory, though influential, has also generated controversy, as
has Sperber s "epidemiology of representations." In Relevance,
the authors argue that human cognition relies on perceived
relevance: that humans pay attention only to information that
seems relevant. The work also approaches the study of reasoning
by considering the role of contextual information, and questions
contemporary views on the nature of verbal comprehension.

Sperber was a visiting lecturer at several institutions,
including Cambridge University, the British Academy, the
London School of Economics, the Van Leer Institute in Jeru-
salem, the University of Michigan, the University of Bologna,
the University of Hong Kong, and the Institute for Advanced

Study at Princeton University.

[Dorothy Bauhoff (2 nd ed.)]

SPERBER, DANIEL (1940- ), historian and Talmud scholar.
Born in Wales in 1940, he moved to Israel after high school and

studied at the Kol Torah and Hebron yeshivot. In the 1960s
he studied the history of art at England's Courtauld Insti-
tute. In 1978 he became a full professor of Talmud at Bar-Ilan
University. He has written on economic history, as in Roman
Palestine, 200-400: Money and Prices and in Roman Palestine.
200-400: The Land and on Jewish art and history, Minhagei
Israel (1998), Why Jews Do What They Do (1999), and the City
in Roman Palestine (2001), among other topics. From 1985 he
was a member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language. In
1992 he received the Israel Prize for Jewish Studies.

SPERBER, MANES (1905-1984), French author and editor.
Born in Zablotov, Eastern Galicia, Sperber spent much of his
youth in Vienna, where he was prominent in the *Ha-Shomer
ha-Za'ir Zionist youth movement. He was assistant to the psy-
chologist Alfred *Adler, whose life and work Sperber discussed
in a study published in 1926. From 1927 to 1933 he taught psy-
chology in Berlin and founded a psychological review. For
some years he was an active communist, but finally left the
party in 1937. After the Nazis came to power in Germany, he
escaped to France. Later he became a director of the impor-
tant French publishing house of Calmann-Levy and turned to
literature, first writing in German and later in French.

His main works were Et le Buisson Devint Cendre (1944;
The Burned Bramble, 1951); Plus Profond que labime (1949; The
Abyss, 1952); La Baie Perdue (1952; journey Without End, 1954),
an epic of the underground; the essay Le Talon dAchille (1957;
The Achilles Heel, 1959); and Man and His Deeds (1970), an al-
ternative to the politics of the present. Like Arthur *Koestler,
he depicts the moral collapse of the revolutionary edifice and
the disillusionment of its architects. He parts company with
Koestler when he propounds a positive attitude to Jewishness
and is deeply immersed in Jewish culture. This is particularly
noticeable in the story "Quune larme dans Vocean" which
forms part of La Baie Perdue. Here the novelist sets forth the
eternal spiritual resistance of the Jews. In his preface to the
book, Andre Malraux (d. 1976) eulogized it as "one of the Jew-
ish peoples greatest stories."

bibliography: C. Lehrmann, L'Element Juif dans la Litte-

rature Francaise, 2 (1961), 178-83; G.L. Mosse, in: New York Times

(Nov. 11, 1970).

[Arnold Mandel]

SPERO, NANCY (1926- ), U.S. painter. Cleveland -born,
feminist artist Nancy Spero studied at the Art Institute of Chi-
cago (1945-49) and at the Atelier Andre FHote and the Ecole
des Beaux- Arts (1949-50) in Paris. While at the Art Institute,
she met the artist Leon *Golub, whom she married in 1951.

Conceived while Spero and Golub were living in Paris
from 1959 until 1964, her early Black Paintings show figures
materializing from a dark background. Several of these can-
vases portray women segregated into stereotypical roles, such
as a mother or a prostitute. In Paris, Spero had her first solo
exhibition at the Galerie Breteau (1962). Following the cou-
ple's move to New York in 1964, Spero initiated The War Series

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPERO, SHUBERT

(1966-70), a group of gouache drawings on paper that often
show the effects of bombing by utilizing iconography that
equates the male phallus with annihilation. From 1969-72,
Spero worked on the Codex Artaud, her first scroll and a for-
mat she would explore for many years. Based on the writings
of Antonin Artaud, Spero juxtaposes typed excerpts from Ar-
taud's poems with painted imagery arranged in a collage-like
fashion on strips of paper. For Spero, Artaud s prose, which
describes his alienation and anguish, metaphorically articu-
lated the position of women in a patriarchal world.

Spero began designing museum installations in the late
1980s. After reading Bertolt Brechts poem about Marie Sand-
ers, a woman who slept with a Jew and was subsequently mur-
dered for her perceived transgression, Spero made several in-
stallations about her, including Ballad of Marie Sanders, The
Jews Whore at Smith College Museum of Art, Northhampton,
Massachusetts (1990) and The Ballad of Marie Sanders/Voices:
Jewish Women in Time at the Jewish Museum (1993). The lat-
ter installation reproduced photographs showing victimized
women in the Warsaw Ghetto, concentration camps, and other
Nazi-related brutalities, as well as women in a more powerful
position, such as female Israeli soldiers and female Israeli and
Palestinian peace activists. Spero also depicted Sanders in a
paper print and a scroll.

From 1969 Spero was a member of Women Artists in
Revolution (war), a group dedicated to female equality in the
arts. She co-founded the Artists in Residence Gallery, an art
gallery for women based in New York City, in 1972.

bibliography: D. Nahas, Nancy Spero: Works Since 1950
(1987); N. Spero, Nancy Spero: Woman Breathing (1992); K. Kline and
H. Posner, Leon Golub and Nancy Spero: War and Memory (1994); J.
Bird, J. Isaak, and S. Lotringer, Nancy Spero (1996).

[Samantha Baskind (2 nd ed.)]

SPERO, SHUBERT (1923- ), U.S. rabbi. Born in New York
City, Spero received his rabbinic ordination at Yeshiva and
Mesifta Torah VaDaath in 1947. After serving as rabbi at the
Young Israel of Brookline, Mass. (1947-50) he assumed the
same position at Young Israel of Cleveland (1950-83). He holds
a B.S.S. from the ccny, an M.A. from Case Western Reserve
University, and a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University
(1971). His thesis was on the subject, "The Justification and Sig-
nificance of Religious Belief." He also served as the secretary
of the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of Cleveland and lecturer
in philosophy at the Cleveland Institute of Art. After making
aliyah to Israel in 1983, he has served as Irving Stone Profes-
sor of Basic Jewish Thought at Bar-Ilan University.

For over 40 years Spero made contributions to Jewish
thought in areas of moral philosophy, aesthetics, religious
Zionism, and the accommodation between traditional Juda-
ism and modern life. His published works include Faith in the
Night (A Bedside Companion for the Sick) (1957); a compilation
of Maimonides' writings, The Faith of a Jew (1949); and Story
of Chasam Sofer (1946). His book God in All Seasons (1967)
discusses Jewish festivals as an integral force in the life of the

observant Jew. His major philosophical work Morality, Hal-
akha and the Jewish Tradition (1982) is an attempt to present a
comprehensive study of the morality of Judaism. In this work
he argues that the ultimate creative task of man is to create
himself as a moral personality.

After many years of research he published his second ma-
jor work, Holocaust and Return to Zion (2000). In this book
he analyzes the idea of history from both a Jewish and a phil-
osophical perspective. He presents a novel interpretation of
exile in Jewish history, in which it has the special function of
bringing about the slow, progressive development of certain
key factors in Jewish and world history that make a renewed
Jewish sovereign polity possible.

These key factors are from the Jewish side: the presence
of a sizable number of Jews, identifiable as Biblical Israel, in
Europe by the middle of the 19 th century, in possession of a
Torah which had been elaborated into a viable philosophic
worldview and a comprehensive way of life, and from the
side of the larger society, the spread of liberal democracy, the
doctrine of human rights, the growth of science and technol-
ogy, and the serious efforts to establish institutions working
toward an international order. As he understands it, the im-
probable conjunction of these key factors made possible the
reestablishment of the Jewish state within the historic bound-
aries in 1948 - a return that had been promised by the He-
brew prophets.

Spero suffered a great personal tragedy in the 2003 sui-
cide bombing at Cafe Hillel in Jerusalem. Both his son-in-law,
physician Dr. David Appelbaum, and his granddaughter, Nava,
who was to be married the next day, were killed in the blast.
Spero and his family in the following years dedicated them-
selves to establishing humanitarian and religious projects in
memory of his son-in-law and granddaughter.

[Shalom Freedman (2 nd ed.)]

SPERTUS INSTITUTE OF JEWISH STUDIES (formerly
the College of Jewish Studies), Chicago educational institute
organized in 1924 by the Board of Jewish Education of Chicago
to provide opportunities for systematic Jewish studies and for
training teachers. The College opened under the leadership
of Alexander Dushkin, the executive director of the Board of
Jewish Education, with five students, who met in rented quar-
ters in different parts of the city. Dushkin later established the
Department of Education at The Hebrew University. In 1935
Leo Honor, the colleges administrator, succeeded Dushkin
as director of the Board of Jewish Education with Samuel M.
Blumenfield serving as registrar and, later, dean of the college.
Under the leadership of Dr. Leo Honor and Rabbi Samuel Blu-
menfield, the identity of the college as a distinct institution
began to emerge. In 1942, it was authorized to grant degrees
by the Illinois Department of Education. As a result of the
steady growth of the college, the Board of Jewish Education
recommended that it become a separate corporation with its
own board of governors. In 1945 the college was incorporated
as a Not-for-Profit Illinois Corporation. In its charter, issued

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPEWACK, BELLA

that year, the institutional mission was defined as "Maintain-
ing and operating a College in which youths and adults may
receive an education on a college and post graduate level in. . .
any subject relating to Jews and Judaism." This represented an
expansion of the college's original mission of being primarily
a teachers' training institution. In 1946 it moved into its own
building and expanded its program to include studies lead-
ing to the Bachelor of Hebrew Literature degree and teachers'
diplomas. With the addition to the faculty of distinguished
scholars from Europe and Israel, the college initiated gradu-
ate studies. Spertus College now offers eight post-graduate de-
grees, and through distance learning options serves students
in 36 U.S. states and six foreign countries. The Spertus Cen-
ter for Nonprofit Management provides working profession-
als with tools to succeed in the nonprofit and public service
sectors, through its master's program and continuing educa-
tion opportunities.

From the 1940s until the 1960s, the college served as the
central institution in Chicago and in the American Midwest
for the training of Jewish educators and as the central insti-
tution in Chicago for Hebrew culture, thereby expressing the
ideology of Cultural Zionism that characterized its early his-
tory, programs, and curricula. By 1948, a department of gradu-
ate studies offering bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees
had been initiated. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, can-
tors and choir directors were trained for synagogues through
its Institute for Jewish Music. From 1965 the college has served
other colleges and universities as a department of Judaic
studies, in which students may pursue a major or minor
curriculum as well as elective courses. From the 1940s until
the mid-1960s, the college operated a summer camp, Camp
Sharon, and initiated and substantially expanded continuing
education programs in Chicago and surrounding suburbs.
Many renowned refugee scholars who migrated to America
to escape Hitler served on the Spertus faculty during these
years.

In 1968, Maurice Spertus donated his impressive col-
lection of Jewish ceremonial objects to the college, thus be-
ginning the Spertus Museum. In 1970, the College of Jew-
ish Studies honored the outstanding and ongoing support of
the families of Maurice and his brother Herman Spertus by
changing its name to the Spertus College of Judaica. In 1974,
Spertus moved to its present Michigan Avenue location. That
same year, Norman and Helen Asher, recognizing the impor-
tance of a first class library, endowed what is now the Norman
and Helen Asher Library, which contains more than 100,000
books. The Asher Library also includes the Targ Center for
Jewish Music and the Chicago Jewish Archives.

In 1968, the College of Jewish Studies was officially sep-
arated from the Board of Jewish Education. Among the dis-
tinguished scholars who served on the faculty were Simon
Halkin, Simon Rawidowicz, Meyer Waxman, Samuel Fei-
gen, Moses Shulvass, Judah Rosenthal, and Byron Sherwin.
Samuel B. Blumenfield was its first president, followed in
1954 by Abraham Duker, and in 1962, by David Weinstein. In

1984, Dr. Howard A. Sulkin became the organization's sev-
enth president.

In 1971, Spertus College started the first college level
course in the Midwest in Holocaust Studies, and in 1975 Sper-
tus Museum created the Bernard and Rochelle Zell Holocaust
Memorial, the first permanent Holocaust exhibition in North
America, the centerpiece of the Bernard and Rochelle Zell
Center for Holocaust Studies.

In 1987, Spertus College established The Joseph Cardinal
Bernardin Center for the Study of Eastern European Jewry.
Jointly sponsored with the Archdiocese of Chicago, the center
is dedicated to promoting interfaith dialogue and increased
understanding between eastern European and Jewish com-
munities.

In 1993, the Spertus College of Judaica officially became
the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, reflecting its multidis-
ciplinary identity. Along with the name change, reflecting its
multifaceted approach to the study of Jewish culture, came a
renewed declaration of institutional goals and new long term
strategies on how to implement them.

[Samuel M. Blumenfield]

SPEWACK, BELLA (i899?-i99o), U.S. journalist, screen-
writer, and playwright. Born in Transylvania, Bella Cohen
emigrated with her mother to the Lower East Side of New
York in 1903. After graduating from Washington Irving High
School, she began writing for the socialist newspaper The
Call and also worked as a press agent for various organiza-
tions. Among them was the Girl Scouts, where she is reputed
to have invented the idea for the Girl Scout cookie. In 1922,
Bella Cohen married Samuel Spewack, a newspaperman for
the New York World, and they traveled together to Berlin
and Moscow as foreign correspondents. While in Berlin in
1922, Spewack penned her posthumously-published memoir,
Streets: A Memoir of the Lower East Side (1995) and also began
writing short stories. "The Laugh," published in Best Short Sto-
ries of 1925 , was one of more than 40 short stories she wrote
in her twenties. Developing their talent in association, Bella
and Sam Spewack wrote a number of successful comedies for
stage and screen, including the plays Boy Meets Girl (1935), a
satire on Hollywood which ran on Broadway for 669 perfor-
mances; Clear All Wires (1932), a farcical newspaper melo-
drama; My Three Angels (1953); and The Festival (1955); and
films such as My Favorite Wife (1940), starring Cary Grant;
and Weekend at the Waldorf (1945), starring Ginger Rogers.
Perhaps their best known works are the books they wrote for
two highly successful Cole Porter musicals, Leave It To Me!
(1938), and Kiss Me Kate (1948), which won the Tony Award
that year. Spewack was deeply involved in the theatrical and
intellectual world of mid-twentieth century New York City.
Her papers, in the Samuel and Bella Spewack Collection in
the Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Columbia Univer-
sity, include correspondence with George and Ira Gershwin,
George S. Kaufman, Thornton Wilder, Mary Martin, Lillian
Hellman, Eleanor Roosevelt, and many others. In 1953 the Spe-

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPEYER

wacks founded a sports club in Ramat Gan, Israel, for child
victims of poliomyelitis.

bibliography: J. Mersand, Traditions in American Liter-
ature, a Study of Jewish Characters and Authors (1939), 73-77; S.J.
Kunitz (ed.), Twentieth Century Authors-, first supplement (1955).

[Andrea Most (2 nd ed.)]

SPEYER (Fr. Spire; Eng. sometimes Spires), city in the Rhen-
ish Palatinate, Germany. Although local traditions, largely leg-
endary, speak of Jewish settlement in Speyer in Roman times,
Jews probably first came to the city in the early 11 th century.
Documentary evidence for a Jewish settlement in the city
dates only from 1084, when Bishop Ruediger settled Jews in
the village of Altspeyer, which he incorporated into Speyer
"to increase the honor of the town a thousand fold." At that
time Jews fled from *Mainz for fear of persecution because of
a fire they were accused of having caused. The bishop allotted
them a special residential quarter and gave them a plot from
Church lands to be used as a cemetery. They were also allowed
to build a protective wall around their quarter. In a privilege,
dated Sept. 13, 1084, Bishop Ruediger granted them unre-
stricted freedom of trade and considerable autonomy. The *ar-
chisynagogos, later also called "bishop of the Jews" (Judaeorum
episcopi), was the spiritual head of the community; in lawsuits
between Jews he was permitted to give rulings in accordance
with Jewish law. The Jews were also expressly allowed to sell to
Christians meat which was ritually unclean for Jews, and they
did not have to pay any duties or tolls when entering or leaving
the city. They also had the right to engage Christian servants.
The privilege granted by Bishop Ruediger was confirmed by
Emperor Henry iv on Feb. 19, 1090, to * Judah b. Kalonymus,
David b. Meshullam, and Moses b. Jekuthiel of Speyer; in ad-
dition to renewing the privileges granted by Bishop Ruediger,
the emperor guaranteed the Jews freedom of trade in his em-
pire as well as his protection. Henrys privilege document is
of more than passing interest to the historian, since city privi-
leges were at the time a new category of constitutional docu-
ments in Germany. By 1096 a synagogue had been built. The
mikveh, first mentioned in 1125, was in the vicinity.

The Jewish community of Speyer was one of the first
Rhine communities to suffer during the First * Crusade. On a
Sabbath, the eighth of Iyyar (May 3, 1096), a mob of crusad-
ers surrounded the synagogue intent upon attacking the com-
munity while all were gathered in one spot. Forewarned, the
Jews had concluded their service early and fled to their homes.
Nevertheless, 10 Jews were caught outside their homes and
killed. One woman committed suicide rather than submit to
baptism, an act that was to be repeated frequently during the
period. When Bishop John heard of what occurred, he came
to the defense of the Jews with his militia, prevented further
bloodshed, and punished some of the murderers. As an added
precaution, he hid some of the Jews in villages surrounding
Speyer, where they stayed until the danger had passed. The
Jews returned to their homes, still fearful of attacks against
them. Jews living in Altspeyer (the upper part of the city) did

not attend the synagogue located in the lower portion of the
city because of such fears. Instead, they held services at the
bet midrash of R. Judah b. Kalonymus until a new synagogue
was erected in Altspeyer in 1104.

The community grew and prospered during the 12 th cen-
tury; its economic position was excellent and it established
itself as a center of Torah. Among the scholars of Speyer in
this period were Eliakim b. Meshullam ha-Levi, a student of
* Isaac b. Judah of Mainz; Kalonymus b. Isaac, known as a
mystic as well as a talmudist; *Isaac b. Asher ha-Levi; Jacob
b. Isaac ha-Levi, a German tosafist and author of a dirge on
the Crusade period; *Samuel b. Kalonymus he-Hasid; Shem-
ariah b. Mordecai, a correspondent of R. Jacob *Tam and a
great talmudic authority; Meir b. Kalonymus, the author of
a commentary to the Sifra, Sifrei, and Mekhilta; and Judah b.
Kalonymus b. Meir, the author of a talmudic lexicon, Yihusei
Tannaim ve- Amor aim. In 1195, after severe persecutions fol-
lowing a *blood libel, Emperor Henry vi demanded that the
Jews be compensated for damages and that the burned syna-
gogue and ruined houses be rebuilt. Under the guidance of R.
Hezekiah ha-Nagid, the Jews rebuilt their community. Early
in its history the community developed a close relationship
with the other Rhine communities and particularly with the
closely allied cities of Mainz and Worms (see *Shum). In a
series of synods beginning in 1196 they promulgated a series
of communal decrees known as takkanot Shum, later to be of
decisive influence on all Ashkenazi communities. The synod
of 1223 took place in Speyer; among the most important schol-
ars participating in the synods was R. *Simhah b. Samuel of
Speyer, although Speyer had then lost the dominant position
it had held as a Torah center.

A flourishing community continued to exist in Speyer
until the middle of the 14 th century, although the Jews were
drawn into a conflict between the bishop and the burghers
in 1265, and in 1282 a blood libel brought suffering upon the
community. In 1286 many Jews of Speyer and the neighbor-
ing communities of Worms, Mainz, and * Oppenheim were
involved in the ill-fated attempt at immigration to Erez Israel
led by *Meir b. Baruch of Rothenburg. In December 1339 both
the bishop and the municipality promised their protection
to the Jewish community for a period of ten years. The city
possessed a Judengasse but Christians lived on it as well, and
Jews owned houses elsewhere in the city. The community had
a high degree of autonomy, administered by a "Judenbischof"
together with a Jewish municipal council. In this period the
community maintained not only a synagogue and a cemetery
but also a communal wedding hall, a hospital for the indigent
poor (*hekdesh) y and a matzah bakery. The community suf-
fered somewhat during a blood libel in 1342; it was, however,
to meet its destruction during the *Black Death persecutions.
In January 1349 a mob gathered and stormed the Jewish quar-
ter. Some Jews locked themselves into their houses and set fire
to them; others were killed by the mob, while a small number
allowed themselves to be baptized in order to save their lives.
Among the martyrs was the scholarly R. Eliakim, treasurer of

100

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPEYER

the community's hospital. The loss of life was very great; out of
fear of contamination, the burghers packed Jewish corpses in
wine barrels and threw them into the Rhine. A small number
were able to flee to neighboring communities such as ^Hei-
delberg and Sinzheim. All Jewish property was confiscated
or destroyed by the mob in an attempt to find hidden gold in
Jewish homes. Tombstones were dragged away and utilized
in the building of towers and walls, while the graveyard was
plowed and sown with corn. All debts owed to the Jews were
annulled. Emperor Charles iv absolved the city's inhabit-
ants of any wrongdoing and allowed the city to retain confis-
cated Jewish properties. Although their houses in Altspeyer
remained in Christian hands, Jewish autonomy was restored
in 1354 and part of the cemetery returned, together with the
right to rebuild communal institutions.

With much difficulty the community was rebuilt, but
without any of its prior standing as a center of learning. Em-
peror *Wenceslaus issued a new letter of protection (see
*Schutzjuden) to the Jews of Speyer in 1394. Nevertheless, in
1405 they were expelled from the city and allowed to return
only in 1421. In 1430 they were again expelled, returning again
in 1434, only to be driven out once more a year later. After an
interval of 30 years they were again domiciled in Speyer. In
1467 the city granted the Jews their protection for a period of
ten years. Yet in 1468 and 1472 Bishop Matthias von Rammung
issued anti- Jewish decrees, including a ban on charging inter-
est and practicing usury; forbidding Jews to appear publicly on
Christian feast days; forcing Jews to wear distinctive clothing;
forbidding the building of a school or synagogue without the
bishop's permission; and an edict confining Speyer Jews to a
ghetto. By that time, however, the number of Jews in Speyer
was very small. In fact, from the 16 th to the 18 th centuries, only
individual Jews lived in the city. Those who fled from Speyer
settled in neighboring places such as * Bruchsal, Berghausen,
Harthausen, Dudenhofen, Otterstadt, and *Landau.

In the 19 th century the community was renewed; by
1828 it was flourishing once more. A new talmud tor ah was
opened, employing a permanent teacher. In 1829 the statutes
of the community, which determined the synagogue regula-
tions in particular, were published. In 1831 a Jewish elemen-
tary school was dedicated and in 1837 a synagogue, with an
adjoining mikveh; the synagogue was enlarged in 1866. A new
Jewish cemetery was consecrated in 1888. There were several
societies for social self-help, which united in 1910 to aid the
needy. The board of the community consisted of five mem-
bers in 1920. At the beginning of the 20 th century Dr. Adolf
Wolf *Salvendi and Dr. Steckelmacher were rabbis of Speyer.

Holocaust Period

In 1933 there were 269 Jews in Speyer, since many had previ-
ously moved to other German cities. That same year all the
community's cultural associations as well as the Jewish youth
societies were banned. The Speyer municipal government in-
vestigated the proprietors of firms and placed orders only with
"Aryan" firms. In May 1934 the community initiated courses

for the study of Hebrew; in 1935 a conference of Jewish youth
took place in Speyer. In subsequent years, up to the outbreak
of the war, many emigrated because of increasing antisemitic
excesses. Almost all young Jews left the city. In 1939 there
were still 77 Jews there; in 1940 there were 60. Of these, 51
were deported on Oct. 22, 1940, to the *Gurs concentration
camp in France and almost all the rest to camps in Eastern
Europe, where they perished. No new community was estab-
lished in Speyer after the war. The synagogue that had been
built in 1836 was destroyed in 1938, but the cemetery still ex-
isted in 1971. Remains of the old Jews' court and Jewish pub-
lic baths were preserved in the Palatinate Historical Museum
in Speyer, along with a number of Jewish tombstones from
the 12 th and 15 th centuries and Jewish ritual objects from the
former community.

The medieval synagogue in Speyer, dating back to 1104,
is the oldest Jewish religious structure preserved in Germany.
Archaeological excavations in 2001 brought new findings
about the history of the building, the interior, and the early
history of the Jews in the episcopal city. In 2004-2005 the
Palatinate Historical Museum in Speyer held the exhibition
"The Jews of Europe in the Middle Ages," which included a
computer-based reconstruction of the synagogue. Near the
site of the synagogue, a plaque (inaugurated in 1978) com-
memorates the building that was destroyed in 1938. Another
memorial to the former Jewish community was consecrated
in 1992, bearing the names of all the Speyer Jews who perished
during the Nazi era.

After 1990 Jews from the former Soviet Union settled
in Speyer. They are partially affiliated with the Jewish com-
munity of Rhine Palatinate in Neustadt. In 2005 there were
about 50 members. The Neustadt community planned to open
a new community center with a synagogue in 2006. Besides
Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union, a Jewish
community was founded in Speyer in 1996. There were 100
members in 2005.

bibliography: Germania Judaica, 1 (1963), 326-66; 2 (1968),
775-82; vol. 3 (1987), 1384-1401; fjw; E. Carlebach, Die Rechtli-
chen und sozialen Verhaeltnisse der Juedischen Gemeinden Speyer,
Worms und Mainz... (1901); A. Epstein, Juedische Alterthuemer in
Worms und Speyer (1896); L. Rothschild, Die Judengemeinden zu
Mainz, Speyer und Worms von 1349-1438 (1904); R. Herz, Gedenk-
schrift zum 100-jaehrigen Bestehen der Synagoge in Speyer (1937);
EJ. Hildebrand, Das Romanische Judenbad im alten Synagogenhofe
zu Speyer (1900); A. Neubauer and M. Stern, Hebraeische Berichte
ueber die Judenverfolgungen waehrend der Kreuzzuege (1892), pas-
sim; M. Wiener, in: mgwj, 12 (1863), 161-77, 255-68, 297-310, 417-31;
454-66; D. Kaufmann, ibid., 35 (1886), 517-20; O. Stobbe, in: zgjd,
1 (1887), 205-15; M. Stern, ibid., 3 (1889), 245-8; R. Strauss, ibid., 7
(!937)> 2 34 _ 9; R- Krautheimer, Mittelalterliche Synagogen (1927),
145-50; G. Stein, Judenhof und Judenbad in Speyer am Rhein (1969);
idem, Zur Datierung des Speyerer Judenbades (1964); Finkelstein,
Middle Ages; A. Kober, in: paajr, 14 (1944), 187-220; Aronius, Re-
gesten, no. 168; Kisch, Germany, index; Monumenta fudaica (1963),
index; A.M. Habermann, Gezerot Ashkenaz ve-Zarefat (1946); K.
Duewell, Die Rheingebiete in der Judenpolitik des Nationalsozialismus
vor 1942 (1968), index, add bibliography: Geschichte der Juden

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

101

SPEYER

in Speyer (Beitraege zur Speyerer Stadtgeschichte, vol. 6) (1981); G.
Stein, Speyer, Judenhof und Judenbad (Grosse Baudenkmaeler, vol.
238) (1989 7 ); S. Wipfler-Pohl, "Vom Leben Juedischer Frauen," in: F.
Ebli (ed.), Frauen in Speyer. Leben und Wirken in zwei Jahrtausenden
(1990); J. Bruno and L. Moeller, Der Speyerer Judenhof und die mittel-
alterliche Gemeinde (2001); J. Bruno and E. Dittus, Juedisches Leben
in Speyer (2004). websites: www.alemannia-judaica.de; www.jgs-
online.de; http://museum.speyer.de/de/histmus; www.speyer.de/de/
tourist/sehenswert/judenhof.

[B. Mordechai Ansbacher / Larissa Daemmig (2 nd ed.)]

SPEYER, German and American family of international
bankers and philanthropists. Progenitor of the family was
michael isaac speyer (d. 1692) who, on his marriage in
1644, established residence in the Frankfurt ghetto and be-
came community head. His great-grandson isaac michael
speyer (d. 1807) was an Imperial Court Jew. The latter's
nephew Joseph lazarus speyer (1783-1846) married into
the Frankfurt banking family Ellissen, and his son lazarus
Joseph speyer (1810-1876) carried on business from 1836 un-
der the hyphenated name Lazard Speyer- Ellissen. The latter's
partner, philipp speyer (1815-1876), moved to New York
in 1837. Together with his brother gustav (1825-1883) he es-
tablished the bank Philipp Speyer & Co. in 1845, later Speyer
& Co. Together with its Frankfurt affiliate, it placed the first
North American Civil War loan in Germany. Gustav's Amer-
ican-born sons, james (1861-1941) and edgar (1862-1932)
piloted the family concern to its height. While remaining
partners of the Frankfurt house, whose last head was their
brother-in-law ed uard beit von speyer (1860-1933), James
conducted the American business and Edgar took charge of
Speyer Brothers, London. Edgar was made a baronet, but,
suffering defamation during World War 1, returned to New
York. Speyer & Co. alone, and sometimes jointly with *Kuhn,
Loeb & Co. and National City Bank, led syndicates which
raised European capital for investment in American industry.
This movement was reversed after World War 1, when a
subsidiary, New York 8c Foreign Investing Corporation, mo-
bilized American capital for investment, mainly through the
Frankfurt branch, in German and other Central European
issues. Absorbing a Berlin private bank in 1927, the Frank-
furt branch became temporarily prominent in the interna-
tional expansion of the German rayon industry. However, the
worldwide crisis after 1929 stopped the trans-atlantic flow of
capital, and the German and American houses were liqui-
dated in the 1930s. Institutions benefiting from the family's
philanthropic interests included Frankfurt University; Mu-
seum of the City of New York; and Mount Sinai Hospital,
New York.

bibliography: B. Baer, Stammtafeln der Familie Speyer

(1896); K. Grunwald, in: lbyb, 12 (1967), 176; S. Birmingham, Our

Crowd (1968).

[Hanns G. Reissner]

SPEYER, BENJAMIN (18 th century), communal leader and
shtadlan, merchant in Mogilev- Podolski, and purveyor to the

Russian government. In 1768 Speyer acted with Baruch Yo-
von (Yavan) to foil Jacob ""Frank's appeal to the Russian gov-
ernment for protection. In 1770 Speyer successfully obtained
the suspension of a decree expelling Jews from Courland and
Riga. When the Frankists sent the "red letters" to the Jews of
Russia in 1800, Speyer translated them for Governor- General
Gudovich of Kamenets- Podolski, signing himself with the ti-
tle "court councillor." In 1804 he proposed to the government
council in charge of legislation for Jews that they eliminate
unfair taxation.

bibliography: Yu. Hessen, in: ye, 16 (c. 1912), 82.

[Yehuda Slutsky]

SPEYER, SIR EDGAR (1862-1932), British railway finan-
cier. Edgar Speyer, a member of the famous German banking
family, was born in Frankfurt and came to England in 1887
as a director of Speyer Brothers, the family bank, engaged in
currency exchange and railway finance. He was naturalized in
1892. From the mid-i890s he was one of the most important
figures in procuring the finance and development of London's
"tubes," its electric-powered subways, usually in conjunction
with the American railway builder C.T. Yerkes. London's Un-
derground system owes much to Speyer. He was made a bar-
onet (a hereditary knight) in 1906 and was made a member
of the Privy Council in 1909. During World War 1, Speyer
was the victim of a concerted, highly unpleasant campaign
against him as an alleged pro -German. In 1915 he offered to
resign as a privy councilor, but the offer was declined by the
prime minister; at nearly the same time, a lawsuit was brought
against him and Sir Ernest *Cassel, another German-born
member, requiring them to justify their continued member-
ship. As a result of these pressures, Speyer moved perma-
nently to New York. According to historians, however, there
seems no doubt that Speyer was, in some sense, pro-German
and was in regular touch with his Frankfurt business. In 1921
he was struck off the list of privy councilors and was accused,
in a government white paper, of "trading with the enemy" in
wartime. He continued to live in New York but died after an
operation in Germany, ironically less than a year before Hit-
ler came to power.

bibliography: odnb online; D. Kynaston, The City of Lon-
don, 1 (1994).

[William D. Rubinstein (2 nd ed.)]

SPICES. The Bible has no special word for spice. In the talmu-
dic and midrashic literature the term tavlin is used, from the
verb tavel (^D), which is apparently connected with the root
balol ("to mix"). This term was employed metaphorically by R.
Joshua b. Hananiah in his reply to questions by "the emperor"
(probably Hadrian): "Why has the Sabbath dish such a fra-
grant odor?" To this R. Joshua replied: "We have a certain spice
(tavlin) called the Sabbath, which we put into it [the Sabbath
dish] and which gives it a fragrant odor" (Shab. 119a). Spiced
foods were very popular among the Jews of Erez Israel and
Babylonia, even as they are today among Jews from Oriental

102

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPICES

countries who know several dozen varieties of spices, special
favorites being the pungent-tasting ones, principally pepper,
that stimulate the appetite. Such spices apparently also have
some disinfectant action under the inferior conditions of food
hygiene prevalent in the East. The general name for spices is
J vDlK TPSttffa (mashbihei okhelin, "food improvers"; Sif. Deut.
107, where seven kinds of spices are mentioned). Another term
used is nYTj? , j? ,, S (zikei kederah; Yoma 75a; Hul. 77b; et al.).

Among the "food- imp roving" spices may also be in-
cluded pungent-tasting vegetables, such as *garlic, the *leek,
the *onion, etc. Some aromatic plants (*incenses and per-
fumes), such as ^cinnamon and * saffron, were also used as
spices. In addition to these aromatic plants and vegetables, the
Bible mentions four kinds of spices, *hyssop, *caper, *cumin,
and ^fennel-flower, while talmudic literature refers to dozens
of varieties, the most important of which are the following.

amomum. The word hamam mentioned in the Mishnah (Uk.
3:5; et al.) refers, according to Asaph ha-Rofe, to the seed of
the pungent-tasting, aromatic plants of the genus Amomum
of the Zingiberaceae - ginger family - such as Amomum car-
damomum. Called hel in Arabic, it is popular among Orien-
tal communities as an additive to coffee. Some hold that the
"principal spices" (Ex. 30:23) refer to these plants.

asafetida. The hilt it of the Mishnah is the plant Ferula asa-
fetida, the congener of galbanum, and, like it, has an unpleas-
ant aroma but flavors a dish, and is still used in Iran. Men-
tioned together with asafetida is a spice named tiah (Uk. 3:5),
held by some to be the root of the same plant.

caper. The fruit, aviyyonah, and the flower buds, zalat, of the
caper plant were eaten pickled either in salt or in vinegar.

caraway. The karbos of the Mishnah (Kil. 2:5 - this is the
correct reading), which is identified in the Jerusalem Talmud
(ms Rome, ibid. 2:5, 27d) refers to Carum carvi, the seed of
which was used as a spice and the thick root as a vegetable.

costus. The kosht, which is mentioned among the "food im-
provers" (Sif. Deut. 107; cf. Uk. 3:5) and among the ingredients
of the incense used in the Temple (Ker. 6a), has been identi-
fied with the aromatic spice Costus, which was extracted from
species of plants belonging to the ginger family. According to
another view, the Costus of the ancients is to be identified with
Aucklandia costus (= Aplotaxixhappa), a fragrant plant which
is a member of the Compositae family.

cumin. The seed of the kammon of the Bible and the litera-
ture of the sages was used as a spice on bread during baking.

dill. Called shevet in the Mishnah, dill is the plant An-
ethum graveolens used today mainly as a spice in pickled cu-
cumbers. In mishnaic times its foliage, stems, and seed were
used as a spice (Ma'as. 4:5), and it was sown for this purpose
(Pe'ah 3:2). It is an umbelliferous plant with yellow flowers,
which grows wild in the Negev (it is popularly but errone-
ously called shamir).

dodder. This plant is identified with plants of the genus
Cuscuta of which there are many species that are parasitic on
cultivated and wild plants in Israel. Dodder is called in the
Mishnah keshut, the meaning of which is "hair," since these
plants are leafless and have the appearance of entwined hair.
The seed sprouts on the ground, and the plant winds itself
around the stem of another plant, extracting its sap by put-
ting forth suckers into it. The fruit of the dodder was used as
a spice, mainly in wine (Pliny, Historia naturalis 13:46). In the
Talmud it is mentioned that the dodder is a parasitic plant, its
life depending on the plant to which it is attached (Er. 28b).

fennel. The umbelliferous plant Foeniculum vulgare, leaves
of which are used as a spice similar to dill, fennel is called guf-
nan in the Mishnah (Dem. 1:1) and shumar in the Talmud. The
Jerusalem Talmud (Dem. 1:1, 2id) states that the Galileans did
not consider it a spice, but it was regarded as such in Judah.

fennel -flower. Known as kezah in the Bible and the lit-

erature of the sages, the seed of the fennel-flower was used as
a spice on bread.

ginger. The Indian plant Zingibar officinale •, from the root-
stock of which an aromatic spice was made, ginger is called
zangevila in the Talmud and was sold both dried and fresh
(Ber. 36b; Yoma 81b). In the Talmud {ibid.) it is also called
"the himalta which comes from India."

hyssop. The plant Majorana syriaca is called ezov in the
Bible and in the literature of the sages; its leaves were used
as a spice. Of the allied genera, reference is made to the spice
plants (ezov koheli), which is Hyssopus officinalis (Neg: 14, 6,
where ezov romi is also mentioned), evreta, maru-hiyyura,
and shumshuk (Shab. 109b), species that belong to the genera
Majorana or Origanum.

lavender. The plant Lavandula officinalis (spica) is known
as ezovyon y and its leaves are used as a perfume and as a medi-
cine (Shab. 14:3).

mint. The plant Menta piperita, the leaves of which are
used as a spice and yield an ethereal oil, is called minta in the
Mishnah (Uk. 1:2) and naana (which is also its Arabic name)
in the Jerusalem Talmud (Shab. 7, 10a). Four species of mint
grow wild in Israel.

mustard. Known as hardal in the literature of the sages,
*mustard is extracted from the seed of species of Sinapis and
Brassica.

pepper. The most important and popular spice, black ^pep-
per is know aspilpely and Piper longum aspilpela arikhta.

rue. The small shrub Ruta graveolens, whose leaves have a
pungent aroma (regarded by some as unpleasant), is popular
among Oriental communities. In the Mishnah (Uk. 1:2; et al.),
it is called pigam, and in Arabic fijn or rudah (= Ruta). The
Mishnah (Shev. 9:1) also mentions a rue that grows wild, the
reference being to Ruta bracteosa, which grows in the woods

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

103

SPICE TRADE

in Israel. To the family of rue - Rutaceae - belong species of
the Citrus.

safflower. The prickly plant Carthamus tinctorius has red-
dish-yellow leaves, hallot haria (Uk. 3:5), which were used as
a spice, and its seed, benot haria (Tosef Ma'as. Sh. 1:13), as
food as well as a spice. In the Talmud kozah, kurtama y and
morika are used as synonyms for safflower. Today the saf-
flower is grown largely for the oil extracted from its seed.
The petals of the flower s corolla were formerly used as a dye
(see *Dye Plants).

saffron. Known as karkom in the Bible and the literature
of the sages, the stigmas of its flower were used as a spice and
a dye.

savory. Called si ah in the Mishnah, savory is mentioned
there, together with hyssop and thyme, among plants which
were grown as spices; it also grew wild (Shev. 8:1; Ma'as. 3, 9).
According to the Jerusalem Talmud (Shev. 7:2, 37b), si ah is
identified with zatrah, which is Satureia tymbra Savory, an
aromatic dwarf shrub of the family Labi at ae y that grows wild
on mountains. The Arabs call these three species zdar.

sesame. The summer plant Sesamum orientalis (indicum),
sesame was used in the preparation of delicacies and as a spice
in various kinds of pastry (Shev. 2:7; ty 1:5). Its seed consists
of 50% oil, which was used as a food and in lamps (Ned. 6:9;
Shab. 2:2).

sumac. The og of the Mishnah, the fruit of the sumac tree
was used as a spice.

thyme. Called koranit in the Mishnah, thyme is a diminu-
tive dwarf shrub which grows extensively in Israel on the kur-
kar hills near the coast and on mountains. Its tiny, pungently
aromatic leaves were used as a spice, like hyssop and savory,
together with which it is mentioned (Ma'as. 3:9).

The above are the most probable identifications, others
having been suggested by commentators for these plants, as
well as for kinds of spices common in their day. Among these,
mention should be made of the poppy, the plant Pap aver som-
niferum. Its seed is used as a spice and also in various kinds of
pastry. In modern Hebrew the poppy is called par ag or per eg y
on the basis of the identification given in the Arukh and by
other commentators for DT1D in the Mishnah, which are, how-
ever, none other than *millet. Although several species of Pa-
paver grow wild in Israel, it is impossible to determine whether
the cultivated poppy was grown. The only reference to of yon
(opium is extracted, as is known, from poppy) occurs in the
Jerusalem Talmud (Av. Zar. 2:2, 4od). It was considered dan-
gerous to buy of yon from heathens (see *Havdalah).

bibliography: Loew, Flora, respective articles and 4 (1934),
93 f.; S. Krauss, Kadmoniyyot ha-Talmud, 2 (1929), 243-9; J- Feliks,
Olam ha-Zomeah ha-Mikra'i (1968), 176-85; idem, Kilei Zeraim ve-
Harkavah (1937), index, add. bibliography: Feliks, Ha- Tzomeah,
19, 22, 24, 41, 65, 66, 69, 73, 85, 89, 100, 104, 123, 125, 132, 137, 147, 148,

i54> i57> 197-

[Jehuda Feliks]

SPICE TRADE. In their original settlements in the East Med-
iterranean and Near East, Jewish merchants traded in luxury
goods, including * spices. This latter trade became more evident
in the Diaspora era, when Jews, along with Greeks and Syrians,
appeared as traders in Western Europe. Because of their rela-
tionship with the Orient, they were able to supply these prod-
ucts, which were grown mainly in the countries from southern
Arabia to the Moluccas and were used for medicinal purposes,
in the preparation of food and beverages, and in perfumes. At
first the Syrians led this trade, losing their position to the Jews
only after the conquest of the Syrian coast by the Arabs. Writ-
ing on the trade routes in the years between 854 and 874, Ibn
Kordabheh, postmaster of the caliph of Baghdad, mentioned
that Radhanites traded in musk, aloes, camphor, cinnamon,
and other commodities between France and China. From the
tenth century the northern route through the Slav countries
became increasingly important to Jewish traders as they were
displaced in the Mediterranean by Italian merchants. When
visiting Mainz around 978, Ibrahim Tartuschi, an Arab from
the Iberian Peninsula, was astonished to find the markets filled
with large quantities of spices which could only be found in the
Far East; it was generally believed that these were brought by
Jewish merchants from the Orient by way of Kiev. The activities
of Jewish traders on the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean trade
routes and ports are revealed in 11 th - to 13 th - century genizah
documents and responsa. The disuse of the Eastern routes with
the expansion of Tatar and Turkish conquest added to the in-
creased Christian participation in overseas trade and the re-
striction of Jewish commercial activities, and caused the Jews
to lose their position as intermediaries with the Orient, being
replaced by the Italians and especially the Venetians.

Jewish merchants once more played a part in the spice
trade with the opening of the direct route to East India by the
Portuguese. Prominent among these merchants was the New
Christian *Mendes family, probably descendants of the Span-
ish *Benveniste family. Rui Mendes (de Brito) sent a ship to
East India with Vasco da Gama's second voyage in 1502, and in
1505, in association with the German Lucas Rem, armed three
ships for East India. He was probably a close relative of the
brothers Francisco and Diogo *Mendes who, the former in Lis-
bon and the latter in Antwerp, controlled a major part of the
commerce in pepper and other spices in northern Europe, the
largest market at that time. After the death of Diogo Mendes
(1542 or 1543), Francisco's widow, Beatrice de Luna, carried on
the Antwerp branch of the enterprise. As J. A. Goris has shown
(see bibl.), about 12 other New Christians in Antwerp were en-
gaged in the spice trade, on the basis of annual contracts made
with the king of Portugal. For some time the Perez family and
other Spanish merchants, who were probably also New Chris-
tians, were the representatives of these contract adores. When
Philip 11 succeeded to the throne of Portugal, he tried to re-
new the system of contracts, which had been in the hands of
the German Konrad Rott during the last years of Portuguese
independence. After Rott s bankruptcy, the Lisbon and Ant-
werp branches of the Ximenes and D'Evora families partici-

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SPIEGEL, ISAIAH

pated in the European contract. From 1592 to 1596 the Indian
contract was in the hands of a consortium of New Christians:
Tomaz and Andre Ximenes, Duarte Furtado de Mendoza, Luis
Gomes d'Elvas, Heitor Mendes, and Jorge Rodriguez Solis.
Attacks on Portuguese ships by English pirates, the revival of
the Levantine spice trade from Alexandria and Syria to the
Mediterranean ports, and the opening of East Indian naviga-
tion by the Dutch and English, all contributed to the decline
of the Portuguese monopoly and thus of the activities of the
New Christian groups. However, their participation in the
spice trade in Hamburg and Amsterdam remained promi-
nent. Among the 16 spice importers in Amsterdam in 1612, 11
were "Portuguese," i.e., Sephardim. According to Bloom (see
bibl.), in the first part of the 18 th century the spice trade still
represented a considerable proportion of the commercial ac-
tivities of the Sephardi community in Amsterdam.

bibliography: W. Heyd, Geschichte des Levantehandels im
Mittelalter (1879); P. Lambrechts, in: Antiquite Classique, 6 (1937),
357ff.; J. Brutzkus, in: zgjd, 3 (1931), 97f.; L. Rabinowitz, Jewish Mer-
chant Adventures, a Study of the Radanites (1948); S.D. Goitein, A
Mediterranean Society, 1 (1967), index; Roth, Marranos, index; C.
Roth, House of Nasi, Dona Gracia (1947); J.A. Goris, Etude sur les Col-
onies Marchandes Meridionales a Anvers de 1488 a 156/ (1925); Brug-
mans-Frank, 1 (1940); D. Gomes, Discursos sobre los Comercios de las
doslndias, ed. by M.B. Amzalak (1943); J.G da Silva, in: xiii Congresso
Luso-Espanhol para Progresso das Ciencias, Lisbon, 1950; J.L. de Aze-
vedo, Epocas de Portugal Economico (1947 2 ); H.I. Bloom, Economic
Activity of the Jews of Amsterdam in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Centuries (1937); C. von Rohr, Neue Quellen zur zweiten Indienfahrt
Vasco da Gamas (1939); J. PoliSensky and P. RatkoS, in: Historica, 9
(1964), 53-67; H. Kellenbenz, in: Monumenta Judaica (1963), 199 f.;
idem, Sephardim an der unteren Elbe (1958); idem, La Participation
des Capitaux de VAllemagne Meridionale aux Entreprises Portugaises
d'Outre-Mer au Tournant du xv e siecle et xvi e siecle (1966).

[Hermann Kellenbenz]

SPIDER (Heb. ttf'Opy, akkavish). Isaiah (59:5-6) compares the
evil designs of those who plot against the righteous to the webs
which the spider spins to trap insects, while Job (8:14-15) com-
pares the house of the wicked to the spider's fragile web. There
are hundreds of species of spider in Israel, all having poison-
ous glands in their maxillaries. The poison in most spiders is
a mild one, but there are species capable of killing a bird or a
mouse. It would appear that the akhshuv (Ps. 140:4) which is
mentioned together with the snake as a poisonous animal is
merely the akkavish with the letters transposed. The Tosefta
(Par. 9:6) enumerates it among the species of spiders. Some
erroneously identify the spider with the semamit (Prov. 30:28)
which is the * gecko.

bibliography: Lewysohn, Zool, 299-301, nos. 400 and 401;
F.S. Bodenheimer, Animal and Man in Bible Lands (i960), 116, nos.
336-40; J. Feliks, Animal World of the Bible (1962), 135.

[Jehuda Feliks]

SPIEGEL, DORA (1879-1948), third president of the Na-
tional ^Women's League of the United Synagogue of Amer-

ica. Spiegel led the organization through the difficult years of
the Depression and World War 11. Born in Ungvar, Hungary,
to Pepi Josephine (Fullman) and Rabbi Daniel Rosenberg,
Dora Rosenberg arrived in the United States with her par-
ents in 1882. Although Dora and Dr. Samuel Spiegel (a New
York physician, whom she married in 1900) had no children
of their own, she dedicated her energy to serving Jewish chil-
dren and their mothers. Spiegel attended Teachers College of
Columbia University, receiving a B.S. degree in 1916 and an
M.A. in 1920, with a special diploma as Advisor to Women.
In New York she taught at the Educational Alliance, training
immigrants in "Americanization."

A close friend and supporter of Mathilde *Schechter,
Spiegel was a founder and president (1918-28) of the New
York Metropolitan branch of the Women's League of the
United Synagogue of America, and served as national presi-
dent from 1928 to 1944, when poor health forced her to step
down before the conclusion of her term. During World War 11,
Spiegel's "President's Chats" columns in the League's magazine
Outlook encouraged members to help with war- relief efforts.
Women responded by giving blood, selling bonds, serving
in canteens, and taking and teaching first-aid classes. Dur-
ing her presidency, Spiegel also led the League to begin the
Torah Fund Campaign to establish a Seminary dormitory and
a scholarship fund, which would allow rabbinical students to
study full-time. She also encouraged the creation of two addi-
tional scholarship funds (the Mathilde Schechter Scholarship
Fund and the Cyrus Adler Scholarship Fund). In addition, the
plan for building a dormitory for female students developed
during her tenure as president. She also helped found the
Women's Institute of Jewish Studies at the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America.

bibliography: They Dared to Dream: A History of National
Women's League, 1918-1968 (1967); S. Weintraub, "Spiegel, Dora," in:
P.E. Hyman and D. Dash Moore Jewish Women in America: An His-
torical Encyclopedia (1997).

[Aleisa Fishman (2 nd ed.)]

SPIEGEL, ISAIAH (Yeshayohu Spiegel; 1906-1990), Yiddish
poet, fiction writer and essayist. Born in Balut, a poor suburb
of Lodz, Poland, Spiegel was encouraged by I. * Katzenelson
and M. *Broderzon, and was one of the group of young Yid-
dish poets active in Lodz in the 1920s. From 1926 to 1933 he
taught in Yiddish schools and wrote for Yiddish journals in
Poland and abroad. Spiegel was one of the few Yiddish writ-
ers of distinction to survive the Holocaust. For almost five
years he lived in the Lodz ghetto; upon its destruction he was
sent to Auschwitz and later to a labor camp in Saxony. He re-
turned to Lodz after the liberation (1945) and from 1946 to
1948 taught in its Jewish school; there, he dug up a manuscript
he had buried. From 1951 he lived in Israel. He published two
volumes of verse and an autobiographical novel, but his most
important work is his Holocaust fiction, especially his short
stories: Malkh.es Geto ("Ghetto Kingdom," 1947), Shtern Ibern
Geto ("Stars Over the Ghetto," 1948), Mentshn in Thorn ("Peo-

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105

SPIEGEL, LUDWIG

pie in an Abyss," 1949), Likht Funem Opgrunt ("Light from the
Precipice," 1952), and Vint un Vortslen ("Wind and Roots,"
1955). With restraint and perception, Spiegel records the fate
of multitudes of ordinary men and women in his stories. Most
of his stories originally written during the Holocaust were
considerably revised, the documenting witness giving way to
the memorializing artist.

bibliography: J. Glatstein, In Tokh Genumen, Eseyen 1948-

1956 (1956), 453-65; idem, In Tokh Genumen, Eseyen 1949-1959, 1

(i960), 279-86. add. bibliography: N. Gris, Fun Finsternish tsu

Likht: Yeshayohu Shpigl un Zayn Verk (1974); lnyl, 8 (1981), 782-4;

Y. Szeintuch (ed.), Yeshayohu Shpigl: Proza Sifrutit Migeto Lodzh

(1995); L. Prager, in: S. Kerbel (ed.), Jewish Writers of the Twentieth

Century (2003), 533-4.

[Leonard Prager]

SPIEGEL, LUDWIG (1864-1926), Czech educator and poli-
tician. Spiegel, who was professor of constitutional law at the
German University of Prague, was one of the leaders of the
German Democratic Party and a member of the Senate (upper
chamber of deputies; 1920-25). In 1926 he was elected rector
of the university in spite of his being a Jew (see also Samuel
*Steinherz), but died before assuming office. His works in-
clude Die Geschichtliche Entwicklung des O ester reichischen
Staatsrechts (1905), Die Verwaltungsrechtswissenschaft (1909),
Gesetz und Recht (1913), and Die Entstehung des Tschecho-

slowakischen Staats (1921).

[Chaim Yahil]

SPIEGEL, NATHAN (1905-1995), scholar of Jewish studies.
Born in New York, Spiegel grew up in Galicia, Moravia, and
the Ukraine. He received his doctorate in 1931 from the Uni-
versity of Lvov in classical studies and ancient philosophy. Af-
ter World War 11 he was a high school teacher in Poland and
from 1952 the rector of a Warsaw institute of education. He
immigrated to Israel in 1957 where he was director of a special
library at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1965 he be-
gan to teach at Ben-Gurion University and served as head of
the department of general studies. Among his works are books
on leading figures of the Greek and Hellenic world, such as
Socrates, Aristotle, Homer, and Seneca, as well as on trends
and schools of thought in the Greek world. Spiegel received
the 1990 Israel Prize for Jewish Studies.

[Fern Lee Seckbach]

SPIEGEL, PAUL (1937-2006), German-Jewish journalist and
politician. Born in Warendorf (Westphalia), Spiegel fled with
his family to Holland after the outbreak of World War 11. He
wrote as a journalist for German- Jewish newspapers, and be-
tween 1965 and 1972 was editor of the Juedische Pressedienst
and assistant to the general secretary of the Zentralrat der
Juden in Deutschland. Between 1974 and 1986 he directed
the office of public affairs at the Rheinische Sparkassen und
Giroverband. In 1986 he founded an international Kuenstler-
agentur. In 1984 Spiegel was elected president of the Dues-
seldorf Jewish community, in 1989 president of the Zentral-

wohlfahrtsstelle der Juden in Deutschland. After the death of
Ignatz *Bubis, Spiegel was elected president of the Zentralrat
der Juden in Deutschland in January, 2000. He was an active
promoter of German- Jewish understanding, an author on Jew-
ish matters, and a prominent figure in German public life.

SPIEGEL, SAMUEL P. (1901-1985), U.S. motion picture pro-
ducer. Born in Jaroslau, Austria, Spiegel came to the United
States in 1939. Ultimately becoming one of the top producers
of his time, Spiegel's films include Tales of Manhattan (1942),
The Stranger (1945), We Were Strangers (1949), The African
Queen (1951), On the Waterfront (Academy Award for Best
Picture, 1954), The Bridge on the River Kwai (Academy Award
for Best Picture, 1957), Suddenly Last Summer (1950), Law-
rence of Arabia (Academy Award for Best Picture, 1962), The
Night of the Generals (1966), The Happening (1967), Nicholas
and Alexandra (Oscar nomination for Best Picture, 1971), The
Last Tycoon (1976), and Betrayal (1983). Spiegel, who was also
known for a time as S.P. Eagle, was the only person to win the
Best Picture Oscar three times as a sole producer within eight
years. He was the brother of Shalom * Spiegel.

In 1964 he received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial
Award, given to a creative producer who has been responsible
for a consistently high quality of motion picture production.

add. bibliography: A. Sinclair, Spiegel: The Man behind
the Pictures (1987); A. Sinclair, S.P Eagle: A Biography of Sam Spie-
gel (1988); N. Fraser-Cavassoni, Sam Spiegel: Tlie Incredible Life and
Times (2003).

[Jonathan Licht / Ruth Beloff (2 nd ed.)]

SPIEGEL, SHALOM (1899-1984), scholar, writer, and educa-
tor. Born in Romania and educated in Vienna, Spiegel was for
a number of years a leader of Jewish youth who were prepar-
ing to live in collectives in Israel as members of Ha-Shomer
ha-Za'ir. He taught in Erez Israel 1923-29, then went to New
York, and was professor of medieval Hebrew literature at the
Jewish Theological Seminary (1944-84). Trained in art and
aesthetics, among other areas, he brought the appreciation of
the sensitive critic to what he taught, studied, or wrote. His
Hebrew Reborn (1930, repr. 1962), a series of chapters on Jewish
men of letters in modern times, is a lucid, cultural analysis of
the works of the authors it surveys. He also gave attention to
the biblical and the medieval periods of Jewish cultural his-
tory. He published studies on Hosea, Amos, Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
and Job. These exhibit both his erudition and thoroughness
and also his style and finesse. Spiegel prepared a definitive
edition of the liturgical compositions of Eleazar * Kallir. He
also prepared a volume of what remains of the religious po-
etry by Kallir s predecessors and contemporaries. His discus-
sion of the sacrifice of Isaac (*Akedah) in the Hebrew liturgy
of the 12 th and 13 th centuries is a notable example of his pen-
etrating approach (The Last Trial, translated from the Hebrew
by J. Goldin, 1967).

In 1996 the Jewish Theological Seminary established the
Shalom Spiegel Institute for Medieval Hebrew Literature. The

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ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPIEGELMAN, SOL

Institute provides fellowships to graduate students in the field,
fosters international research projects, and provides access to
Spiegel's copious collection of research materials.

He was the brother of film producer Samuel P. ""Spiegel.

[Abraham Solomon Halkin / Ruth Beloff (2 nd ed.)]

SPIEGEL-ADOLF, MONA (Anna Simona; 1893-1983),
colloid chemist. Spiegel-Adolf studied medicine in her na-
tive Vienna and worked there on medical colloid chemistry
until 1931, when she became professor of colloid chemistry at
the medical school of Temple University, Philadelphia. Her
research covered physical chemistry of proteins and lipids,
cancer, amaurotic family idiocy, etc. She wrote Die Globuline
(1930) and co-authored X-ray Diffraction Studies in Biology
and Medicine (1947).

SPIEGELBERG, HERBERT (1904-1990), philosopher. Of
Jewish origin, Spiegelberg was raised as a Christian. Born in
Strasbourg, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Mu-
nich. He went to the U.S. in 1938 and taught at Swarthmore
College in Pennsylvania (1938-41) and Lawrence College in
Wisconsin (1941-63). In 1963 he was appointed to the philoso-
phy department of Washington University in St. Louis, Mis-
souri, where he stood out as a phenomenologist and historian
of phenomenology. He retired as professor emeritus in 1971.

Spiegelberg belonged more to the "Older Phenomeno-
logical Movement" than to the Freiburg School, influenced
by Alexander Pfaender s approach. He was very influential
in developing interest in phenomenological thought in the
Anglo-American world through his lectures and writings.
His Phenomenological Movement has provided a historical
study and interpretation to this philosophy from Brentano
to the present.

His major writings include Anti-relativismus (1935), Ge-
setz und Sittengesetz (1935), The Phenomenological Movement
(2 vols., i960, 1965 2 ), Alexander Pfaender s Phaenomenologie
(1963), the translation of Pfaender s Phenomenology of Will-
ing and Motivation (1967), Phenomenology in Psychology and
Psychiatry (1972), Doing Phenomenology (1975), The Content
of the Phenomenological Movement (1981), and Steppingstones
toward an Ethics for Fellow Existers (1986).

bibliography: H. Spiegelberg, Phenomenological Perspec-
tives: Historical and Systematic Essays in Honor of Herbert Spiegel-
berg (1975).

[Richard H. Popkin / Ruth Beloff (2 nd ed.)]

SPIEGELMAN, ART (1948- ), U.S. cartoonist. Born in
Stockholm, Sweden, to parents who survived the Holocaust,
Spiegelman grew up in Queens, n.y. In 1968, while attending
Harpur College in Binghamton, n.y., he had a nervous break-
down, but he recovered. Shortly after, his mother, a survivor
of Auschwitz, committed suicide. Spiegelman later included
the tragic and traumatic event in his groundbreaking comic
books, Maus 1 and Maus 11, which tell the story of his parents'
wartime ordeal and paint an indelible portrait of the wid-

owed father in old age, an insufferable, maddening survivor,
noble despite himself. The first book, Maus: A Survivors Tale,
also known as Maus: My Father Bleeds History, won a special
Pulitzer Prize in 1992. It had the distinction of appearing on
The New York Times bestseller list as a work of fiction, but af-
ter Spiegelman s dignified objection, as nonfiction. The sec-
ond volume, Maus: And Here My Troubles Began, followed in
1991. Maus, depicting Jews as mice, Nazis as cats and Poles as
pigs, attracted an unprecedented amount of critical attention
for a work in the form of comics, including an exhibition at
the Museum of Modern Art. Before gaining widespread at-
tention with Maus, Spiegelman had illustrated many of the
Wacky Packages and Garbage Pail Kids stickers and cards.
He founded two significant comics anthology publications,
Arcade and raw, the latter with his wife, Francoise Mouly,
who later became art editor of The New Yorker. Spiegelman
worked for The New Yorker for ten years, producing memora-
ble work, but resigned a few months after the terrorist attacks
of September 11, 2001. Spiegelman's post- September 11 cover
for the magazine, inspired by Ad Reinhardt s black-on-black
paintings, at first appears to be totally black, but upon close
examination reveals the silhouettes of the World Trade Center
towers in a slightly darker shade of black. The attack had a pro-
found effect on Spiegelman, who witnessed the victims' frantic
last minutes as he left his apartment not far from the site. Spie-
gelman said his resignation from the magazine was a protest
against "the widespread conformism of the mass media in the
Bush era." In 2004 he published In the Shadow of No Towers,
an attempt to capture the essence of the morning when the
terrorists struck. It features a series often large- format comic
strips that ran in the course of a year in eight weekly publica-
tions around the world. It was printed on thick cardboard and
had to be held sideways to read each two-page spread. In the
back, Spiegelman added reprints of some early comic strips,
from Krazy Kat to Little Nemo in Slumberland, that he said
gave him comfort after the attacks. Spiegelman was a tireless
advocate for the medium of comics. He was quoted as saying
that "comic books are to art what Yiddish is to language - a
vulgar tongue that incorporates other languages into its mix,
a vital and expressive language that talks with its hands. It's
a form that's even laid out like a Talmudic text, a form that
avoids the injunction against graven images by turning pic-
tures into words, or at least into word-pictures."

[Stewart Kampel (2 nd ed.)]

SPIEGELMAN, SOL (1914-1983) U.S. research microbiolo-
gist. He was born in New York City, where his interest in bi-
ology began in childhood. He gained his B.S. in mathematics
and physics at the College of the City of New York (1933-39),
a course lengthened by switching from biology and a research
period at Crown Heights Hospital, Brooklyn (1936-37). He
earned his Ph.D. in cellular physiology and mathematics
from Washington University, St Louis (1944), after an initial
period at Columbia University (1940-42). He worked suc-
cessively in the bacteriology department of Washington Uni-

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

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SPIELBERG, STEVEN

versity School of Medicine (1945-48), as a U.S. Public Health
Service Fellow at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
(1948), and at the University of Illinois, Urbana (1948-69),
where he became professor of microbiology. He returned to
New York (1969) as director of Columbia University's Institute
of Cancer Research and professor of human genetics and de-
velopment in the University's College of Physicians and Sur-
geons (1975). Spiegelman's research profoundly influenced
our understanding of the control of normal cell growth and
its disruption in cancer cells. His work has also had important
implications for understanding the origins of life in self- rep-
licating nucleic acid sequences. His experiments were based
on the novel hypothesis that unregulated activation or deacti-
vation of genes controlling enzyme production is followed by
uncontrolled cell growth. Progress in his studies and in mo-
lecular biology in general was revolutionized by his technical
innovation, rna/dna hybridization, which made it possible
to detect and characterize specific rna sequences. Spiegel-
man and his colleagues first showed that only one strand of
dna's double helix transmits the genetic information for pro-
tein synthesis. They also identified and purified the first viral
nucleic acid polymerase that could detect specific viral rna
in the rna of infected cells. In his later work his laboratory
concentrated on methods for screening human cancer tissue
and the blood of cancer patients for specific viral rna or dna
sequences or the rna viral enzyme, "reverse transcriptase,"
and for antigens found in cancer cells but not normal cells.
This, however, has proved to be a difficult and complex field.
His many honors include the Lasker Award for Basic Medi-
cal Research (1974) and the Feltrinelli Prize, awarded by the
Italian National Academy of Sciences (1981). Spiegelman was
also greatly respected for his early recognition of scientists'
social responsibilities and for his self-deprecation over the
fame brought by scientific discovery.

[Michael Denman (2 nd ed.)]

SPIELBERG, STEVEN (1946- ), film director, writer, pro-
ducer. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Spielberg began his career
early in his youth, directing home movies. At age 13 he entered
and won his first contest with a 40 -minute war film. While
attending California State College, he directed five films and
made his professional debut with a 24-minute short, Amblin,
which was shown at the 1969 Atlanta Film Festival. Its success
led to a contract with Universal Studios that soon found Spiel-
berg directing movies for television such as Duel (1971) and
Something Evil (1972). His debut as a feature film director was
Sugarland Express (1974). Spielberg followed this with a series
of some of the most successful motion pictures in cinema his-
tory, including Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind
(Oscar nomination for Best Director, 1977), Raiders of the Lost
Ark (Oscar nomination for Best Director, 1981), E.T. (Oscar
nominations for Best Director and Best Picture, 1982), Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Indiana Jones and the
Last Crusade (1989), Always (1989), and Jurassic Park (1993).
Spielberg also attempted more serious cinematic fare with The

Color Purple (Oscar nomination for Best Picture, 1985) and
Empire of the Sun (1987), but neither of these films prepared
the movie-going public for Schindlers List (1993), a brilliant
and devastating portrait of Oskar *Schindler, an Austrian in-
dustrialist who saved more than 1,000 Polish Jews during the
Holocaust. Schindlers List won the 1993 Academy Award for
Best Picture as well as delivered an Oscar to Spielberg for Best
Director. In 1990 the Academy of the Motion Pictures, Arts
and Sciences presented Spielberg with the Irving Thalberg Me-
morial Award for his ongoing contribution to the Excellence
of Cinema. Spielberg's subsequent directorial efforts include
Amistad (1997), Saving Private Ryan (Oscar winner for Best
Director and nomination for Best Picture, 1998), The Unfin-
ished Journey (1999), Artificial Intelligence: ai (2001), Minor-
ity Report (2002), Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Terminal
(2004), and War of the Worlds (2005).

Spielberg, who also wears a producer's hat, has released
more than 100 films and television features since 1978. In 1995
he co-founded the production company DreamWorks skg
with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. In addition to pro-
ducing many of the films he directed, Spielberg was the pro-
ducer of such films as I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), Con-
tinental Divide (1981), Poltergeist (1982), Twilight Zone: The
Movie (1983), Gremlins (1984), Back to the Future (1985), The
Money Pit (1986), Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988), The Flint-
stones (1994), Men in Black (1997), The Mask ofZorro (1998),
the tv series Band of Brothers (Emmy Award for Outstanding
Mini-series 2001) and Taken (Emmy for Outstanding Mini-
series, 2002), and Memoirs of a Geisha (2005).

Spielberg was married to actress Amy *Irving from 1985
to 1989. Since 1991 he has been married to actress Kate Cap-
shaw.

bibliography: F. Sanello, Spielberg: The Man, the Movies, the
Mythology (1996); J. McBride, Steven Spielberg: A Biography (1997);
S. Rubin, Steven Spielberg: Crazy for Movies (2001); I. Freer et al., The
Complete Spielberg (2001).

[Jonathan Licht / Ruth Beloff (2 nd ed.)]

SPIELMAN(N), English family that contributed extensively
to Jewish and English communal and cultural literature. The
family was descended from adam spielman (1812-1869), a
banker, who married the sister of Samuel *Montagu. Adam's
three best-known sons were sir isidor spielman (1854-
1925), who was the founder and director of the art exhibi-
tions branch of the Board of Trade and represented Britain
at numerous international exhibitions from 1897 onward.
He organized the Anglo -Jewish Historical Exhibition of 1887
and was president of the Jewish Historical Society, 1902-04.
When Russian anti- Jewish excesses were at their height, he
edited Darkest Russia, a supplement to the Jewish Chronicle
(1890-92). He was knighted in 1905. marion harry Alex-
ander spielman (1858-1948), art critic, was editor of the
Magazine of Art, for 17 years. He wrote on art for the Pall Mall
Gazette and the Westminster Gazette, and wrote a history of
the first 50 years of the London satirical weekly, Punch (1895).

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SPIELVOGEL, NATHAN

An authority on portraiture, he wrote The Portraits of Geof-
frey Chaucer for the Chaucer Society (1901), The Portraits of
Shakespeare for the Stratford Town Edition of Shakespeare's
works (1907), and British Portrait Paintings 2 vols., 1910. His
Iconography of Andreas Vesalius, commissioned by the Belgian
government, was published in 1925. sir meyer adam spiel-
man (1856-1936), the third son, was an educator and an in-
spector of Home Office Schools. He engaged in child welfare
work, and was knighted in 1928 for his work on the prevention
of juvenile delinquency. He was a founder and chairman of
managers of a reformatory school established in 1921 for Jew-
ish boys (converted to general use in the 1960s because Jew-
ish child delinquency had almost disappeared). Sir Meyer held
office in several Jewish charitable societies. His wife, lady
(gertrude) emily spielman, the daughter of the banker
George Raphael, was also prominent in social welfare and in
1919 was the first woman to be elected to the Board of Depu-
ties of British Jews. Their daughter eva marian hubback
(1886-1949), educated at Cambridge, was a well-known social
reformer and educator. She was the principal of Morley Col-
lege in south London, which was noted for employing lead-
ing musicians, and was the author of The Population of Brit-
ain (1947). PERCY EDWIN SPIELMANN (1881-1964), a SOn of

Marion Spielman, was a chemist who became a leading expert
on coal tar, petroleum, and road making.

add. bibliography: odnb online for Eva Hubback; R. Se-
bag-Montefiore, "From Poland to Paddington: The Early History of
the Spielman Family, 1828-1948," in: jhset, 32 (1990-92), 237-58; D.
Hopkinson, Family Inheritance: A Life of Eva Hubback (1954); W.R.
[Winifred Jessie Spielman], Gertrude Emily Spielman, 1864-1949: A
Memoir (1950).

[John M. Shaftesley / William D. Rubinstein (2 nd ed.)]

SPIELMANN, RUDOLF (1883-1942), Austrian chess master.
Spielmann was regarded as the most successful of attacking
chess players. He defeated *Nimzovich, *Tartakover (twice),
*Reti, Stahlberg, Lundin, Eliskases, Bogoljubow, and Stolz in
match play and won first prizes in 18 master tournaments be-
tween 1910 and 1935.

[Ed.]

SPIELVOGEL, CARL (1928- ), U.S. businessman, diplo-
mat. Born in Brooklyn, n.y., Spielvogel graduated from the
City College of New York and joined The New York Times as a
copyboy while an undergraduate. He became a reporter for the
business section in 1955, and three years later he was named
the newspapers first advertising columnist. He left the paper
in i960 to join the advertising firm McCann-Erickson, where
he rose to executive vice president and general manager before
joining McCann's parent, the Interpublic Group of Compa-
nies, in 1972. There he eventually became chairman of the ex-
ecutive committee. He left Interpublic in 1979 to form Backer
& Spielvogel, one of the leading advertising agencies of the
early 1980s. Mergers created Backer Spielvogel Bates World-
wide, where he was chairman until 1994. At his departure,
Bates Worldwide was one of the world's leading marketing

and advertising communications companies, with 185 offices
in 65 countries. As an entrepreneur, Spielvogel was chairman
and chief executive officer of United Auto Group, the nations
largest publicly owned automobile dealership group, from
1994 to 1997. In 1995 Spielvogel was appointed by President Bill
Clinton to the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, which
was responsible for the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe,
and other governmental broadcasting ventures. In 1997 he was
named chairman of the international board of advisors of The
Financial Times of London. In 2000, Clinton named him am-
bassador to the Slovak Republic, where he sought to promote
trade. He served until 2001. Spielvogel was on the board of a
number of cultural organizations in New York City, includ-
ing the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center for the
Performing Arts, and the Asia Society. He served for more
than 20 years as a trustee of Mount Sinai Medical Center and
aided Eureka Communities, which works to rebuild inner cit-
ies. His wife, Barbara Diamonstein-Spielvogel, is the author of
18 books on art, architecture, and public policy.

[Stewart Kampel (2 nd ed.)]

SPIELVOGEL, NATHAN (1874-1956), Australian author.
The son of a Galician immigrant who became a goldminer
and storekeeper, Spielvogel was born in the gold-rush town
of Ballarat, Victoria. He was raised in a warm, religious at-
mosphere and, despite the remoteness and isolation of his
environment, always remained closely attached to Jewish tra-
dition. Spielvogel gained distinction as one of the only Aus-
tralian Jewish writers of the era. His first published work, a
short story entitled "Mike Hardy's Folly," appeared in the Bal-
larat Courier (Dec. 22, 1894) and for the next sixty years he
contributed to practically every Australian literary periodical
and to the Jewish press. As a country schoolteacher, he trav-
eled widely in the eastern Australian outback and also made
a journey to London.

His recorded experiences were first serialized and
then published in book form. Spielvogel's A Gumsucker on
the Tramp (1906) was an early Australian best seller, some
20,000 copies appearing in several editions. Much of what he
wrote about early Australian bush life is of historical interest
and importance and in some instances is the only source of
information. This is also the case with his descriptions of
Jewish immigrant types arriving from England and Europe.
Spielvogel portrayed their manner of work and trade and
their synagogue, communal, and youth activities at the turn
of the century. A limited edition of his prose and verse, Se-
lected Short Stories of Nathan Spielvogel, was published in 1956.
He was a close friend of many noted Melbourne artists
and writers of his time, including Norman Lindsay. Spielvo-
gel lived in Ballarat from 1924, serving as a school principal.
He was a major influence in fostering a Jewish cultural pres-
ence in Australia at a time when the community was very
small.

bibliography: N. Spielvogel, in: Journal of the Australian
Jewish Historical Society, 6 pt. 1 (Dec. 1964), 1-27 (autobiog., ed. by

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

109

SPIER, LESLIE

L.E. Fredman). add. bibliography: adb, 12, 36-37; H.L. Rubin-
stein, Australia 1, 279-80, 440-41.

[Shmuel Gorr]

SPIER, LESLIE (1893-1961), U.S. anthropologist. Born in
New York City, he became a student of Franz * Boas, later
serving as assistant anthropologist at the American Museum
of Natural History. From 1939 he taught at the University of
New Mexico where he established a department of anthropol-
ogy. Influenced also by R.H. *Lowie and C. Wissler, he did his
field work on various North American Indian tribes, princi-
pally among the Zuni and Yumans.

In North American ethnology Spier studied cultural
traits over a continuous geographical area to achieve a his-
torical reconstruction of human history. Such a paper as "Sun
Dance of the Plains Indians" represents a significant contribu-
tion to cultural historical analysis by mapping the distribution
of different elements in a cultural complex. He also studied the
ghost dance and nativistic movement in the Northern Plains in
1890. Spier worked among the Indians of the Northern plains
to salvage the vestiges of dying cultures.

All of Spiers work is characterized by methodological
restraint and sobriety. He founded and edited anthropologi-
cal journals and helped to establish American anthropology
as an academic discipline.

bibliography: H.W. Basehart and W.W. Hill, in: American

Anthropologist, 67 (1965), 1258-77, incl. bibl.; iess, 15 (1968), 130-1,

incl. bibl.

[Ephraim FischorT]

SPIKENARD (Nard; Heb. T13, nerd), spice mentioned three
times in the Song of Songs. It grew in the imaginary spice
garden to which the loved one is compared (Song 4:12-14)
and she perfumed herself with it while waiting for her beloved
(1:12). According to an ancient baraita, spikenard was one
of the 11 spices from which the Temple incense was prepared
(Ker. 6a; see *Incense and Perfumes and Pittum ha-Ketoret).
It is called spikenard (Nardostachys) because of its appear-
ance, which is similar to that of an ear of corn. It was extracted
from the plants Nardostachys jatamansi and N. grandiflora
that grow in the Himalayas. The name nard is derived from
the Sanskrit nalada which means "spreading fragrance." This
highly valued perfume was extracted both from the stalk
(Lat. spicatum) which is the spikenard and from the leaves
(Lat. foliatum). The Tosefta mentions polyaton oil among the
luxuries whose use according to one view was forbidden after
the destruction of the Temple as a sign of mourning (Tosefi,
Sot. 15:9).

bibliography: Loew, Flora, 1 (1926), 309; 2 (1924), 15; 3
(1924), 483; J. Feliks, Olam ha-Zomeah ha-Mikrai (1968 2 ), 244-5;
H.N. and A.L. Moldenke, Plants of the Bible (1952), index.

[Jehuda Feliks]

SPINA, GERI (Schreiber; 1896-1944), Romanian journal-
ist. Born in *Jassy, Spina contributed to Romanian papers
and magazines, including the Jewish periodicals Hatikva and

Adam. With lsac *Ludo he edited the magazine Absolutio
from 1913, and in 1914 published poems, Senzatii inutile ("Vain
Sensations"). In 1934 he published Evreii in Literatura lui
Ionel Teodoreanu, a study of Jews in the writings of the Ro-
manian author Teodoreanu. In 1944 he fought for the expo-
sure of Nazi war criminals in Romania, was arrested, and
died in prison.

SPINGARN, two U.S. brothers of wide intellectual inter-
ests, both devoted to the development of the National Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Colored People, joel elias
spingarn (1875-1939) was a literary scholar and champion
of African-American integration. The son of an immigrant
Austrian merchant, Spingarn was born in New York. His doc-
toral thesis, A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance
(1899), was widely acclaimed by scholars, and he thereafter
had a successful academic career at Columbia University, be-
coming professor of comparative literature at the age of 24.
With Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, a three-vol-
ume work which he edited in 1908, he established himself as a
recognized exponent of the "New Criticism," which judged art
on its own terms. However, a clash with Columbia's president,
N.M. Butler, led to his dismissal in 1910. The correspondence
between the two men was published a year later as A Question
of Academic Freedom. Although he continued to publish liter-
ary criticism, Spingarn never returned to academic work. He
wrote The New Criticism (1911) and Creative Criticism (1917).
In 1919, on his return from war service in France, he helped
to found the publishing firm of Harcourt, Brace and Howe,
whose editorial consultant he remained until 1932. He edited
Scholarship and Criticism in the United States (1922), wrote
Poems (1924), and then retired to his home in Amenia, New
York, where he became an authority on flower cultivation and
issued the Troutbeck Leaflets (1924-31), occasional literary pa-
pers. One of the founders of the naacp and its chairman from
1913 through to 1919, Spingarn was president of the associa-
tion at the time of his death. In the association, he served as a
bridge between the integrationists and the Black nationalists,
led by W.E.B. Du Bois, editor of the naacp s magazine Cri-
sis. Although ideologically Spingarn was an integrationist, his
friendship with and admiration for Du Bois allowed him to
work with the editor until Du Bois resigned in 1934.

Arthur barnett spingarn (1878-1971) was a promi-
nent lawyer active in the New York City Bar Association. His
interest in questions of the black man led him to begin an ex-
tensive collection of Black literature, which he gave to How-
ard University. Resigning his position in the Bar Association
in 1966, Spingarn, as honorary president of the naacp, con-
tinued to support the organization and the cause for which
he and his brother had worked.

bibliography: Howard University, Libraries, Dictionary
Catalog of the Arthur B. Spingarn Collection of Negro Authors (1970);
E. Rudwick, W.E.B. Du-Bois (i960); Crisis, passim; New York Times
(July 27, 1939, July 14, 1958, Jan. 3,1966). add. bibliography: M.

Van Deusen, J. E. Spingarn (1971). r „. , ,_, t

[Richard CohenJ

110

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SPINOZA, BARUCH DE

SPINKA, JOSEPH MEIR WEISS OF (1838-1909), zaddik,
founder of a hasidic dynasty. The son of Samuel Zevi of Mu-
kachevo (Munkacs), Joseph Meir was the disciple of Shalom
of *Belz, Mendel of * Vizhnitsa, Isaac Eizik of *Zhidachov, and
Hayyim *Halberstam of Zanz. On many occasions he visited
Isaac of Zhidachov and regarded himself as his successor.
Renowned for his ecstatic prayers, he also practiced extreme
self-mortification. From 1876 he was revered as a zaddik by
thousands of followers.

His works are Imrei Yosef (1910-27), a commentary on
the Pentateuch in four volumes; Imrei Yosef (1931), sermons
on the festivals and their customs; Hakdamat Likkutei Torah
ve-ha-Shas (1911), sermons and an anthology of hasidic teach-
ings; Perush la-Haggadah shel Pesah (1964); and Tefillot u-
Minhagim (1912).

His son, isaac eizik (1875-1944), was murdered by the
Nazis. He was an outstanding authority on halakhah and fa-
mous as a cantor. From 1909 he too was a zaddik in Spinka.
After the outbreak of World War 1, he took his family and
his retinue to Mukachevo, where he established his bet mi-
drash and yeshivah. There he remained for a few years and,
as in Spinka, his bet midrash became a center of learning and
Hasidism. After the war he moved to Selishche, where he also
established a large bet midrash that continued for 14 years.
Isaac is the author of Hakal Yizhak. His grandson jacob Jo-
seph weiss, who was regarded as the most prominent leader
of Spinka Hasidism after the Holocaust, maintained a yeshivah
in Jerusalem. There were two additional zaddikim of Spinka
Hasidism in Israel, grandsons of Joseph Meir of Spinka.

bibliography: Weiss, Imrei Yosef, 1 (1910), introd.; A. Feuer,

Zikhron Avraham (1924); A.S. Weiss, Peer Yosef (1934); Hasidut Spinka

ve-Admoreha (1958); J.L. Levin, Beit Spinka (1958); A. Stern, Melizei

Esh, 1 (1962), 206, no. 120; S. Rozman, Zikhron Kedoshim (1968),

118-27.

[Esther (Zweig) Liebes]

SPINOZA, BARUCH (Bento, Benedictus) DE (1632-1677),
philosopher born in Amsterdam of Portuguese background,
who became one of the most important representatives of the
rationalist movement in the early modern period.

Introduction

In the Jewish and National Library in Jerusalem, Spinoza's
writings, unlike those of Jewish philosophers such as Philo
of Alexandria or Maimonides, are not in the Judaica reading
room, but in the general reading room, between the writings
of Descartes and Leibniz. The decision of the library reflects
a broad consensus in the way his work is perceived: Spinoza
is not considered a Jewish thinker but one who belongs to the
general history of philosophy. To be sure, Spinoza was excom-
municated from Amsterdam's Jewish community for things
he apparently said and did as a young man, and he went on
to become the most radical and arguably the most interesting
thinker of the early modern period. From the end of the 17 th
century onward his work played a central role in a variety of
intellectual contexts: from the Enlightenment and German

Idealism to the "higher criticism" of the Bible. Today Spino-
za's ideas are debated not only in philosophical circles of both
analytical and continental orientation, but also among scien-
tists such as the neurologist Antonio Damasio, who claims
that his research confirms how Spinoza conceived the rela-
tionship between body, mind, and affects of human beings.
And yet, Spinoza's relationship to Judaism, and in particular to
Jewish philosophy, is complicated: it is marked by continuity
and criticism that sometimes remain in unresolved tension.
Much of his philosophical project is, in fact, best understood
in light of the Jewish background. In Spinoza's thought ideas
from many sources come together, ranging from Plato to the
Kabbalah. But of particular importance are, on the one hand,
various traditions of Jewish thought and, on the other, the
writings of Descartes and Hobbes which were at the center
of philosophical discussions in the Netherlands of Spinoza's
time. His first commitment, of course, was not to this or that
intellectual current, but to the truth: "I do not claim to have
found the best philosophy, but I know that I understand the
true one [sed veram me intelligere scio]" (Letter 76).

Life and Works

Spinoza's father, Michael (d. 1654), fled from Portugal to the
relatively tolerant Dutch republic where, he became a mem-
ber of Amsterdam's Sephardi community and a successful
merchant. Spinoza studied Hebrew, the Bible, and rabbinic
literature at the local talmud torah school. The community's
most renowned scholars, Isaac Aboab, Menasseh ben Israel,
and Saul Levi Morteira, were presumably among his teach-
ers and influenced him directly or indirectly. Aboab trans-
lated Abraham Cohen Herrera's kabbalistic treatise Puerta
del Cielo (The Gate of Heaven), with which Spinoza seems to
have been familiar, from Spanish into Hebrew. Morteira, who
inclined to a rationalist interpretation of religion, could have
introduced him to medieval Jewish philosophy. Menasseh
ben Israel edited in 1628 the Sefer Elim by the Galilei student
Joseph Delmedigo, of which Spinoza had a copy, and that
may have introduced him into post-Copernican cosmology.
Through Menasseh, Spinoza may also have made his first ac-
quaintance with Christian thought, as well as with the ideas
of Isaac La Peyrere, against whose treatise, Prae-Adamitae,
Menasseh wrote a refutation. Spinoza later used the book
for his critique of Scripture; among others, La Peyrere claims
that Moses was not the only author of the Pentateuch and
that human beings existed before Adam and Eve. When his
half-brother, Isaac, died in 1649 Spinoza's help was required
in the family's importing business. Although an outstanding
student, he could thus not complete the higher level of the
educational curriculum which would have prepared him for
a career as a rabbi. The process that led to Spinoza's alienation
from traditional Judaism, culminating in his excommunica-
tion (herem) in 1656, cannot be precisely reconstructed from
the available sources. A significant role must presumably be
assigned to heterodox Jewish thinkers in Amsterdam such as
Uriel da Costa, who had been excommunicated twice a gen-

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111

SPINOZA, BARUCH DE

eration earlier and whose writings Spinoza certainly knew,
and Juan de Prado, who was excommunicated at the same
time as Spinoza. Despite the unusual harshness of the her em,
it does not make explicit the content of the accusations, men-
tioning only "abominable heresies" and "monstrous deeds."
But from various indirect sources Spinoza's views that were
perceived as heretical can be established with reasonable cer-
tainty: they seem to have included the denial that the Torah
is of divine origin, the denial that the immortality of the soul
is a biblical doctrine, and a "philosophical" concept of God
incompatible with that of popular tradition. All three issues
show a certain affinity to doctrines of Da Costa and appear
to have been endorsed in one way or another by De Prado as
well. Spinoza probably explained and defended his views in a
treatise now lost, but whose Spanish title is preserved in later
sources: Apologia para justificarse de su abdicacion de la sina-
goga ("Defense to justify his departure from the synagogue").
There are good reasons for assuming that some of the mate-
rial contained in the Apologia was later incorporated into the
first part of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (ttp; "Theologi-
cal-Political Treatise").

The encounter with the former Jesuit and freethinker,
Franciscus van den Enden, played an important role in Spino-
za's intellectual development. In van den Enden's school, which
he already started to frequent before his excommunication,
Spinoza learned not only Latin, but was also introduced into
ancient literature and philosophy, as well as into contempo-
rary debates, in particular those provoked by the writings of
Descartes and Hobbes. Descartes presumably also occupied
an important place in his studies at the University of Leiden,
at the time a center of Dutch Cartesianism. That Spinoza had
mastered Descartes' philosophy is clear from his Principia Phi-
losophiae Cartesianae ("Principles of Cartesian Philosophy"),
an exposition of Descartes' Principia Philosopiae in the "the
geometric manner," published in 1663 together with an ap-
pendix, Cogitata Metaphysica ("Metaphysical Thoughts"), that
reflects both medieval Jewish and Scholastic sources. Neither
presents Spinoza's own views, as he instructed his friend and
doctor, Lodewijk Meyer, to emphasize in a preface introduc-
ing the two works. On the contrary: the treatises originate in
notes that Spinoza used for teaching his student Caesarius,
concerning whom he urges his friends "not to communicate
my views to him until he has reached greater maturity" (Let-
ter 9). Indeed, even earlier Spinoza had made no secret of his
disagreement with Descartes on fundamental issues such as
"the first cause and origin of all things" (Letter 2).

But whereas the scope of Descartes' influence on Spinoza
and its relation to the influence of Jewish philosophers remain
an object of controversy among scholars, it is uncontroversial
that already in his earliest writings devoted to the exposition
of his own philosophy Spinoza appears as a highly original
thinker. Between the end of the 1650s and the beginning of
the 1660s he was working on two treatises: the Tractatus de
Intellectus Emendatione ("Treatise on the Emendation of the
Intellect"), which remained incomplete and was published

only in the Opera Posthuma, and a first outline of his meta-
physics, anthropology, epistemology, and ethics which was
intended for circulation only among his friends, apparently
because he feared that "the theologians of our time" would
attack him with "their usual hatred" (Letter 6). Already the
work's title, Korte Verhandelingvan God, de Mensch en des zelfs
Welstand ("Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Wellbeing"),
names the constitutive themes of Spinoza's philosophical proj-
ect. From 1661 to 1675, he systematically reworked the ideas
sketched in the Korte Verhandeling into his main philosophi-
cal work, the Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata ("Ethics
Demonstrated According to the Geometrical Method"). In
1665 Spinoza interrupted his work on the Ethica for several
years to set forth his critique of religion and his political phi-
losophy in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ("Theological-
Political Treatise"), published anonymously in 1670. His goal
was to contribute to defending the freedom of thought and
religious tolerance, which had been secured in the Dutch re-
public governed by Jan de Witt, but now seemed threatened
by the alliance of monarchists and Calvinist orthodoxy. Since
the critique of religion is grounded on a critique of Scripture,
and the correct understanding of Scripture requires a thor-
ough understanding of Hebrew (ttp 7), Spinoza's Compen-
dium Grammatices Linguae Hebraeae ("Compendium of the
Grammar of the Hebrew Language") can be seen as a tool for
carrying out the critical theological-political project. But the
striking parallel between the account of nouns, adjectives, and
participles in the Hebrew Grammar and the account of sub-
stance, attributes, and modes in the Ethica also suggests an
interesting (if unclear) connection to Spinoza's metaphysics.
The scandal triggered by the critique of religion in the ttp led
to the book's prohibition in 1674. Under these circumstances
Spinoza did not even attempt to publish the Ethica. Like the
Tractatus Politicus ("Political Treatise") that he was not able to
complete and the equally unfinished Hebrew Grammar, it ap-
peared only in 1677 in the Opera Posthuma. Finally, Spinoza's
extant correspondence must be mentioned which contributes
significantly to clarifying specific issues in his work.

Philosophy

outline of the philosophical project. The Tractatus
de Intellectus Emendatione (tie) begins with a description,
stylized as autobiographical, of the author's conversion to the
philosophical life. An examination in the Socratic sense leads
to the decision to turn away from "what men consider to be
the highest good [summum bonum] ," i.e., "wealth, honor, and
sensual pleasure," in order to seek the "true good" that pro-
vides the "highest joy [summa laetitia] eternally." The passage,
whose immediate source is a treatise by the Jewish Renais-
sance Platonist Leone Ebreo, takes up the foundational con-
cern of ancient ethics: the quest for the good life. Since the tie
was originally conceived as a methodological introduction to
Spinoza's philosophical system, this opening passage in a sense
provides the point of departure for his philosophical project
as a whole. Indeed, choosing a life devoted to the pursuit of

112

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPINOZA, BARUCH DE

knowledge would surely be a mistake if it were not the best
life. The Ethica, as before the Korte Verhandeling, can be seen
as the guide to that goal which Spinoza describes as "happi-
ness [beatitudo]" and as "salvation [salus]" (Ethica v, Prop. 36,
Schol.). The true good for Spinoza is God. What leads to this
good is "understanding" culminating in "knowledge of God
[Dei cognitio]" (Ethica iv, Prop. 27 and 28). Since knowledge
of God and of things "insofar as we conceive them to be con-
tained in God and to follow from the necessity of the divine
nature" (Ethica v, Prop. 29, Schol.) is accompanied by "joy [la-
etitia] ," it gives rise to the "intellectual love of God [Amor Dei
intellectualis]" (Ethica v, Prop. 32, Cor.). Spinoza speaks in this
context of knowledge "under the aspect of eternity [sub specie
aeternitatis]" (Ethica v, Prop. 29) because both God and things
conceived as necessarily following from God are eternal and
immutable. From knowledge of eternal things Spinoza draws
a conclusion that continues to puzzle scholars: that the part of
the mind which loves God intellectually becomes itself eter-
nal, i.e., is in some way preserved after the destruction of the
body (Ethica v, Prop. 22 and Prop. 23). It seems, therefore, that
"salvation" for Spinoza is a form of intellectual immortality.
But the Ethica not only intends to instruct the reader how to
reach happiness and salvation; in a way it also puts these in-
structions into practice. The geometric form of the argument,
which deduces philosophical propositions from definitions
and axioms, entails a claim to definitive validity. From the first
part, that demonstrates God's existence and characteristics, to
the fifth part, that shows how human freedom consists in the
activity of intellectually loving God, the Ethica can be seen as
part of the knowledge sub specie aeternitatis. In this sense it
contributes to bringing the quest for the "true good" to con-
clusion that was the point of departure of the tie. At the end
of the "road [via] " set out in the Ethica the seeker is prepared
to turn into a "wise man [sapiens] 9 * who "suffers scarcely any
disturbance of spirit, but being conscious, by virtue of a cer-
tain eternal necessity, of himself, of God and of things, never
ceases to be, but always possesses true spiritual contentment
[animi acquiescentia]" (Ethica v, Prop. 42, Schol.). Many of
the arguments on which Spinoza's project of the good life re-
lies - from those for the intellectual love of God to those for
the immortality of the mind - were articulated in similar ways
by Jewish rationalists such as Abraham Ibn Ezra, Maimonides,
Gersonides, and Leone Ebreo. It is presumably in their writ-
ings that Spinoza encountered them for the first time.

metaphysics. In order to show of what the good life con-
sists, it is necessary to understand the nature of human beings
and their place in the order of existents. This in turn requires
understanding the nature and order of existents themselves.
The first part of the Ethica is thus devoted to ontology. Since
for Spinoza ontology and philosophical theology coincide, it
is titled De Deo (About God). By identifying God with real-
ity as a whole, Spinoza radically breaks with the concept of
divine transcendence. God neither is located outside the nat-
ural order, nor does he lack what Spinoza takes to be the es-

sential attribute of the physical world: extension. In light of
this it is not surprising that he can speak of "God or Nature
[Deus sive Natura]" (Ethica iv, Praef). God is defined as "an
absolutely infinite being [ens absolute infinitum], i.e., a sub-
stance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses
eternal and infinite essence" (Ethica 1, Def. 6). According to
this definition, God encompasses all logically possible kinds
of being, each of which is infinite in its kind. But only two
kinds can be apprehended by human beings: "thought [cogi-
tatio]" and "extension [extensio], i.e., the essential attributes
of the two realms of reality accessible to us. God, therefore, is
both "thinking thing" and "extended thing," but also an infi-
nite number of other things that lie beyond human cognition
(Ethica 11, Prop. 1 and 2 and Letter 64). That God exists follows
from the fact that the concept of a substance with infinite at-
tributes is not contradictory (Ethica 1, Prop. 10, Schol.) and
that the essence of a substance entails its existence (Ethica 1,
Prop. 11). Since the existence of two substances with the same
attribute is impossible (Ethica 1, Prop. 5), and since God has
all attributes, Spinoza's substance monism follows: "Except for
God no substance can be or be conceived" (Ethica 1, Prop. 14).
This God is not static, but has an "active essence [essentia ac-
tuosa]" (Ethica 11, Prop. 3, Schol.) and produces as "immanent
cause [causa immanens]" (Ethica 1, Prop. 18) "infinite many
things in infinite many ways" {Ethica 1, Prop. 16) in himself
"with the same necessity by which he apprehends himself
[seipsum intelligat] yy (Ethica 11, Prop. 3, Schol.). Spinoza here
takes up and modifies the doctrine of God found in the writ-
ings of medieval Jewish Aristotelians who conceived God as
the activity of a pure intellect apprehending itself (Ethica 11,
Prop. 7, Schol.). The difference is that Spinoza's God is not only
intellectual activity but also extending activity and an infinite
number of other activities. Spinoza holds, moreover, that in-
creasing God's ontological scope does not conflict with God's
unity, for "the thinking substance and the extended substance
are one and the same substance, comprehended now under
this now under that attribute" (ibid.). Since Jewish rationalists
before Spinoza took God to be incorporeal, the attribution of
extension to God appears to be a fundamental departure from
their premises. But also this step had been prepared by the
Jewish critic of Aristotelianism, Hasdai Crescas, who argued
for the existence of an infinitely extended empty space which
he describes as a "metaphor [dimayon]" for God. Moreover,
Spinoza uses arguments drawn from Crescas in Ethica 1, Prop.
15, Schol. for defending God's extension. It would thus be in-
accurate to say that Spinoza substitutes a philosophical God
for a religious God. His move beyond medieval philosophy is
better characterized as an attempt to solve specific ontological
problems arising from the causal relation, which his predeces-
sors had to posit between an incorporeal God and a corporeal
world. As absolutely infinite activity that produces all logically
possible kinds of being, Spinoza's God is all-powerful (Ethica 1,
Prop. 35). Although he is not free to choose what he does, he
is free in the sense that his activity is determined only by the
necessity of his own nature (Ethica 1, Prop. 17, Cor. 2). Since

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the same necessity governs the order of things that God cre-
ates in himself, this order is completely determined (Ethica i,
Prop. 29). In this context the distinction between creator and
creation is replaced through that between natura naturans and
natura naturata (ibid., Schol.) of which the former refers to
substance insofar as it is an active cause and the latter to the
infinite number of modifications produced under each of its
attributes. Like substance, the series of modes is one; it con-
sists in ideas when considered under the attribute of thought,
in extended things when considered under the attribute of ex-
tension, and in an infinite number of other things when con-
sidered under the attributes unknown to us (Ethica 11, Prop. 7,
Schol.). There are two kinds of modes: those of the first kind
are eternal and infinite and subdivided into modes following
immediately from one of God's attributes and modes that are
mediated through a mode following immediately from one of
God's attributes. Modes of the second kind, by contrast, are
transitory and finite. Since an eternal and infinite thing can-
not be the cause of a transitory and finite thing, it is unclear
how the modes of the second kind are supposed to be caused
by God. Although Spinoza does not address the problem, a
possible solution is to take finite modes to be dependent on
God not individually, but as an eternal and infinite chain of
causes and effects. Spinoza also makes little effort to explain
the first kind of modes. The "infinite intellect" is the mode
immediately following from the attribute of thought, "motion
and rest" the mode immediately following from the attribute
of extension, and the "face of the whole universe [fades totius
universi]" a mediate eternal and infinite mode of extension
(Letter 64). The notion of "motion and rest" suggests that Spi-
noza has the fundamental laws of nature in mind. The "face
of the whole universe" appears to refer to the stable order of
nature, since Spinoza links the notion to Ethica 11, Lemma 7,
Schol., where "the whole of nature" is described as an infinite
individual that remains unchanged, while its constituents vary
in infinite ways.

In an appendix to the first part of the Ethica, Spinoza
explains the devastating consequences of his philosophi-
cal theology for popular views of God. A providential God,
who interferes in the course of nature according to his free
will, rewards and punishes, and performs miracles, is noth-
ing but the "refuge of ignorance [asylum ignorantiae]" of the
superstitious.

epistemology, psychology, and ethics. From the sub-
sequent parts of the Ethica it is clear that Spinoza is not inter-
ested in a general account of the order of modes, but in the
structure of one particular mode: the human being, consist-
ing of "mind and body [mens et corpus]" (Ethica 11, Prop. 13,
Cor.) which - as in the case of substance and all other modes -
are one and the same thing considered under the attribute of
thought and under the attribute of extension. While Spinoza
thus avoids the problems involved in dualistic accounts of
mind and body, the unity he assumes is not without obscuri-
ties of its own. He describes the mind as the idea of the body

(Ethica 11, Prop. 13) and its cognitive power as corresponding
to the body's complexity and hence ability to interact with its
environment (ibid., Schol. and Prop. 14). Of particular im-
portance for Spinoza's epistemology are the three kinds of
knowledge that he distinguishes in Prop. 40, Schol. 2: "imag-
ination [imaginatio]" which draws on random sense-percep-
tions and their arbitrary association; "reason [ratio]" which
draws on common notions and adequate ideas of the proper-
ties of things; finally "intuitive knowledge [scientia intuitiva]"
which infers the essence of things from the essence of God's
attributes. Whereas the first kind of knowledge is fallible, the
other two kinds are necessarily true (Ethica 11, Prop. 41). Al-
though a true idea must correspond to its object (Ethica 1, Ax.
6), this is not the criterion of truth for Spinoza. What is deci-
sive is if the idea is "adequate" or not, whereby an "adequate"
idea is one that has the "intrinsic characteristics of a true idea"
(Ethica 11, Def. 4). As a consequence, "he who has a true idea
knows at the same time that he has a true idea, and cannot
doubt its truth" (Ethica 11, Prop. 43). Truth thus becomes "the
standard both of itself and of falsehood [norma sui et falsi]"
(ibid., Schol.).

The third part of the Ethica contains Spinoza's psychol-
ogy in form of a theory of human affects. Crucial for under-
standing the affects is the striving "to persist in one's being"
(Ethica in, Prop. 6) which Spinoza calls conatus and takes to
be the essence of all things. Only God has absolutely unlim-
ited power in himself to attain the goal of the conatus. The
power of the modes, on the other hand, depends on God
and is limited to varying degrees within the order of nature,
which necessarily follows from God's essence, and in which
the modes are determined by God to act on one another. In
human beings the conatus takes on the form of "desire [appe-
titus or cupiditas]" which gives rise to two further basic affects:
"joy [laetitia]" and "sadness [tristitia]" The former is caused
by an object that increases a person's power and whose pos-
session is, therefore, desired. The latter is caused by an object
that decreases a person's power and which he or she will thus
attempt to avoid (Ethica in, Definition of the Affects 1-3). Fun-
damental, moreover, is the distinction between active affects,
of which human beings are the "adequate cause," and passive
affects that are caused by external objects. With this, Spinoza
has set up the conceptual framework for a detailed account
and explanation of human affects "in the geometric manner"
(Ethica in, Praef.), as well as for the ethical discussion of the
fourth and fifth part of the Ethica.

Spinoza's ethics is clearly egoistic: to act virtuously means
"to preserve one's own being [...] under the guidance of rea-
son," which in turn means to act with a view to "one's own
advantage [proprium utile]" (Ethica iv, Prop. 24). As a conse-
quence, goodness or badness are not inherent properties of
things or actions but depend on their utility or lack of util-
ity for attaining the objects of desire (Ethica iv, Def. 1 and
2). Since intellectual perfection is the highest level of power
accessible to human beings, they - insofar as they are ratio-
nal - desire nothing but "understanding [intelligere]" (Ethica

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iv, Prop. 26) which, as already indicated, has the "knowledge
of God" as its ultimate goal. This, therefore, is "the highest
good" and the "highest virtue" of the mind (Ethica iv, Prop.
27 and 28). The power derived from understanding is mani-
fold: it liberates human beings at least to some extent from
the "bondage [servitus]" to passive affects, since next to the
highest good, external things that are good or bad, but beyond
their control, become less important. Moreover, their affec-
tive reaction to what happens to them will diminish and their
tranquility increase through the knowledge that all things
are predetermined and that human beings are "part of the
whole of nature" (Appendix). By means of the better rational
control over their affects, human beings become less vulner-
able to external causes that toss them back and forth "like the
waves of the sea when driven by contrary winds" (Ethica in,
Prop. 59, Schol.). At the same time, intellectual activity is an
active affect and entirely under our control. It thus represents
the highest form of freedom in the sense of self-determina-
tion accessible to human beings. Since knowledge sub specie
aeternitatisy according to Spinoza, allows the mind to partici-
pate in God's eternity, it constitutes the goal of the striving to
"persist in one's being." Finally, the increase in power gained
through understanding is a source of constant joy, leading to
the "intellectual love of God."

It is important to note that Spinoza takes his ethical ego-
ism to be perfectly compatible with the wish to give to one's
fellow human beings every possible assistance to attain the
same degree of perfection that one desires for oneself. For
"no individual thing in nature is more advantageous to man
than a man who lives by the guidance of reason" (Ethica iv,
Prop. 35, Cor. 1). Moreover, in contrast to material goods, "the
greatest good," i.e., knowledge of God, "can be enjoyed by all
equally" (Ethica iv, Prop. 36). Solidarity and mutual help are
thus good for purely utilitarian reasons.

critique of religion. The Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
also fits into Spinoza's project of the good life. Its goal may
be described as creating the conditions for the project's im-
plementation. After all, a philosophical life cannot be led by
someone who does not have the "freedom to philosophize
[libertas philosophandi]" or whom the "prejudices of theo-
logians" prevent from "devoting [applicare]" his life to phi-
losophy. These, according to Spinoza, were the main reasons
for working out his critique of religion in the ttp (Letter 30).
The chief purpose of this critique is to show that Scripture
can make no legitimate claim to truth. This will take away
both the fear felt by the potential philosopher when a dem-
onstrated proposition conflicts with a theological doctrine
and the authority of the theologian to persecute a person for
holding views that disagree with the teachings of Scripture.
Of crucial importance for attaining this purpose are the first
two chapters of the TTP y which deal with "prophecy or revela-
tion [prophetia sive revelation] " and with the biblical prophets.
Spinoza recurs to a distinction between intellect and imagina-
tion that was common in the Aristotelian tradition and that

Maimonides had already used for explaining prophecy. Ac-
cording to Maimonides, the prophet has both a highly devel-
oped intellect and a highly developed imagination, whereby
the latter allows him to translate his intellectual insights into
a simple and vivid language that can be understood by his un-
educated audience. According to Spinoza, on the other hand,
the prophet does not excel through his "more perfect intel-
lect," but only through his "more lively imagination [potentia
vividius imaginandi]" (ttp 2). Prophetic discourse, therefore,
has no true cognitive content; it is only persuasive through
images and symbols which are adjusted to the audience's lim-
ited capacity for understanding and help securing obedience
to the law. Moreover, Spinoza intends to show through a de-
tailed examination of the meaning of biblical terms that when
the Bible describes the prophets as being filled with "the spirit
of God or the holy spirit," it only intends to highlight their
"exceptional virtue." This is an implicit attempt to refute the
doctrine of the Calvinist Church which grounds the author-
ity of Scripture on its super- rational inspiration by the holy
spirit (ttp 1). Prophecy thus understood is neither specifi-
cally Jewish, nor can a claim to "election [vocatio] " be derived
from it. For Spinoza Israel's election refers only to the political
success of the ancient Hebrew state based on Moses' legisla-
tion. The election ended with the state's disintegration. That
the Jewish people nonetheless continues to exist he explains
through its insistence to keep up "external rituals" such as the
"sign of circumcision [signum circumcisionis]" through which
it sets itself apart from other nations and provokes their ha-
tred (ttp 3). Moses' legislation, in particular the "ceremonial
law [ceremoniae]" (ttp 5), is exclusively political in nature.
As a "human law [lex humana]" (ttp 4) it aims only at "pre-
serving life and the commonwealth," promising no more than
"worldly happiness [temporaneafoelicitasY to those who ob-
serve it (ttp 5). By contrast, the "divine law [lex divina]" aims
at the "highest good, i.e., the true knowledge and love of God,"
thus leading to "man's highest happiness [summa hominis
foelicitas]" (ttp 4). Also the distinction between human and
divine law Spinoza took over from Maimonides, at the same
time turning it against its original intention. Whereas Maimo-
nides identified the Torah with the divine law and presented
Moses as a philosopher and lawgiver in the Platonic sense,
Spinoza demotes Moses to a simple lawgiver whose legisla-
tion became obsolete after the downfall of the Hebrew state.
This reversal of the Maimonidean model is a good example
for the influence of Uriel da Costa and other Jewish hetero-
dox thinkers on Spinoza. Their denial that the immortality of
the soul is a biblical doctrine presumably underlies his claim
that the Mosaic Law only promises "worldly happiness," and
not eternal happiness which is the reward of "the true knowl-
edge and love of God."

Also the miracles related in Scripture cannot be used as
testimony for the authority of revelation, since miracles in
the sense of God suspending the laws of nature are impos-
sible in the order of nature, which is eternally and necessarily
determined through God's essence. The reason for the belief

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in miracles, according to Spinoza, is the ignorance of causal
connections (ttp 6).

The demolition of the traditional notion of revelation al-
lows Spinoza to refute the premises of the exegesis promoted
by Maimonides which attempts to harmonize philosophy and
Scripture. In Spinoza's view this amounts to the "distorting and
explaining away of Scripture" (ttp 7) with the goal to "extract"
from it "Aristotelian nonsense [nugas Aristotelicas]" (ttp 1). It
allows him likewise to refute the central claim underlying the
hermeneutics of the Calvinist Church: that the understand-
ing of Scripture requires the super- rational illumination by
the holy spirit. Against these approaches Spinoza calls for the
unconditional acceptance of Scriptures literal sense based on
the methodological principle that "the knowledge of all the
contents of Scripture must be sought from Scripture alone."
The focus is no longer the "truth [veritas] " of a proposition in
Scripture but its "meaning [sensus]" (ttp 7). In order to de-
termine the meaning, the Bible scholar proceeds in an analo-
gous way to the scientist whose aim is to explain nature. Both
work out a "history [historia] ," i.e., a methodological account,
of the object of their study (ibid.). For the Bible scholar this
means collecting and ordering the data contained in Scripture
and then interpreting them in light of the relevant historical
and socio -cultural contexts, as well as the psychological pecu-
liarities of the prophets, insofar as these can be reconstructed
from the available sources. In much of his discussion in the
preceding chapters Spinoza follows the methodological rules
laid out in ttp 7 and shows that from a philosophical point
of view almost every statement in Scripture is false.

In ttp 8-10 he goes on to examine the composition and
transmission of the biblical books. Taking a number of cryptic
remarks in Abraham Ibn Ezra's commentary on the Bible as
his point of departure, Spinoza arrives at the conclusion that
much of the Pentateuch cannot have been written by Moses.
He likewise questions the traditional attribution of several
other books of the Bible. The comprehensive rejection of the
claim to truth of revelation leads to the goal of the theological
part of the ttp: the strict separation of philosophy and reli-
gion. The authority to determine truth and falsehood belongs
only to philosophers who rely on rational insight. The task of
theologians, relying on revelation, is to assure "obedience [obe-
diential " to the law by teaching - like the prophets led by their
imagination - "pious dogmas" whose truth is not important.
Philosophy and theology thus become two independent dis-
ciplines: "the goal of philosophy is nothing but the truth, the
goal of faith is nothing but obedience" (ttp 14). Consequently
"reason" cannot be "the handmaid of theology [ancilla theolo-
giae] nor theology the handmaid of reason [ancilla rationis]?
Spinoza calls the former position "skepticism," for it "denies
the certainty of reason," and exemplifies it through Judah Al-
fakhar, one of the leaders of the opposition to philosophy in
medieval Judaism. Alfakhar is a stand-in for the position of
the Calvinist Church, which Spinoza refrained from attacking
openly. The latter position he calls "dogmatism" and illustrates
it by means of Maimonides' philosophical exegesis which re-

interprets every biblical passage that contradicts a doctrine
established by reason (ttp 15). From this point of view the
ttp marks the end of classical Jewish philosophy, whose fun-
damental premise was the agreement of revelation with all
propositions demonstrated by reason. More importantly: it
destroys the traditional notion of religion as a whole insofar
as it is grounded on the truth of revelation. In this lies one of
Spinoza's most momentous contributions to modernity.

religion as a replacement of philosophy. Neverthe-
less, Spinoza's attitude to religion is considerably more com-
plicated. For despite the radical critique of religion, there are
a significant number of passages throughout his work - from
the Cogitata Metaphysica to the Tractatus Politicus and the late
correspondence with Henry Oldenburg - in which he attri-
butes a true core to Scripture, often presented as its allegorical
content. This striking inconsistency seems to stem from a two-
fold commitment that Spinoza was ultimately unable to recon-
cile: he not only wants to criticize religion in order to defend
the freedom to philosophize; he also wants to use religion as
a replacement of philosophy for non-philosophers. The con-
cept of religion as a replacement of philosophy which guides
non-philosophers to virtue is precisely the "dogmatic" view of
Maimonides (and, in fact, the standard view of medieval Is-
lamic and Jewish philosophers) that Spinoza rejects in the ttp.
The main idea is that the positive content of religion - biblical
narratives, laws, rituals and so forth - is a pedagogical-politi-
cal program designed by philosophers to guide non-philoso-
phers. The allegorical content of religion, on the other hand,
corresponds to the doctrines demonstrated in philosophy.
Religion's authority thus depends on the assumption that the
teachings of religion are true on the allegorical level. Before
Spinoza started working on the ttp in 1665, he consistently
endorsed the dogmatic position whenever he discussed the
character of Scripture (Cogitata Metaphysica 11,8 and the cor-
respondence with W. van Blyenbergh between 1664 and 1665).
But different versions of it reappear also in his later writings.
They include the attribution of true moral convictions to the
biblical prophets (ttp 1 and 2), the attribution of true meta-
physical doctrines such as God being causa immanens to "all
ancient Hebrews" (Letter 73), the presentation of Christ as an
accomplished philosopher instructing non-philosophers by
means of allegories (ttp 4; cf. e iv, Prop. 68, Schol.), and the
claim that the "uncorrupted" core of Scripture corresponds
to the "universal religion" described in the ttp (12-14). None
of these can be justified through the exegetical method that
Spinoza claims to have adopted in the ttp: "to neither affirm
anything of [Scripture] nor to admit anything as its teaching
which I did not most clearly derive from it" (ttp Preface). The
textual evidence gives rise to a number of questions: why did
Spinoza adopt the medieval position in his early writings, why
did he refute it in the TTP y and why did he continue to make
use of it even after having refuted it? For one thing, Spinoza
clearly shares the view of Maimonides and many other medi-
eval philosophers that the good life based on knowledge (i.e.,

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the life he himself chose according to the opening passage of
the tei and for which the Ethica serves as a guide) is accessible
only to a small group of philosophers: "only a few in propor-
tion to the whole of humanity acquire a virtuous disposition
under the guidance of reason alone" (ttp 15; cf. Ethica v, Prop.
42, Schol.). This leads to the question how guidance can be
provided to non-philosophers. The evidence of Spinoza's early
writings shows that he in principle agrees with the medieval
solution which takes the positive content of religion to be a
pedagogical-political program designed to lead non-philoso-
phers to virtue. A second reason for adopting the medieval po-
sition is that the perception of philosophy as coinciding with
the allegorical content of religion facilitates its acceptance in
a religious society Finally, the medieval position, which has
philosophy determine the true core of religion, neither seems
to interfere with Spinoza's philosophical project in the Ethica
nor with the freedom to philosophize that he sets out to de-
fend in the ttp. But if this is the case, why did he refute it at
all? It is clear that Spinoza's main opponent in the ttp is not
the "dogmatic" position represented by Maimonides, but the
"skeptical" position of the Calvinist Church, in particular the
view that the authority of Scripture overrides the authority
of reason. This he takes to be the chief threat to the freedom
to philosophize (ttp Preface). The only efficient way to re-
fute this position, in Spinoza's view, is to show that Scripture
contains no truth. But although the medieval position and
the position of the Reformed Church are in a sense opposed
to each other, both depend in different ways on the premise
that Scripture is true. Thus the refutation of the one entails
the refutation of the other. While his target is the Reformed
Church, Spinoza has no choice but to give up the medieval
position as well. At the same time he has no new solution for
the problem of non-philosophers. This explains why, despite
its refutation, he continues to use the dogmatic position in
various contexts in his later writings.

political philosophy. In the Ethica Spinoza argues that
the essence of human beings is the conatus, i.e., the striving "to
persist in one's being." In the political part of the ttp and in
the Tractatus Politicus y following Thomas Hobbes, he equates
the power to do so with a person's natural right in the state
of nature, and explains the social contract as the decision to
submit to a sovereign power in exchange for peace and safety
(ttp 16). But, against Hobbes, Spinoza maintains that the nat-
ural right is not given up under the social contract: "the su-
preme power in a state has no more right over a subject than
is proportionate to the power by which it is superior to the
subject" (Letter 50).

Besides Hobbes, Spinoza was also influenced by ancient
political thought, in part mediated through medieval Jewish
sources. Indeed, the fear of being harmed through the power
of others is not the only motive for forming a political com-
munity. Since, on their own, human beings are not self-suf-
ficient, they must collaborate with one another. Hence the
Aristotelian definition "which makes man a social animal,

has been quite pleasing to most." Spinoza in any case is cer-
tain that "we derive from the society of our fellow men many
more advantages than disadvantages" (Ethica iv, Prop. 35,
Schol.). Moreover, according to Spinoza, social harmony is
weakened when the actions of the citizens are guided by the
idiosyncratic goals of their passions, whereas it is strengthened
when their actions are guided by reason which prescribes the
same goal to all (idem, Dem.). It follows that the "end [finis] ,"
for which the state is established, is not simply peace in the
sense of "the absence of war [privatio belli]" its positive aim
is to enhance the rationality of the citizens, i.e., their virtue,
for "reason" is the "true virtue and life of the mind" (Tractatus
Politicus 5, iv - vi). Since Spinoza equates virtue and knowl-
edge, culminating in the intellectual love of God, and since he
takes the "uncorrupted" true core of Scripture to be the call
"to love God above all and one's neighbor as oneself" (ttp
12), the fundamental convergence of the purpose of his phil-
osophical, religious, and political project becomes apparent:
to foster a community based on solidarity and on freedom of
thought, whose members assist one another in attaining the
best life, i.e., a life devoted to the love of God.

influence. Although during the first century after his death
Spinoza was less famous than infamous, reviled as a notorious
atheist, his influence was nonetheless considerable: not only
on philosophers such as Leibniz, but, most importantly, on
the different currents of the unfolding Enlightenment. Indeed,
some scholars argue that the Enlightenment of the 18 th century
was no more than apost-scriptum to the dynamic of the radi-
cal Enlightenment set off by Spinoza's writings. He determined
the intellectual agenda not only of those who agreed with him,
but also of those who attempted to refute him and of those
who adopted intermediate positions (cf. J. Israel). The most
fruitful reception of his philosophy took place in Germany in
the second half of the 18 th century. The event which put Spi-
noza's work at the very center of the thriving German intellec-
tual culture of the time was the so-called "PantheismusstreiC
This quarrel broke out when EH. Jacobi accused Lessing after
his death of being a crypto-Spinozist, in a public exchange of
letters with Moses Mendelssohn that was widely debated in
Germany's literary and philosophical circles and stirred up
renewed interest in Spinoza's thought. A typical response to
Jacobi's identification of Spinozism with atheism was that of
the great Romantic poet Novalis, who described Spinoza as a
"God-intoxicated man." Spinoza also significantly contributed
to shaping Goethe's worldview, as well as that of many other
central figures of Germany's literary scene. In a dedication that
J.G. Herder wrote into a copy of Spinoza's Opera Posthuma,
given to Goethe as a Christmas gift in 1784, he expresses his
wish that the "holy Spinoza" may always remain their "holy
Christ." In philosophy, Spinoza's ontological monism influ-
enced the systems of German idealists probably as much as
Kant's criticism. According to Hegel, Spinoza's thought is the
"essential beginning of all philosophizing [wesentliche Anfang
alles Philosophierens]? Nietzsche arrived at the conclusion

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that his own philosophical project agreed with Spinoza's on
most fundamental issues. As mentioned in the introduction,
Spinoza today continues to be debated by philosophers of a
wide range of intellectual affiliations. Turning to his critique
of religion, Spinoza may be said to have laid the foundation
for the scientific study of the Bible. He also had a consider-
able impact on Jewish thinkers, beginning with David Nieto in
the 17 th century. In Jewish Haskalah circles of the 18 th century,
Mendelssohn's cautious Spinoza- reception stands next to Sa-
lomon Maimon's enthusiastic encounter with Spinoza's system
that he relates in his Autobiography. Maimon's metaphysics,
which takes up and combines ideas derived from Maimonides
and Spinoza, was the first to make the transition from Kant
to an idealist position. Spinoza also left his imprint on 19 th -
century maskilim. Moreover, he became an important source
of the secular wo rldview of prominent Zionists, among them
David Ben-Gurion who proposed to revoke the herem against
him. Albert Einstein wrote a poem "On Spinoza's Ethics." His
"God who does not throw dice" clearly has Spinozistic fea-
tures, as does his notion of a "cosmic religion."

[Carlos Fraenkel (2 nd ed.)]

As a Bible Scholar

Spinoza's biblical criticism in part follows earlier attempts,
but integrates them for the first time into a rational system,
laying the groundwork for all later critical works on the Bible
up to the present. His biblical criticism is closely connected
to his philosophical system and political project. Based on
the knowledge of the Bible that he acquired in his childhood,
and after long years of reflection, his critical views of the Bible
were expressed in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus> as well as
in a few letters and conversations. In opposition to the many
misuses of the Bible that he observed in Judaism and Christi-
anity, Spinoza developed what he took to be the true method
of biblical exegesis. Every person has the right to engage in
biblical interpretation; it does not require supernatural illu-
mination or special authority. Spinoza's supreme principle
is that the Bible must be interpreted on its own terms. The
method of the interpretation of the Bible is the same as the
method of the interpretation of nature. "For, as the method
of interpreting nature consists essentially in putting together
a history [i.e., a methodical account] of nature, from which,
as from sure data, we deduce the definitions of natural phe-
nomena, so it is necessary for the interpretation of Scripture
to work out a true history of Scripture, and from it, as from
sure data and principles, to deduce through legitimate infer-
ence, the intention of the authors of Scripture" (ttp 7). The
history of Scripture should comprise three components: (1) an
analysis of the Hebrew language; (2) the compilation and clas-
sification of the expressions [sententiae] of each of the books
of the Bible; (3) research into the original contexts of the bib-
lical writings, as far as they still can be ascertained, i.e., into
"the life, the conduct, and the pursuits of the author of each
book, who he was, what was the occasion and the epoch of
his writing, whom did he write for, and in what language.

Further it should inquire into the fate of each book: how it
was first received, into whose hands it fell, how many differ-
ent versions there were of it, by whose advice was it received
into the Canon, and lastly, how all the books now universally
accepted as sacred were united into a single whole" (ibid.). In
accordance with this program, Spinoza analyzed the biblical
writings in an attempt to determine their authors (ttp 8-10).
He spelled out, and substantially expanded on, the consider-
ations that led the medieval commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra
to allude to the possibility that the Pentateuch did not derive
in its entirety from Moses. Although some of the Pentateuch
did originate with Moses (The Book of the Wars of God, the
Book of the Covenant, the Book of the Law of God), it was
only many centuries after Moses that the Pentateuch as a
whole appeared. The Pentateuch, together with the books of
Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, forms a single larger his-
torical work, whose author, Spinoza conjectures, was Ezra.
Ezra was prevented by his premature death, or perhaps some
other reason, from revising these books. They contain numer-
ous repetitions and contradictions, e.g., of a chronological na-
ture, that lead to the conclusion that the wealth of material was
compiled from works of different authors, without being ar-
ranged and harmonized. 1 and 11 Chronicles were written long
after Ezra, perhaps even after the restoration of the Temple by
Judah Maccabee. The Psalms were collected and divided into
five books in the Second Temple period; Proverbs is from the
same period or, at the earliest, from the time of Josiah. The
Prophetic books contain only fragments assembled from other
books, but not in an order established by the prophets. Spi-
noza adopts Ibn Ezra's hypothesis concerning Job, according to
which Job was translated from a gentile language; if this were
the case it would entail that the gentiles also had holy books.
Daniel is authentic only from chapter 8 on; the previous chap-
ters, presumably taken from Chaldean chronicles, are in any
case an indication that books can be holy even though they
are not written in Hebrew. The Book of Daniel forms with the
books of Ezra, Esther, and Nehemiah a work by a historian
who wrote long after the restoration of the Temple by Judah
Maccabee, using the official annals of the Second Temple in
his work. These theories lead to the conclusion that the canon
could have originated only in the time of the Hasmoneans. It
is a work of the Pharisees, not Ezra, in whose time the Great
Assembly did not yet exist. Spinoza criticizes various deci-
sions of the Pharisees, such as the inclusion of Chronicles in
the canon and the rejection of the Wisdom of Solomon and
Tobit, and he regrets "that holy and highest things should de-
pend upon the choice of those people." Spinoza discovers in
the Prophets numerous contradictions in their conceptions
of natural and spiritual phenomena. He concludes that God
adapted his revelation in these matters to the limited intellec-
tual power of the prophets, and that philosophical knowledge
is not to be found in their works. The purpose of the revela-
tion to the prophets is rather to teach the right way of life to
an uneducated audience (ttp 1-2). The example of Balaam in-
dicates that there were prophets not only among the Hebrews.

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SPIRE, ANDRE

The election of the Hebrews should not be understood as an
indication that they excelled over other nations with respect
to intellect and virtue; their election refers only to their politi-
cal kingdom and ended with the latter s downfall (ttp 3). The
ceremonies prescribed in the Bible, in fact the entire Mosaic
law, were applicable only as long as the kingdom lasted; after
it ended they no longer contributed to happiness and bless-
edness (ttp 4-5). According to Spinoza, stories in the Bible
are not to be believed literally; they are intended to instruct
the members of the community, who could not comprehend
philosophical arguments in which propositions are deduced
from definitions and axioms (ttp 5). Spinoza is aware of the
difficulties that stand in the way of a conclusive understand-
ing of the Bible on the basis of his method, for example our
incomplete knowledge of Hebrew and of the circumstances
of the composition of the biblical books, some of which (in
particular those of the New Testament) are not extant in the
language in which they were composed (ttp 7).

[Rudolf Smend / Carlos Fraenkel (2 nd ed.)]

bibliography: sources: Spinoza, Opera, ed. C. Gebhardt,
4 vol., (1925); The Collected Works of Spinoza, vol. 1, ed. and Eng.
trans. E. Curley (1985); Complete Works, Eng. trans. S. Shirley, ed.
M.L. Morgan (2002); scholarly literature: M. Joel, Spinozas
theologisch-politischer Traktat auf seine Quellen gepriift (1870); idem,
Zur Genesis der Lehre Spinozas (1871); J. Freudenthal, "Spinoza und
die Scholastik," in: Philosophische Aufsatze - Eduard Zeller zu seinem
funfzijahrigen Doctor-Jubilaum gewidmet (1887), 85-138; idem, Die Le-
bensgeschichte Spinozas (1899); idem, Spinoza, Leben und Lehre (1927);
K.O. Meinsma, Spinoza en zijn kring (1896; French trans. 1983); H.H.
Joachim, A Study of Spinozas Ethics (1901); C. Gebhardt, "Spinoza
und der Platonismus," in: Chronicon Spinozanum, 1 (1921), 178-234;
L. Roth, Spinoza, Descartes and Maimonides (1924); L. Strauss, Die
Religionskritik Spinozas als Grundlage seiner Bib elwissenschaft (1930;
Eng. trans. 1965); idem, "How to Study Spinozas Theological-Political
Treatise" in: Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research,
17 (1948), 69-131; H.A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza: Unfolding
the Latent Process of His Reasoning, 2 vol. (1934); IS. Revah, Spinoza
et Juan de Prado (1959); S. Zac, Spinoza et V interpretation de lecriture
(1965); M. Gueroult, Spinoza I, Dieu (1968); idem, Spinoza 11, L'Ame
(1974); S. Pines, "Spinozas Tractatus, Maimonides and Kant," in:
Scripta Hierosolymitana, 20 (1968), 3-54; A. Matheron, Le Christ et le
salut des ignorants chez Spinoza (1971); W.Z. Harvey, "Maimonides and
Spinoza on the Knowledge of Good and Evil," in: Iyyun, 28:4 (1978),
167-185 (Heb.); idem, "A Portrait of Spinoza as a Maimonidean," in:
Journal of the History of Philosophy, 19:2 (1981), 151-72; C. Cramer,
W.G. Jacobs, W. Schmidt-Biggemann (eds.), Spinozas Ethik und ihre
frtihe Wirkung (1981); J.P. Osier, D'Uriel da Costa a Spinoza (1983);
J. Bennett, A Study of Spinozas Ethics (1984); K. Grunder and W.
Schmidt-Biggemann (eds.), Spinoza in der Fruhzeit seiner religiosen
Wirkung (1984); J. Dienstag, "The Relation of Spinoza to the Philoso-
phy of Maimonides," in: Studia Spinozana, 2 (1986), 375-416; H.E. Al-
lison, Benedict de Spinoza - An Introduction (1987); R.H. Popkin, and
M.A. Singer, Spinozas Earliest Publication? (1987); E. Curley, Behind
the Geometrical Method - A Reading of Spinozas Ethics (1988); Z. Levy,
Baruch or Benedict - On Some Jewish Aspects of Spinozas Philosophy
(1989); Y. Yovel, Spinoza and Other Heretics, 2 vols. (1989); M. Dor-
man, The Spinoza Dispute in Jewish Thought - From David Nieto to
David Ben-Gurion (Heb. 1990); M. Delia Rocca, Representation and
the Mind-Body Problem in Spinoza (1996); S.B. Smith, Spinoza, Lib-

eralism, and the Question of Jewish Identity (1997); S. Nadler, Spinoza:
A Life (1999); J. Israel, Radical Enlightenment (2001); J.S. Preus, Spi-
noza and the Irrelevance of Biblical Authority (2001); H. Ravven and
L. Goodman (eds.), Jewish Themes in Spinozas Philosophy (2002); C.
Jaquet (ed.), Les Pensees metaphysiques de Spinoza (2004); J. Lagree,
Spinoza et le debat religieux: lectures du traite theologico -politique
(2004); Y. Melamed, "Salomon Maimon and the Rise of Spinozism,"
in: Journal of the History of Philosophy, 42:1 (2004), 67-96; C. Fraen-
kel, "From Maimonides' God to Spinozas Deus sive Natura? in: Jour-
nal of the History of Philosophy, 44:2 (2006).

SPIRA (Spiro), NATHAN NATA BEN SOLOMON (c. 1585-
1633), Polish kabbalist. Spira, who was born in Cracow, main-
tained a well-known yeshivah. During the last years of his life
he apparently served as head of the rabbinic court. One of the
first protagonists in Poland of pseudo-Lurianic Kabbalah,
particularly in the version disseminated by Israel *Sarug, he
was interested mainly in the mysticism of numbers rather
than in systematic speculation. His Megalleh Amukkot, pub-
lished by his son after his early death (Cracow, 1637), became
one of the classics of Ashkenazi Kabbalah and was reprinted
several times. It offered 252 interpretations of one single pas-
sage, Moses' prayer in Deuteronomy 3:23 ff The author was
"intoxicated" with numbers; he was concerned less with us-
ing the qualities of numbers in order to elucidate matters of
Kabbalah and halakhah than in employing the Kabbalah as
material for showing his great power with different numerical
combinations, and there is no doubt that he had an extraordi-
nary mathematical mind. Where other people think in words,
he thought in numbers. His way of thinking and interpret-
ing was frequently imitated by kindred spirits in the next 200
years. Spira mentions a similar book of his in which he had
interpreted the letter alef in the word Va-Yikra in Leviticus 1:1
(which is written in a particularly small form) in 1,000 differ-
ent ways. His commentary on the whole Pentateuch was not
published until much later (Lvov, 1785), under the same title.
The rabbinical approbations of an elaborate commentary on
Spira's classic by David b. Moses from Zuelz were published in
Dyhernfurth in 1707, but the work itself never appeared.

bibliography: S.A. Horodezky, in: lyyim, 1, section 4 (1928),
54-61; }. Ginzburg, in: Ha-Tekufah, 25 (1929), 488-97; S.A. Horodezky,
Shelosh Meot Shanah shel Yahadut Polin (1946), 127-32; G. Scholem,
in: rhr, 143 (1953), 34-36.

[Gershom Scholem]

SPIRE, ANDRE (1868-1966), French poet and Zionist leader.
Born in Nancy, Spire was descended from an old established
family of Lorraine and the son of a rich industrialist. After
studying law, he became a member of the Conseil d' Etat in
1894, specialized in employment problems at the French Min-
istry of Labor (1898-1902), and was inspector general in the
Ministry of Agriculture from 1902 to 1926 when he retired.
Spire was roused from his assimilationist lethargy by the
*Dreyfus Affair, in which he played an active role. He fought
a duel with the antisemite * Drumont, and struggled to gain a
revision of the trial. Much to the dismay of assimilated French

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

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SPIRO, EUGEN

Jewry, Spire speedily became a militant advocate of Jewish na-
tional revival, first supporting the Russo-Jewish self-defense
organizations during the pogroms, then organizing the Asso-
ciation des Jeunes Juifs in order to organize the recent Jewish
immigrants to France. Writing from Basle where he was at-
tending a Zionist Congress in 1911, Spire declared: "The most
despicable Jews are those who deny their own identity. . . They
were cursed by the Prophets and will be banished from the
New Jerusalem... . Assimilation is death. Zionism is life." Af-
ter the Balfour Declaration, Spire founded in 1918 the Ligue
des Amis du Sionisme, and a year later represented the French
Zionists at the Paris Peace Conference; in 1920 he joined a del-
egation to Erez Israel. Following a rift with *Weizmann, Spire
withdrew from active participation in official Zionism. Dur-
ing World War 11 he took refuge in the U.S., where he taught
and lectured on French culture and poetry. He worked for
refugees during the Nazi period, and supported Hillel Kook's
activist "Hebrew National Liberation Movement" on the eve
of the birth of the State of Israel.

Spire is best remembered as the leader of the Jewish re-
vival movement in 20 th -century French literature, and also as
a literary theorist and innovator. His verse, which overflows
with passion and humor, defends freedom and justice, and
chastises the cowardly and the rich. Spires main verse collec-
tion, Poemes Juifs (1919, 1959 3 ), lashes the assimilated and calls
for a Jewish revolt. In Samael (1921) Spire develops a dramatic
vision of good and evil, man's destiny and happiness. His in-
exhaustible verve also expressed itself in tales such as the fan-
ciful "Le Rabbin et la Sirene" (in Mercure de France > Aug. 15,
1931; "The Rabbi and the Siren," in J. Leftwich, Yisroel y 1933,
rev. 1963); his critical judgment and insight appears in the
essays Quelques Juifs (1913), enlarged in a second edition as
Quelques Juifs et demi-Juifs (2 vols., 1928). He was a rare com-
bination of a Frenchman attached to his country and steeped
in its culture, and of a Jew, fully identified with the spiritual
and national aspirations of his people.

bibliography: S. Burnshaw Andre Spire and his Poetry

(!933)> essays and translations; Hommage a Andre Spire (1939); C.

Lehrmann, in: Revue des Cours et Conferences (June 15, 1938), 465-79;

idem, in: Lelement Juif dans la Litterature Francaise, 2 (1961), 145-54;

P.M. Schuhl, in: Cahiers de I'Alliance Israelite Universelle (Sept.-Oct.

1959), 51-64; P. Jamati, Andre Spire (Fr., 1962), incl. bibl.; P. Moldaver,

La Technique Poetique d'Andre Spire (1966); L'Amitie Charles Peguy

Feuillets Mensuels, 132 (1967).

[Moshe Catane]

SPIRO, EUGEN (1874-1972), U.S. painter, illustrator, print -
maker. Son of Abraham Beer Spiro, chief cantor of the Storch
Synagogue, Breslau, Spiro studied in Breslau, Munich, and
France. He studied with Franz van Stuck at the Munich Acad-
emy of Art. After visiting Paris from 1906 to 1914, he traveled
to Berlin, where he taught at the Staatlichen Kunstschule and
chaired the Berlin Secession. He immigrated to Paris in 1935
after the Nazis stripped him of his position and qualifications
and denounced his portraits as "degenerate." He was impris-
oned at the French concentration camp of Gurs; however, in

1941 Spiro and his family successfully escaped Nazi-occupied
France, fleeing to New York via Marseilles and Portugal, in
part through the support of Alfred H. Barr, the director of the
Museum of Modern Art. Spiro was active as a painter of land-
scapes, which reflected his study of Cezanne, van Gogh, and
the Impressionists. He also made still lifes, self-portraits, and
interiors, and was well known for his portraits, including those
of Leni Riefenstahl (1924), Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, and
the artist Balthus in 1947. The latter artist was his nephew, and
Spiro also painted a portrait of his sister Elisabeth Dorothea
Spiro, Balthus' mother, as a strict schoolteacher in 1902. Spiro
made numerous simple but descriptive drypoint etchings of
North African subjects, including soldiers, snake charmers,
and the Alhambra, all of which seek to invoke the images with
exoticism. He taught at the Wayman Adam School in Eliza-
bethtown, New Jersey. His work is in the collections of the Fine
Arts Museum, San Francisco. He exhibited at the Museum of
Modern Art and the St. Etienne Galerie, New York. The Gal-
erie von Abercorn in Cologne mounted a retrospective of his
work in 1978. A catalogue raisonne of his art, edited by Wilko
von Abercron, was published in 1990.

bibliography: S. Barron, Exiles and Emigres: The Flight of
European Artists from Hitler (1997); S. Rewald, "Balthus Lessons: Five
Controversial Works by the French Artist," in: Art in America (Sept.
1977); W. Schwab and J. Weiner, Jewish Artists: the Ben Uri Collection:
Paintings, Drawings, Prints, and Sculpture (1987).

[Nancy Buchwald (2 nd ed.)]

SPIRO, GYORGY (1946- ), Hungarian novelist, poet, and

literary historian. His volume of essays A kozep-kelet-europai

drama ("The Drama in Central-East-Europe," 1986) analyzes

the political era. He dealt mainly with historical and Slavonic

subjects.

[Eva Kondor]

SPIRO, KARL (1867-1932), German physiological chem-
ist. Born in Berlin, he worked at the University of Strasbourg
from 1894 until 1918, when it became difficult there for Ger-
mans, and he went to Switzerland. From 1921 he was professor
of physiological chemistry at the University of Basle. He was
one of the first to apply concepts of physical chemistry to
biology, such as pH buffering, and chemical kinetics to en-
zyme actions. He discovered some of the building blocks
of proteins, such as pyrrolidinecarboxylic acid and phenyl-
ethylamine.

SPIRO, MELFORD ELLIOT (1920- ), U.S. anthropologist.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Spiro received his Ph.D. from North-
western University in 1950. He taught at Connecticut Univer-
sity from 1952 to 1957; from 1957 to 1964 he was professor at
Washington University, and from 1965 to 1967 at the Univer-
sity of Chicago. In 1968 he became a founding member of the
Department of Anthropology at the University of California,
San Diego. After retiring from teaching, he was named pro-
fessor emeritus of anthropology at ucsd.

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SPITZ, RENE A.

Spiro's primary research interest is the comparative anal-
ysis of social systems, especially problems of cultural motiva-
tion and control, and the interrelation of personality, culture,
and society In a theoretical chapter in Studying Personality
Cross-Culturally (ed. B. Kaplan, 1961), he discussed culture
and personality study in relation to the central issue in the
social sciences - the explanation of social cohesion and func-
tioning. He saw personality and culture as systems of motiva-
tional tendencies. Among his studies were Kibbutz: Venture
in Utopia (1956) and Children of the Kibbutz: A Study in Child
Training and Personality (1958), based on his research in the
kibbutz as a participant observer. He analyzed the child-rear-
ing methods on the collective settlements and the outcome in
the personality of the kibbutz child. He also conducted field-
work in Micronesia and Burma. In 1991 he received the Dis-
tinguished Contribution Award from the Society for Psycho-
logical Anthropology.

Spiro's publications include Burmese Super naturalism
(1967), Buddhism and Society (1970), Gender and Culture:
Kibbutz Women Revisited (1979), Oedipus in the Trobr lands
(1982), Culture and Human Nature (1987), and Gender Ideol-
ogy and Psychological Reality (1997). He also edited Context
and Meaning in Cultural Anthropology (1965).

[Ephraim Fischoff / Ruth Beloff (2 nd ed.)]

SPITZ, MARK ANDREW (1950- ), U.S. swimmer, holder
of the record for most gold medals won in a single Olympics
with seven, and tied for most gold medals overall with nine;
member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame and U.S.
Olympic Hall of Fame. Born in Modesto, California, the el-
dest of three children to Lenore and Arnold, a steel executive,
Spitz began swimming at age two, when his family moved to
Honolulu and Spitz would swim at Waikiki Beach every day.
The family returned to California four years later, and Spitz
received his first competitive training at six at the Sacramento
ymca. By the time he was 10, he held 17 national age -group
records and one world record, the 50 -yard butterfly, which he
completed in 31 seconds, and was named "the worlds best 10-
and-under swimmer." The family moved to Santa Clara when
Spitz was 14, so he could train at the famed Santa Clara Swim
Club. In 1965 at age 15, he swam at the Maccabiah games in
his first international competition, winning four gold medals.
At age 16 he won the 100 -meter butterfly at the 1966 National
aau Championships, the first of his 24 aau titles. The next
year he won five gold medals at the Pan-American Games in
Winnipeg, and laid claim to ten world records. By the time
Spitz was 18, he had won 26 national and international titles,
and broken 10 world and 28 U.S. records. At the 1968 Olym-
pic Games in Mexico City, where much was expected of him,
Spitz came away disappointed after predicting he would win
six gold medals. He won two gold medals, in the 4 x 100 m and
4 x 200 m freestyle relays, a silver medal in the 100m butter-
fly, and bronze in the 100m freestyle. Spitz spent the next four
years at Indiana University, winning almost every conceivable
award and setting almost every world record in existence, as

he prepared for the 1972 Olympics in Munich. He returned
to Israel for the 1969 Maccabiah Games, winning another six
gold medals. By the spring of 1972, Spitz had set 23 world re-
cords and 35 U.S. records. Driven by ambition and sheer sin-
gle -mindedness, Spitz won seven Olympic gold medals in 1972
at the Munich Games - a feat unequaled by any Olympic ath-
lete - with a world record in each of the seven events (the 100
m freestyle, 200 m freestyle, 100 m butterfly, 200 m butterfly,
4 x 100 m and 4 x 200 m freestyle, and the 4 x 100 m med-
ley). The next week he was on the September 11, 1972, cover of
Time magazine. Spitz's 11 total medals in the two Olympics are
tied for the most medals ever won by a U.S. Olympian. Hours
after he won his last medal, Palestinian terrorism claimed the
lives of 11 Israeli sportsmen, and security personnel whisked
Spitz out of Munich. Over his career, Spitz set 26 individual
world records in the freestyle and butterfly, contributing to
another seven relay world records; 38 American records; 24
National aau championships; and eight ncaa titles. He was
named "World Swimmer of the Year" in 1967, 1971, and 1972
and became the first Jewish recipient of the James E. Sullivan
Award in 1971, given annually to the Amateur Athlete of the
Year. Spitz attempted a comeback at age 41 in an attempt to
qualify for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, after filmmaker Bud
^Greenspan offered to pay him a million dollars if he suc-
ceeded in qualifying. Filmed by Greenspans cameras, Spitz
failed to beat the qualifying limit - his best time was 58:03,
but he needed 55:59. Spitz was named a member of the Inter-
national Swimming Hall of Fame in 1977 and the U.S. Olym-
pic Hall of Fame in 1983. He wrote The Mark Spitz Complete
Book of Swimming (1976) and his autobiography, Seven Golds:
Mark Spitz Own Story (1981).

[Elli Wohlgelernter (2 nd ed.)]

SPITZ, RENE A. (1887-1974), child psychiatrist and psycho-
analyst. Born in Vienna, Spitz worked in Hungary, Austria,
and France before he immigrated to the United States at the
end of the 1930s. From 1940 to 1957 he was on the faculty of
the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, where he became a
research consultant in pediatrics and psychiatry. During part
of this time he was an adjunct psychiatrist at the Mount Sinai
Hospital, New York City (1940-43). As visiting clinical pro-
fessor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado's school of
medicine from 1957, he was active in the fields of psychoanaly-
sis, psychiatry, and normal and disturbed infant development.
He was vice president of the New York Psychoanalytic Society
(1950-52). In 1959 he published Genetic Field Theory of Ego
Formation. After his retirement, he went to live in Geneva,
Switzerland, where he continued to teach and write.

Spitz earned international fame for his pioneering re-
search in infant development. In order to clarify psychoana-
lytic theories that had previously been based in the retrospec-
tive analysis of adults, he carried out direct observation and
photographic documentation of infant behavior. His observa-
tion of children in hospitals led to one of his most important
contributions to psychoanalytic theory - the concept of ana-

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121

SPITZER, ELIOT

clitic depression, a severe disturbance of infant development
resulting from separation from a maternal object and leading
to malnutrition and sometimes death. This condition was re-
garded by subsequent analysts as an attachment disorder. The
books Spitz wrote in his later years, No and Yes (1957) and The
First Year of Life (1965) provide rich documentary evidence
on the early development of infant communication, percep-
tual development, relation to objects, and development of the
mother-child relationship. In them, Spitz tried to conceptual-
ize early development and to correlate the psychological the-
ory of Jean Piaget (1896-1980) with psychoanalytic theory.

add. bibliography: H. Gaskill, Counterpoint: Libidinal
Object and Subject: A Tribute to Rene A. Spitz (1963); R. Emde (ed.),
Rene A. Spitz: Dialogues from Infancy (1984).

[Joseph Marcus]

SPITZER, ELIOT (1959- ), New York State attorney general.
Born in the Bronx in New York City, Spitzer graduated from
Princeton University in 1981 and received his J.D. degree from
Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard
Law Review in 1984. He clerked for U.S. District Court Judge
Robert W. Sweet in New York, then entered private practice at
the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison.

From 1986 Spitzer worked as an assistant district attor-
ney in Manhattan, under District Attorney Robert Morgen-
thau. He pursued investigations into organized crime, eventu-
ally becoming chief of the Labor Racketeering Unit. In 1992,
in perhaps his most famous case, Spitzer led the investiga-
tion into the Gambino family's control of trucking in Man-
hattan's garment industry. That same year he left the District
Attorney's office and joined the firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate,
Meagher, and Flom, and he was later a partner at Constan-
tine and Partners.

In 1994 Spitzer made his first bid for the office of New
York State Attorney General. He failed to win the Democratic
nomination, and Democratic candidate Karen Burstein lost
the general election to Dennis Vacco. Spitzer again sought
the nomination in 1998, this time successfully, and defeated
Vacco in the general elections. In 2002 he was reelected with
a large margin.

As attorney general, Spitzer was credited with redefining
the role of the office, taking on cases that formerly had been
deferred to federal prosecution. His office investigated secu-
rities fraud, insurance practices, occupational safety, market-
ing fraud, and violations of environmental protection. Time
magazine named him "Crusader of the Year" in 2002. That
year Spitzer sued several investment banks for inflating stock
prices by, among other practices, using affiliated firms to of-
fer biased advice. He negotiated a settlement of these lawsuits
for $1.4 billion in compensation and fines, and new rules were
imposed for analysis of the market. Also in 2002, he filed suits
to address violations of the Clean Air Act.

In 2004 Spitzer's office investigated the music indus-
try, uncovering $50 million in unpaid royalties to musicians.
Numerous other cases addressed commissions in the insur-

ance industry, disclosure policies regarding clinical trials
in the pharmaceutical industry, and fraud in the market-
place.

Spitzer announced in 2004 that he would seek the Demo-
cratic nomination for governor of New York in 2006. Senator
Charles Schumer, who had been favored in the polls, had an-
nounced that he would not run but would remain in his Sen-
ate seat. Governor George Pataki announced in 2005 that he
would not seek reelection, and Spitzer was considered a strong
candidate for not only the Democratic nomination but in a
run against possible Republican contenders.

[Dorothy Bauhoff (2 nd ed.)]

SPITZER, FREDERIC (Samuel; 1814-1890), Hungarian-
born collector and dealer in paintings, armor, and objets
dart. Spitzer, son of a cemetery guard, began by selling a Du-
erer painting he bought cheaply in Italy while serving with
the Austrian army in 1848. He later dealt in old weapons
and armor. He settled in Paris and built up a magnificent
collection which the French state offered to buy. Spitzer re-
jected this offer and the collection was sold after his death
for ten million francs. The armor was purchased by King Ed-
ward VII.

SPITZER, HUGO (1854-1937), Austrian philosopher and
scientist. Spitzer, who was born in Einoede, Carinthia, was
professor of philosophy and natural science at Graz from 1903
to 1924. He was an ardent supporter of Darwin and wrote Bei-
traege zur Deszendenztheorie und zur Methodologie der Natur-
wissenschaft (1886). In common with Haeckel, Spitzer claimed
that consciousness could be derived from matter (in his Ueber
Ursprung und Bedeutung des Hylozoismus (1881)). Spitzer also
wrote Kritische Studien zur Aesthetik der Gegenwart (1897),
and Untersuchungen zur Theorie und Geschichte der Aesthetik
(1923 2 ), in which he tried to clarify the relationship between
aesthetics and the philosophy of art.

bibliography: Zeitschrift fuer Aesthetik und allgemeine
Kunstwissenschaft, 18 (1924), Festschrift H. Spitzer; E. Binder, in: Ar-
chiv fuer Philosophie und Soziologie, 30 (1926), 181-90.

[Richard H. Popkin]

SPITZER, JURAJ (1919-1995), Slovak writer, literary critic,

scriptwriter. Spitzer was born in Krupina, Slovakia. In 1944 he
participated in the Slovak National Uprising against the Ger-
mans. From 1951 to 1970 he worked at the Institute of Slovak
Literature of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. In 1970 he lost
his job (punishment for his activities in 1968). Spitzer wrote
several movie scripts and a number of stories, such as Patrim
k vdm ("I Belong to You," 1964) about the political trials of the
1950s and Letnd nedela ("The Summer Sunday," 1991). The nar-
rative Nechcel som byt'Zid ("I Did Not Want to Be a Jew," 1995)
is based on a factual "Report on Novaky," which describes the
Jewish concentration camp in central Slovakia between 1942
and 1944. After Spitzer's death, a collection of essays and mem-
oirs appeared entitled Svitd, az ked'je celkom tma ("It Is Getting

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SPITZER, MOSHE

Light, until the Darkness Is Coming," 1996). The main topic
was the so-called "Jewish question" and the Holocaust.

bibliography: V. Mikula, Slovnik slovenskych spisovatelu

(i999)

[Milos Pojar (2 nd ed.) ]

SPITZER, KARL HEINRICH (1830-1848), first Jewish vic-
tim of the March 1848 revolution in Vienna. He was born in
Bzenec (Bisenz), Moravia, where the family had settled after
the expulsion of the Jews from Vienna in 1670. From the age
of 10 he lived in Vienna, where he was educated, and was in-
fluenced by the French Enlightenment, and the writings of
Ludwig *Boerne. Dissatisfied with political conditions under
the Hapsburgs and tending to radicalism, he intended to em-
igrate to the United States. In the 1848 revolution in Vienna,
Spitzer was among the first five fighters at the barricades to
be shot outside the building of the Lower Austrian Estates
(Landhaus) on March 13. Spitzer was glorified as a martyr of
the revolution by the Jews of the Hapsburg Empire. His father,
Leopold, is reported to have said that he praised God because
his son had helped to free the fatherland and gave new life to
millions by his death. On the initiative of the Roman Catho-
lic chaplain of the students organization the Jewish victims,
Spitzer and Bernard Herschmann, were buried in a common
grave with Christians who also lost their lives at this time.
I.N. *Mannheimer eulogized them in a celebrated sermon.
This unique procedure was not repeated for the Jews shot in
Vienna in October 1848.

bibliography: Oesterreichisches Central-Organ... , 1 (1848),
6-11; Juedisches ArchiVy ino. 6 (1928), 16-18. add. bibliography:
C. Von Wurzbach, Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oester-
reich, s.v.; K. Streng, Ausfuehrliche Biographie des am 13. Maerz in
Wien Gefallenen Freiheitshelden Karl Heinrich Spitzer (1848).

[Meir Lamed / Albert Lichtblau (2 nd ed.)]

SPITZER, LEO (1939- ), scholar and author. Born in Bolivia
to Austrian Jewish parents fleeing Nazi persecution, Spitzer
moved to the United States with his family in 1950. He was
educated at Brandeis University, where he received a B.A. in
Spanish literature (1961), and at the University of Wisconsin,
where he earned a master's degree in Latin American history
(1963) and a Ph.D. in African history (1969). He joined the
faculty of Dartmouth College in 1967 as an instructor, becom-
ing an assistant professor in 1969 and an associate professor
in 1974. He became the Kathe Tappe Vernon Professor of His-
tory at Dartmouth.

A multilingual scholar who speaks Spanish, German,
Portuguese, and Krio, and reads French and Xhosa, Spitzer
published widely on African culture and responses to colo-
nialism and racism. From 1963 to 1965 he was the recipient of
a Ford Foundation Foreign Area Training Fellowship for re-
search in England and Sierra Leone, and in 1972 he received
a Social Science Research Council fellowship for a compara-
tive study of the intellectual reactions to Western culture of
Afro -Brazilian freedmen and the Sierra Leone Creoles. In 1974

and 1975 he was awarded grants from the comparative world
history program of the University of Wisconsin. His works
include The Creoles of Sierra Leone: Responses to Colonialism
(1974); Lives in Between: Assimilation and Marginality in Aus-
tria, Brazil, West Africa, ly 80-1945 (1989); and Acts of Memory:
Cultural Recall in the Present (as editor, with Mieke Bal and
Jonathan Crewe, 1999).

Spitzer perhaps received the most attention for his 1998
work, Hotel Bolivia: The Culture of Memory in a Refuge from Na-
zism, which was widely and favorably reviewed as a significant
contribution to Holocaust studies. The work is part memoir,
part ethnographic study of the Jews who fled to "Hotel Bolivia,"
as they called the country that most regarded as a temporary
haven. It includes letters, family photographs, and interviews
with surviving refugees, and the work explores the issues of dis-
placement, grief, and nostalgia for an obliterated past.

Spitzer has been the recipient of several honors. He was
the Lucius Littauer Fellow at the National Humanities Center
in 1992 and 1993. From 1996 to 1998 he was a National Human-
ities Center Distinguished Lecturer. His latest work is a col-
laboration with Marianne Hirsch on a study of Jewish families
from Czernowitz before, during, and after the Holocaust.

[Dorothy Bauhoff (2 nd ed.)]

SPITZER, MOSHE (1900-1982), Israeli publisher and ty-
pographer. Moshe Spitzer was born in Boskovice, Moravia,
studied at the University of Vienna, and then earned his Ph.D.
at the University of Kiel in Indian Studies. In the late 1920s
he served as Martin Buber s secretary, assisting the philoso-
pher in his German translation of the Bible, and from 1933 he
worked for the Schocken Publishing Company in Berlin. In
!939> Spitzer went to Palestine, where in 1940 he established
Tarshish Books. Over the years he published over 100 editions
of Hebrew literature (Samuel Beckett, Nelly Sachs) and the
classics (Dante, Shakespeare). In 1942 he opened a composing
(typesetting) shop for his own books and for other publishers.
As a partner in the Jerusalem Type Foundry (1950-1960), he
revived neglected Hebrew typefaces and initiated the casting
on new ones: Romema, Rahat, and Hatzvi. Because of his un-
ceasing demands on compositors and printers, his innate good
taste, and his familiarity with European fine printing, he suc-
ceeded in raising the level of book production in Israel from
the mediocre to the best possible with the materials then avail-
able in the country. He commissioned leading Israeli artists to
illustrate many of his editions. His publications included The
Birds' Head Haggadah (1965-67), the facsimile of a manuscript
in the Israel Museum. Spitzer designed books for Schocken,
established and managed the Jewish Agency's publishing de-
partment from 1945, and directed publishing at the Bialik In-
stitute. He wrote articles on the history of the Hebrew letter.
In 1981 he was elected to the Double Crown Club of England
for his contribution to fine printing, and he was honorary
chairman of Yedidei ha-Sefer, the Israel Bibliophiles. His own
publications were exhibited in the Israel Museum (1970) and
at the Jewish National and University Library (1981).

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

123

SPITZER, SAMUEL

bibliography: H. Goldberg, "The Work of Dr. Moshe
Spitzer: Leader in Modern Hebrew Printing and Publishing," Mas-
ters thesis, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, School of Library and
Archive Studies (1982); Israel Museum, From the Collection of Dr.
Moshe Spitzer, Jerusalem, (1982; Cat. No. 172); idem, The Typographical
Work of Moshe Spitzer (1970; Cat. No. 73); H.J. Katzenstein, Dr. Moshe
Spitzer: Books, Typography, Design (1980); I. Soifer, "The Pioneer
Work of Dr. Moshe Spitzer, in: Penrose Annual, 63 (1970), 127-47."

[Leila Avrin]

SPITZER, SAMUEL (1839-1896), Hungarian rabbi and
scholar. Spitzer, who was born in Keszthely, Hungary, stud-
ied with S.J. *Rapoport in Prague. In 1856 he became rabbi in
Eszek (now Osijek, Croatia), where he engaged in the study
of the history of Jewish and general culture.

His published works include Das Heer und Wehrgesetz
der alten Israeliten, Griechen und Roemer (1869); DasMahl bet
den alten Voelkern (1878); Urheimisch in Slavischen Laendern
(1880); Das Jubilaeum in Woertlicher und Historischer Be-
leuchtung (1882); and Ueber Sitte und Sitten der alten Voelker

(1886).

[Baruch Yaron]

SPITZER, SOLOMON (Benjamin Solomon Zalman; 1826-
1893), known as Reb Zalman Spitzer; rabbi and leader of Aus-
trian Orthodox Jewry. Born in Ofen (Budapest), he studied
under R. Moses Schick, in St. Jur, R. Meir Ash *Eisenstaedter
in Ungvar, and R. Abraham Samuel Benjamin *Sofer in Press-
burg. In 1849 he married the daughter of R. Moses *Sofer (Sch-
reiber). On the suggestion of Ignaz *Deutsch, in 1853 he was
appointed rabbi of Vienna's Pressburger Shool y a small com-
munity of Orthodox Jews mainly from Pressburg and from
Hungarian provincial communities. Under Spitzer's leader-
ship the community soon outgrew the small premises they
occupied and by 1864 a new synagogue, Adass Yisroel, was
built in Grosse Schiffgasse and known as the Schiff Shool. In
conjunction with the synagogue he founded the Schiff Shool
bet ha-midrash. In 1858 he was appointed assistant rabbi to
Eliezer Horowitz. On the latter s death in 1868 Spitzer was of-
fered the post of chief rabbi, on condition that he modify his
strictly traditional standards, but he refused. In 1871 Adolf
Jellinek, aided by Simon *Szanto, the influential editor of the
Neuzeity and Ignaz * Kuranda, the new president of the Kul-
tusgemeinde, wished to introduce some radical reforms into
the order of the service, including the elimination of all men-
tion of an ultimate return to Zion and Jerusalem, and the ex-
clusion from the prayer books of all references to the reinsti-
tution of sacrifices and to a belief in the Messiah. Although
the government openly sympathized with the reformers, the
Orthodox community opposed the proposals. Spitzer called
a protest meeting attended by some 500 people - approxi-
mately one quarter of the whole of Vienna's synagogue mem-
bership. A compromise was found: the reforms were called
modifications, the organ was not introduced into any Vienna
synagogue, and the controversial prayers were to be recited
in silence by the congregation.

Spitzer resigned from the rabbinate of the Kultusge-
meinde and devoted his energies entirely to the affairs of the
Schiff Shool and to its flourishing subsidiary institutions. It
was his lifelong desire to settle in Jerusalem and in prepara-
tion he sent his library on ahead with a son-in-law who mi-
grated there. However, Spitzer's teacher, Moses Schick, pre-
vailed upon him not to leave Vienna, saying "a conscientious
general does not leave his soldiers to fight on by themselves."
He died in Vienna and, in accordance with his last wish, was
buried in Pressburg.

A large number of responsa in his teacher's work, the
"Responsa of Maharam Schick," are addressed to Spitzer, as are
a number of responsa in the Ketav Sofer by Abraham Samuel
Benjamin Sofer, the Shevet Sofer of Simhah Bunim Sofer, and
the Responsa of Akiva *Eger. The only original work pub-
lished by Spitzer is the Tikkun Shelomo (1892), consisting of
100 sermons and eight funeral orations, together with Simlat
Binyamin, talmudic discourses. He also published the speech
he made at the protest meeting in Vienna (1871).

bibliography: I. Gastfreund, Wiener Rabbinen (1879), 115-7;
J.J. Greenwald, Le-Toledot ha-Reformazyon ha-Datit be-Germanya u-
ve-Ungarya (1948), 14 n. 25; Ha-Maggid, 15 (1871), 50, 58; Der Israelit,

34 (1893X 1835 f-> 1879 f-

[Alexander Scheiber]

SPIVACKE, HAROLD (1904-1977), U.S. music librarian and

musicologist. Born in New York, Spivacke studied at New York
University and the University of Berlin, where he received his
Ph.D. in 1933. He also studied privately with d'Albert and Hugo
*Leichtentritt. He was assistant chief of the music division of
the Library of Congress from 1934 to 1937 and chief from 1937
until his retirement. The music division was greatly devel-
oped under his administration. Spivacke was also a member
of various directive and advisory bodies in American and in-
ternational musicological organizations and president of the
Music Library Association from 1951 to 1953; he held offices
in the National Music Council and the American Musico-
logical Society. He published Paganiniana (1945) and various
articles.

bibliography: Grove Music Online.

[Amnon Shiloah (2 nd ed.)]

SPIVAK, ELYE (1890-1950), Yiddish linguist and peda-
gogue. Born in the Ukraine, Spivak was renowned as a Yid-
dish teacher before the Revolution. The author of scores of
Yiddish primers and literary anthologies for schoolchildren,
he trained Yiddish teachers at several institutes. After Nahum
Shtif s death in 1933, Spivak was appointed director of the lin-
guistic section of the Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture
at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kiev and editor of
its journal, Afn Shprakhfront. In 1937, after the dissolution
of the Institute, which had supported more than a hundred
workers, a small Office for the Study of Yiddish Literature,
Language, and Folklore was established, with Spivak con-
tinuing as director. The office was evacuated to the East dur-

124

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPLIT

ing World War n and closed in 1949, when Spivak, a member
of the * Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, was arrested under
charges of Jewish nationalism. He died in prison in 1950. The
main administrator of Soviet Yiddish research in the 1930s
and 1940s, Spivak was the authority on the lexicon and termi-
nology. His crowning work was Naye Vortshafung ("Creating
Neologisms," 1939), which demonstrated impressive expertise
in Yiddish morphology, etymology, and language history and
structure. The short-lived policy of dehebraization of Yiddish
suggested by Shtif and I. Zaretski was, from 1931-1939, consis-
tently opposed by Spivak, who argued for the componential
integrity of the language.

bibliography: lnyl, 6 (1965), 509-13; B. Kagan, Leksikon
fun Yidish Shraybers (1986), 410-11; R. Peltz, in: J. Fishman (ed.), Read-
ings in the Sociology of Jewish Languages (1985), 125-50; S. Redlich,
War, Holocaust and Stalinism (1995), 153, 454; E. Rozental-Shnay-
derman, OyfVegn un Umvegn, 3 (1982), 163-79; J- Rubinstein and V.
Naumov (eds.), Stalin's Secret Pogrom (2003), 127.

[Rakhmiel Peltz (2 nd ed.)]

SPIVAK, NISSAN (known as "Nissi Belzer"; 1824-1906).
Lithuanian cantor and composer. Spivak sang in the choir of
Yeruham *Blindman, whose cousin he married, and became
cantor in Belz, where he acquired his additional name. Later
he was cantor in Kishinev and, from 1877 until his death, in
Berdichev He was largely self-taught, and although his voice
was impaired by an accident in childhood, he became widely
known because of his talents as a composer and choral con-
ductor. His vocal limitation actually led him to develop a new
style of synagogue music. Instead of using the choir merely
for accompaniment and responses, he assigned to them long
ensembles with solos and duets and reduced the role of the
cantor to a minimum. He also took his choir on visits to other
towns and the courts of hasidic rabbis. Successful as a teacher,
he attracted many young cantors to study with him at Berdi-
chev. His own compositions were preserved by his pupils. Two
of them were published in Idelsohn's Hebraeisch-orientalischer
Melodienschatz (bibl.).

bibliography: Prachtenberg, in: Jewish Ministers- Cantors
Association of America, History of Hazanuth (1924), 163; Idelsohn,
Melodien, 8 (1932), xxii-xxiii, nos. 250, 251; Friedmann, Lebens-
bilder, 3 (1927), 129; Sendrey, Music, indexes.

[Joshua Leib Ne'eman]

SPIVAKOVSKY, TOSSY (1906/7-1998), Russian- Ameri-
can violinist. Spivakovsky was born in Odessa. He studied
with the Italian violinist Arrigo Serato and with Willy Hess
in Berlin, where he made his concert debut at the age often.
Spivakovsky became leader of the Berlin Philharmonic Or-
chestra in 1926. He then toured Europe (1920-33) and Aus-
tralia (1933-39), where he taught at the Melbourne Conser-
vatorium (1934-39).

In 1940 he settled in the United States and made his de-
but at New York's Town Hall. Playing with the Cleveland Or-
chestra in 1943, Spivakovsky introduced Bartok's Violin Con-

certo to the United States. He subsequently appeared with the
most important American orchestras. In addition to an active
performing career, Spivakovsky taught violin and chamber
music at the Juilliard School from 1974 to 1989. His repertory
ranged from the classics to contemporary works. A brilliant
virtuoso, he had an exceptionally fast vibrato and advocated
new bowing techniques which proved controversial. He was
capable of frequently expressive playing with a highly volatile
temperament. He published violin transcriptions and "Polyph-
ony in Bach's Works for Solo Violin," in The Music Review, 28:4
(Nov. 1967), 277-88.

add. bibliography: Baker s Biographical Dictionary of Mu-
sicians (1997); "Tossy Spivakovsky Dies" (obituary), in: The Strad, 109
(Oct. 1998), 1041; J. Gottlieb, "The Juilliard School Library and Its
Special Collections," in: Notes, 56 (Sept. 1999), 11-26.

[Max Loppert / Naama Ramot (2 nd ed.)]

SPLIT (also Spliet; It. Spalato; in Jewish sources NIU^Dti^K),
Adriatic port in Croatia. A Jewish community with a cem-
etery existed in nearby Salona (now Solin) in the third cen-
tury c.e. When Salona was destroyed by the Avars in 641, the
Jews seem to have fled to Diocletian's fortified palace which
later became the town of Split. The register of the Church's
properties in 1397 mentions a building that served as a syna-
gogue. The first Jewish tombstones on the Marjan hill date,
however, from 1573.

In the 16 th century there were two groups of Sephardi
Jews in Split; the Ponentine ("western") and the Levantine
("eastern") Jews. The first group came from Italy or from Spain
via Italy, Split being a Venetian possession, and the second
from the Ottoman territories in the Balkans. Both groups later
merged into one Sephardi congregation whose notable fami-
lies were Pardo, Macchiero, Misrai (Mizrahi), Penso (Finzi),
Jesurun (Yeshurun). There were also some Ashkenazi Jews,
e.g., the Morpurgo family from Maribor.

The Jews of Split were mainly merchants, physicians, and
tailors. The Venetian authorities protected them from the In-
quisition and favored them in the interest of the trade with the
Ottoman Empire. In 1592 the Jew Daniel Rodriguez succeeded,
with the authorization of the Senate of Venice, in establishing
a free port in Split. Jewish merchants from the Ottoman Em-
pire wanting to settle in Split were exempted from paying the
residence tax; and immunity of person and capital was guar-
anteed to Jewish merchants traveling to Venice via Split. The
free port prospered. Some Jews became wealthy from travel-
ing to the Ottoman territories in the Balkans and exporting
the wares brought to Venice; later they had agents in major
cities. In the 17 th century Joseph Penso, consul of the Jews, be-
came instrumental in expanding the free port's activities. The
increasing wealth of Split's Jews brought a prohibition on real
estate ownership except by special license, to prevent gentiles
from pledging houses and land to Jews.

During the Turkish attack in 1657 the Jews were assigned
the defense of a tower which later became known as the Jew-
ish position [posto degV Ebrei].

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPOEHR, ALEXANDER

In the beginning of the 18 th century there were several
abortive attempts to exclude Jews from the food trade (1719,
1748), and from tailoring (1724, 1758). The law of 1738, regu-
lating Jewish rights and duties in Venetian possessions, was
applied in Split. It included the wearing of a yellow hat cover
by Levantine, and of a red one by other Jews; confinement to
the ghetto between midnight and sunrise; not leaving it at all
Thursday and Friday of holy week; closing the shops in the
ghetto on Christian holidays; and an interdiction to employ
Christians.

The general decadence of Venice in the late 18 th century
and the anti-Jewish measures of 1779 caused many Jewish
families to leave. In 1796 there were 173 Jews left in Split. The
ghetto was abolished by the Napoleonic regime. When Split
passed to Austria in 1814, the Jewish laws valid in Austria were
applied there, and full emancipation was granted only in 1873.
Many families left for Italy during the 19 th century, and with
the influx of Jews from Croatia and Bosnia, the community
became increasingly Croatian-speaking.

Holocaust Period

When on April 6, 1941, the Italian Army occupied the town,
there were 400 Jews living there, some being refugees from
Austria, Czechoslovakia etc. Although Dalmatia nominally
belonged to *Pavelic's quisling Croatian state, the Italian army
prevented his regime from persecuting the Jews, and some
3,000 refugees from Poland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia had
passed through Split by 1943.

In June 1942 a mob devastated the synagogue, commu-
nity offices, shops, and private houses. Under German pres-
sure refugees were interned in Italian camps on the Dalmatian
islands. When Italy capitulated in September 1943, and before
the Germans entered the town, several hundred Jews crossed
the Adriatic in small boats to Italy and to partisan-held islands,
while others joined the partisan forces on the mainland. All
remaining male Jews were made to register with the German
authorities, and on October 13 were arrested and sent to the
Sajmiste camp near ^Belgrade where most of them perished.
Around 150 Jews from Split died in the Holocaust.

Contemporary Period

In 1947 there were 163 Jews in Split, and in 1970 some 120;
there was no rabbi and very little communal activity. The new
military hospital inaugurated in 1965 bears the name of Dr.
Isidore Perera-Molic, the founder of the Yugoslav Army Medi-
cal Corps. During reconstruction work in the Diocletian Pal-
ace engravings of menorot were discovered, confirming earlier
allusions regarding a Jewish presence there in the 2 nd or 3 rd
centuries. The nearby camp at Pirovac, which was formerly a
summer resort for Jewish youth from all parts of the country,
served as an absorption center during the 1992 evacuation of
the Jews of Bosnia and Herzegovina (mainly from * Sarajevo
and Mosta). The successful rescue operation was a joint ven-
ture of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Belgrade, the
Jewish community of Sarajevo, the Jewish Agency, and the re-
spective civil and military authorities of the Bosnian Moslems,

Croats, and Serbs. A number of Jews were evacuated by air to
^Belgrade; others through Herzegovina to Dalmatia (Split) by
land across several zones held by the three warring parties.
About 100 Jews lived in Split in 2004.

bibliography: G. Novak, Zidovi u Splitu (1920); C. Roth,
Venice, (1930), 6y, 186, 305-10, 343; Frey, Corpus, 1 (1936), no. 680;
Jevrejski Almanah (1959/60), 7-14, 29-53; Hananel-ESkenazi, 2 (i960),
199. holocaust period: Jevrejski Almanah (1957/58), 125-8; Savez
jevrejskih opstina, Zlodini fasistidkih okupatora... (1952).

[Daniel Furman / Zvi Loker (2 nd ed.)]

SPOEHR, ALEXANDER (1913-1992), U.S. anthropolo-
gist. Born in Tucson, Arizona, Spoehr specialized in Ameri-
can Indian and Pacific ethnology and archaeology. In 1940
he worked as assistant curator of American ethnology and
archaeology at the Field Museum in Chicago. During World
War 11, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Naval
Reserve, where he served in air combat intelligence and air-
sea rescue operations in the western sea frontier and central
Pacific area, which included the Marshall (Majuro), Gilbert,
and Caroline islands. When he returned to the Field Mu-
seum in 1946, he worked for eight years as curator of Oceanic
ethnology, supervising the reorganization of the museums
massive collection of artifacts from Oceania. In 1953 he was
appointed professor of anthropology at Yale University. He
moved to Hawaii later that year to assume the directorship
of the Bernice Pauhi Bishop Museum in Honolulu. In 1961 he
became chancellor of the East- West Center at the University
of Hawaii. In 1964 he was appointed professor of anthropol-
ogy at the University of Pittsburgh, where he remained until
his retirement. He served as chairman of the Pacific Science
Board of the National Academy of Sciences (1958-61) and
was president of the American Anthropological Associa-
tion (1965). In 1972 he was elected to the National Academy
of Sciences.

When Spoehr retired from teaching in 1978 he returned
to Honolulu, where he did a study of the tool-using tech-
niques of Japanese-American carpenters. He also did re-
search on the history of the Hudson's Bay Company in 19 th -
century Hawaii.

Spoehr wrote several books on his fieldwork, which was
mainly among the American Indians and the peoples of the
Pacific islands. He is best remembered for defining the prehis-
toric ceramic culture known as Lapita, a community of hunter-
gatherers that lived in Oceania from 1500 B.c.E.to500B.c.E.
and whose handiwork included elaborately decorated pottery
and a wide variety of tools made from shells.

His major works include Camp, Clan and Kin among the
Cow Creek Seminole of Florida (1941), Majuro, a Village in the
Marshall Islands (1949), Acculturation and Material Culture
(with G. Quimby, 1951), Saipan, the Ethnology of a War-Dev-
astated Island (1954), Zamboanga and Sulu: An Archaeologi-
cal Approach to Ethnic Diversity (1973), Protein from the Sea
(1980), and Maritime Adaptations (1980).

[Ephraim Fischoff / Ruth Beloff (2 nd ed.)]

126

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPORTS

SPOLETO, town in central Italy. A Jewish community pos-
sibly existed in Spoleto before 1298 when the distinguished
Roman family De * Pomis settled there after the head of the
family, Elijah, was condemned to death by the Holy Office. In
the 15 th century the principal activity of the Jewish commu-
nity in Spoleto was moneylending. The notable Spoleto Jews
included the physicians David De' Pomis (1525-88) and Moses
*Alatino (1529-1605). The Jews were expelled from Spoleto and
the rest of the Papal States by Pius v in 1569. Some returned
for a brief period under Sixtus v (1587). There is still in Spo-
leto the Church of S. Gregorio della Sinagoga.

bibliography: Roth, Italy, index; Milano, Italia, index; Rava,

in: Annali di Statistical 9 (1884), 201-8.

[Ariel Toaff]

SPORKIN, STANLEY (1932- ), U.S. federal judge. Born
in Philadelphia, Sporkin received his bachelors degree from
Pennsylvania State University in 1953 and graduated from Yale
Law School in 1957. After a clerkship with a presiding justice
in the U.S. District Court, Sporkin entered private practice
in i960. In 1961 he began a 20-year career with the Securities
and Exchange Commission, first as a staff attorney; he became
chief attorney for the sec Enforcement Bureau in 1963. In 1968
he became an associate director and from 1973 to 1981 served
as the director of the sec Division of Enforcement. He taught
as an adjunct professor at Antioch Law School from 1974 to
1981 and at Howard University in 1981.

Sporkin became general counsel for the Central Intelli-
gence Agency in 1981, serving under Director William Casey
during the Iran Contra era. In 1985 President Ronald Reagan
appointed him as a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for
the District of Columbia. Judge Sporkin ruled in several no-
table cases, including an early settlement between the Justice
Department s Antitrust Division and Microsoft Corporation.
In 1995 he rejected a proposed settlement between the parties
as too narrow and potentially ineffective in reducing Micro-
soft's monopolistic practices. His ruling was overturned by a
panel of three federal appeals judges. Sporkin served on the
bench until his retirement in 2000, when he joined the firm
of Weil, Gotshal, and Genges as partner and counseled par-
ties in corporate governance and litigation matters, acted as
an arbitrator, and provided mediation services. He contrib-
uted numerous articles to professional journals.

In his long career of public service, Sporkin received
numerous awards and honors. In 1976 he received the Na-
tional Civil Service League's Special Achievement Award
and in 1978 the Rockefeller Award for Public Service from
the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Af-
fairs at Princeton University. In 1979 he was the recipient of
the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Ser-
vice, the highest honor that can be granted to a member of
the federal service.

In 1994 Sporkin received the William O. Douglas Award
for Lifetime Achievement from the Association of Securities
and Exchange Commission Alumni, and in 1996 he was pre-

sented the H. Carl Moultrie Award for Judicial Excellence by

the Trial Lawyers of Washington, d.c. In 2000 he received

the Federal Bar Association's Tom C. Clark Award. That same

year he received the Judicial Excellence Award from Judicial

Watch.

[Dorothy Bauhoff (2 nd ed.)]

SPORN, PHILIP (1896-1978), U.S. electrical engineer. Sporn
was born in Galicia, and taken to the United States in 1907.
He joined the staff of the American Electric Power Company
in 1920 and held many positions in this company, including
chief engineer, executive vice president, and chairman of de-
velopment. He was also president of the Electric Power Service
Corporation, the Indiana- Kentucky and Ohio Valley Electric
Corporations, and the Nuclear Power Group.

Sporn served in various consultative capacities with nu-
merous studies and projects on nuclear power production
under the aegis of the U.S. government, the Atomic Energy
Commission, the National Research Council, and large com-
panies. He was vice president of the American Nuclear Soci-
ety. Sporn was chairman of the Seawater Conversion Com-
mission of the government of Israel. As well as papers on the
generation and distribution of electric power, he wrote (with
Ambrose and Baumeister) Heat Pumps (1947) and Integrated
Power System as the Basic Mechanism for Power Supply (1950).

He received many awards.

[Samuel Aaron Miller]

SPORTS. There is no evidence of sports among the Jews dur-
ing the obscure period between the close of the Bible and the
Maccabean periods. At the beginning of this latter period, in
the second century b.c.e., circumstances conspired to make
sporting activities as such, i.e., sport not as associated with the
need for physical exercise or as an aspect of military training
but competitive sport "for the sake of the game," repugnant
to the Jews as the very antithesis of Jewish ideals, and this ap-
proach remained characteristic of Judaism until the dawn of
the modern period.

A number of circumstances contributed to the negative
and antipathetic attitude toward sport. The first was that, with
the conquest of Alexander the Great in the fourth century
b.c.e., hellenistic culture began to infiltrate into Erez Israel,
and the attempt of Antiochus *Epiphanes to forcibly hellenize
Judea led to the outbreak of the Maccabean War. One of the
overt signs of this process was the establishment of a gym-
nasium in Jerusalem by * Jason in 174 b.c.e., where the par-
ticipants engaged in their sporting activities in the nude. The
antithesis between the gymnasium as an expression of * Hel-
lenism and Judaism was dramatically and almost symbolically
highlighted by the fact that some of the Jewish participants,
according to the Book of 1 Maccabees (1:15), actually under-
went operations for the purpose of concealing the fact that
they were circumcised. Sport thus became associated with the
alien and dangerous hellenistic culture. An additional factor
was that the Olympic games were connected with an idola-
trous cult, particularly of the Greek deity of Hercules, and it

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SPORTS

is significant that during the period of hellenization, when a
Jewish contingent went to the games held at Tyre concurrently
with the 152 nd Olympic games in Greece, they refused to bring
the customary gifts, which were dedicated to Hercules, unless
they were devoted to a non-idolatrous cause.

Nevertheless, there is some evidence that in countries un-
der Greek influence, sports were indulged in by Jews. Claudius
warned the Jews of Alexandria that they "should not strive
in gymnasiarchic and cosmetic games" (Philo, Legatio ad
Gaium), and one interpretation of a second- or third-century
inscription in Hypaepa, Asia Minor, has it refer to a sports as-
sociation of young Jews.

This opposition to sport became even more intensified
when, following the intervening period of independence,
Roman overlordship was substituted for Greek, and theaters
and ^circuses were linked together as the very antithesis of
"synagogue and school." To the considerations which applied
to the gymnasia were the added factors of cruelty associated
with Roman sport, which was not confined to the character-
istic aspect of gladiatorial contests, and also the fact that at
the theaters the Jews were made the butt of satire, parody, and
mockery (cf. Lam. R. intro. 17). The first sentence of the Book
of Psalms, "Happy is the man. . . who sat not in the seat of the
scorners" was made to apply to those who refrained from at-
tending "theaters and circuses and did not attend gladiatorial
combats" (Pes. 148b), and the humane aspect of the opposi-
tion finds expression in the ruling that "one is permitted to
go to stadiums if by his shouting he may save the victim" (Av
Zar. 18b). At one period of his life the famous amor a Simeon
b. Lakish (Resh Lakish) was a professional gladiator (Git. 47a),
but he justified this on the grounds of grim necessity. The very
vehemence of the denunciation of the rabbis would seem to
point to the fact that participation in, or at least attendance
at, those sports by Jews was widespread.

The first Jewish ruler to encourage sports was Herod.
Between 37 and 4 B.C. e. he erected sports stadia in Caesarea,
Sebaste, Tiberias, Jericho, and other cities, and also intro-
duced a Palestinian Olympiad with sports competition every
five years. He brought athletes from all parts of the world to
compete in gladiatorial games and contests of boxing, racing,
archery, and other sports, and also contributed large sums to
the Olympic games in Greece. His extensive activities in this
sphere were, however, part of his program of the "romaniza-
tion" of the realm.

Middle Ages

There are a few references to organized sport during the Mid-
dle Ages. According to Shevet Yehudah (ch. 8), Jews in Spain
distinguished themselves in the art of fencing. An examination
of all the data given in I. Abrahams' Jewish Life in the Middle
Ages (1932 2 , repr. i960, 397-411) reveals that, almost without
exception, the instances which purport to prove that the Jews
indulged in sport belong either to recreations like strolling,
self-defense, dancing, and intellectual pastimes, such as chess
and riddles, or to children's games. There is a reference by

Jerome in the fourth century to Jewish boys in Syria lifting
heavy stones "to train their muscular strength" (to Zech. 12:4)
and in the 13 th century it was the custom to hold tournaments
and jousts as part of marriage celebrations. Isaac Or Zaru'a
refers to "young men who go out on horseback to greet the
bridegroom, and indulge in combats with one another, and
tear one another's garments or cause injury to the horse" (Hil.
Sukkot ve-Lulav no. 315). He ruled that the injured party had
no claim for damages since he had been partaking in a joyous
occasion. In Provence the Jews trained falcons and engaged in
hawking on horseback. On the other hand, in the 15 th century
Israel * Bruna, in answer to a question whether it was permit-
ted to even attend non- Jewish horse- racing competitions, gave
guarded permission only because one could thereby judge the
quality of the horses and learn to ride "in order to escape from
one's enemies." "Nevertheless," he added, "I doubt whether it
is permitted to go and see such races as are intended merely
as jousting tournaments for pleasure" (Resp. 71).

The most popular sports in the Middle Ages appear to
have been ball games. Although the Midrash (Lam. R. 2:4)
gives as one of the reasons for the destruction of the Temple
that "in Tur Malka they played ball games on the Sabbath."
Moses Isserles, disagreeing with Joseph Caro, permitted ball
playing on the Sabbath and festivals and stated that in his time
(16 th century) it was customary to do so (Sh. Ar., oh 308:45),
and on festivals (when there is no prohibition against carry-
ing) it is permitted "even in a public domain and even for pure
sport" (ibid. 518:2). He based himself upon Tosafot (to Bezah
12a), which states explicitly that "we find that they play with
the ball called pelota" (cf. the modern Basque game called by
the same name). No details are given; according to one au-
thority, however, "it was very like handball but, instead of be-
ing struck by the hand, the ball was caught in a long narrow
scoop-like basket attached firmly to the wrist and thrown
against the wall" (jqr, 26 (1935/36), 4).

In 1386 there were Jewish tourneys in Wiesenfeld, Ger-
many. In the 15 th century, competitions were held in Augsburg,
Germany, in running, jumping, throwing, and bowling, in
which Jews also participated. * Immanuel of Rome mentions
"boys who trained in stone throwing" (in his Mahbarot 22, no.
42). In this same century, at the popular festivals initiated in
Rome, sports competitions were also included: Monday was
for youth, Tuesday for Jews (under 20 years of age), Wednes-
day for older boys, and so on. The Jews were obliged to provide
precious carpets as prizes. It is known that Jews distinguished
themselves in these games in 1487, 1502, and 1595. There is even
a song about Jewish runners, composed in 1513. These games
and festivals continued for some 200 years despite the fact that
during these years the mob interfered with the Jewish runners,
who participated half naked. In 1443 there was a registration
of a Jew who knew "wrestling without shedding blood."

In the 16 th century there was a famous Austrian con-
verted Jew by the name of Ott who was outstanding at the
Augsburg games and was even invited to the court of the Aus-
trian prince in order to train the courtiers. He wrote a book in

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SPORTS

which wrestling was separated from fencing for the first time
and was known as "Ottish Wrestling." There was also a book
on fencing published by Andres Jud, who, together with his
brother Jacob Lignitzer, took special care of fencing. The de-
crees of Rudolph ii show how important fencing was for the
Jews in Germany. Among these decrees was one which forbade
Christian fencing teachers to train Jews and, later on, also for-
bade competitions between Jews and Christians. There is little
information about sport in the 17 th and 18 th centuries.

Despite the examples given, there is no doubt that S.W.
Baron is correct in stating that during the Middle Ages spo-
radic voices in favor of recreational pauses were as ineffective
as those which advocated physical exercises. Northern Jewry
especially had little use for physical education and paid little
heed even to the injunction of a talmudic sage that a father
give his son instruction in swimming as a "life-saving pre-
caution." It is only in the modern period that sports became
popular and widespread among Jews.

Modern Era

Though most Jews in the 19 th century lived in conditions un-
favorable to athletic pursuits, a number of them in England,
Germany, Hungary, Canada, France, Austria, and the United
States did well in a variety of sports. In 1896, six Jewish ath-
letes won 13 medals at the first modern Olympic games in
Athens.

In a speech before the Second Zionist Congress in 1898,
Max *Nordau asked the Jewish people to renew their inter-
est in sports and physical fitness. Nordau s call for "muscular
Judaism" was answered by the *Maccabi movement, which
spread first to the countries of Europe and Palestine and then
around the world. Over 100 Maccabi clubs were in existence
in Europe by the beginning of World War 1. The largest of
these clubs - Ha-Koah of Vienna, Bar Kochba of Berlin, and
Ha-Gibor of Prague - became famous for their outstanding
teams. It was Hungary, however, that produced the most suc-
cessful Jewish athletes in Europe. Hungarian Jews won nu-
merous Olympic medals in various sports.

Early in the 20 th century immigrant Jewish children in
Great Britain and the United States learned to play the games
of their new countries in youth clubs, settlement houses, and
ym-ywhas. Living in crowded urban areas, they became pro-
ficient in sports which required little space and equipment,
such as boxing, handball, table tennis, basketball, gymnas-
tics, and wrestling. Professional sports, particularly boxing
and basketball, attracted many Jews, who used athletic schol-
arships to gain admission to some U.S. colleges.

The sports picture changed radically for Jews following
World War 11. In the affluent communities of North and South
America and in Western Europe, the emphasis shifted to social
sports, such as tennis, golf, polo, yachting, and squash. Most
Jews attending colleges in the United States could afford to
pay tuition fees and participate in university sports for recre-
ation. When Jews were excluded from established yacht and
country clubs they organized their own.

Jews were active in formulating sports programs in the

Soviet Union during the 1920s, and after World War 11 they

contributed to that nation's successful entry into international

competition. Many Soviet Jews have been accorded the title

"Honored Master of Sport."

[Jesse Harold Silver]

In Israel before 1948

Physical education was first introduced into Jewish schools in
Erez Israel toward the end of the 19 th century by Yeshayahu
* Press and Heinrich Eliakum *Loewe. The first Jewish sports
clubs in the country, the Rishon le-Zion Club in Jaffa and the
Bar Giora Club in Jerusalem, were established in 1906 by Leo
Cohen and Aviezer *Yellin, respectively, and shortly afterward
the first qualified club leaders were appointed. In 1908, the first
national sports competition - the Rehovot Festival - was or-
ganized under the leadership of Zevi Nishri (d. 1973) and was
held annually until the outbreak of World War 1. Sports out-
side the framework of the schools were organized by volun-
tary organizations associated in varying degrees with social
or political movements.

maccabi. Maccabi started as an apolitical sports organiza-
tion, but was favored by the General Zionists. The first Mac-
cabi club was established in Jerusalem in 1911 and soon had
300 members. A second club was formed in Petah Tikvah,
and the two clubs, together with the Rishon le-Zion Club in
Jaffa, formed the countrywide Maccabi Organization in 1912.
Maccabi did not confine its activities to sports. It was active
in cultural affairs and fought for the recognition and dissem-
ination of the Hebrew language, the employment of Jewish
labor, and Jewish self-defense. On the eve of World War 1, it
had about 1,000 members in 15 clubs. With the participation
of Maccabi and the *Ha-Shomer movement in the Rehovot
Festival in 1913, a genuine national Jewish sports movement
seemed to have emerged.

Even before the outbreak of World War 1, however,
the first signs of the dissolution of this movement were
visible. Maccabi boycotted the Rehovot Festival of 1914 be-
cause Arab guards and Arab workers were employed in the
village. On the other hand, the Jewish workers alleged that
the Maccabi clubs had fallen under the control of the land-
owners and employers. It therefore came as no surprise
when the Rehovot Festival was not revived after the war and
Maccabi organized its own festival, the first Maccabi games,
in 1920.

development of physical education. Physical educa-
tion in Palestine was given a new lease by the arrival of sev-
eral experienced Jewish athletes as part of the wave of Jewish
immigration that followed the end of World War 1. The new-
comers included David Almagor, gymnast and wrestler from
Cairo, Yehoshua Alouf, one of the best gymnasts in Maccabi-
Warsaw, and Dr. Emanuel Simon, one of the best track and
field men in the Bar- Kochba Club in Berlin, who all contrib-
uted to the expansion and improvement of physical education
in the schools and the Maccabi clubs.

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129

SPORTS

establishment of ha-poel. The workers, for their part,
began to organize their sports clubs in 1924, and in 1926 they
founded a countrywide workers' sports organization under
the name of c *Ha-Poel as an affiliate of the *Histadrut. A year
later Ha- Poel joined the International Workers' Sports Federa-
tion. Initially, the main objective of Ha- Poel was to cater to the
masses, rather than to breed champion athletes. In 1935 there
were 10,000 participants in its fourth festival. These festivals
are still held once every five years. Maccabi, by contrast, laid
greater emphasis on competitive sports and devoted its ener-
gies to organizing them on a national basis, as well as intro-
ducing Palestine to the international sports arena.

soccer introduced. The establishment of the British Man-
datory regime in Palestine after World War 1 had a marked
effect on local sports. Whereas prior to the war, gymnastics
had been the dominant sport, under Eastern and Central
European influence, it was now supplanted by soccer due
to the influence of the British army teams which competed
with the Maccabi teams. In 1925 the Organization of Jew-
ish Soccer Clubs was founded. In 1928 the Palestine Football
Association - the first national sports federation - was es-
tablished. It comprised British, Jewish, and Arab teams and
was the only body in which Maccabi and Ha- Poel cooperated
until after the establishment of the State of Israel. Through
the association, Palestine - and later Israel - has been rep-
resented in the World Cup Championships regularly since
1936.

THE maccabiah: entry into international sports.
Maccabi initiated the establishment of the Palestine Amateur
Sports Federation in 1931 in order to take part in international
competitions, and was accepted by most federations. Two
years later, the Palestine Olympic Committee was set up. Mac-
cabi's greatest achievement prior to World War 11 was the or-
ganization of the international *Maccabiah Games in 1932, in
which 500 Jewish athletes from 23 countries participated and
1,500 in a gymnastic display. At the second Maccabiah, in 1935,
there were 1,700 participants from 27 countries. As many of
the athletes, accompanying personnel, and tourists remained
in the country after the contest was over, the Maccabiah be-
came not only a means of stimulating sports, but also an im-
portant lever for the promotion of ally ah. The Second Mac-
cabiah was even more of an "Aliyah Maccabiah," since most
of the participants and their escorts remained in Palestine, in
view of the wave of antisemitism sweeping Europe after the
Nazi accession to power in Germany. Y. Alouf was the chief
organizer of the first five Maccabiah Games.

Maccabi was also the first body to send a delegation to
an official event in Asia (the West Asian Games in New Delhi
in 1934) and to an international event for women (the London
Games in 1934). In the same period, Ha- Poel athletes twice
represented Palestine in Workers' Olympics, in Vienna (1931)
and Antwerp (1937). An invitation to participate in the Ber-
lin Olympics in 1936 under the Nazi regime was rejected for
obvious reasons and, as a result, the appearance of Palestin-

ian or Israel athletes in the Olympics was delayed for 16 years.
(The Games were not held in 1940 and 1944. In 1948 the Pales-
tine Olympic Committee no longer existed, the Israel Olym-
pic Committee had not yet been recognized, and Israel was
fighting for survival.)

Between 1924 and 1939 young Jews from Palestine studied
physical education in Denmark, and the number of qualified
physical education teachers in the schools increased. In 1938,
Yehoshua Alouf was appointed the first supervisor of physi-
cal education. One of his achievements was the organization
of the first countrywide inter-school competitions. In 1939
the Va'ad Le'ummi set up a department of physical education,
which was to become the government body responsible for
sports on the establishment of the State of Israel (since 1961 it
has been known as the Sports Authority). The department, as
it was then, introduced a course for physical education teach-
ers that was later expanded into a permanent college for physi-
cal education teachers. The department also published books
on physical education.

In the State of Israel

physical education. With the establishment of the State
of Israel, the number of schools increased enormously, and
sports facilities improved. Physical education is taught twice
weekly in schools throughout Israel. Some 70,000 pupils par-
ticipate in annual sports competitions, which include track
and field, basketball, volleyball, handball, swimming, and soc-
cer. About 70,000 pupils participate annually in the "Sports
Badge" trials, and outstanding pupils are invited for advanced
training lasting from three to twelve days.

In addition to supervising sports and physical education
in the schools, the authority encourages sports throughout the
country and gives financial assistance to the Wingate Institute
for Physical Education, which comprises a three -year college
for physical education teachers run by the Ministry of Educa-
tion and Culture, a three-year school for physiotherapists, a
one-year course for coaches, and a school for physical train-
ing instructors of the Israel Defense Forces.

The Sports Authority lays special emphasis on popular
sports, such as marching, running, swimming, etc. It provides
financial assistance for the provision of sports facilities and
the publication of sports literature. In addition to the one at
the Wingate Institute, there are three other colleges of physi-
cal education in the country: one in Tel Aviv, at a seminar run
by the kibbutz movements; one in Beersheba; and a third, a
religious college, at Givat Washington.

organization of sport in Israel. World War 11 took a
heavy toll of Jewish athletes, and it was only with great reserva-
tions that the Third Maccabiah was organized in 1950. On this
occasion, Israel's team for the first time included athletes from
Maccabi and Ha- Poel, and this made a major contribution to
the unification of Israeli sports one year later. The Maccabiah
was held again in 1953 and then 1957 and was a quadrennial
event thereafter. In 1951, Maccabi and Ha-Poel agreed to coop-
erate on the Israel Olympic Committee and the Israel Sports

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SPORTS

Federation. The two associations were already represented on
the Israel Football Association.

In 1970, over 40,000 athletes participated in organized
competitive athletics in Israel. Fifteen thousand came under
the jurisdiction of the Israel Sports Federation, which con-
trols 14 sports; 13,000 belonged to the Israel Football Associa-
tion; 9,000 to the Israel Basketball Association; and the rest to
smaller associations controlling tennis, judo, and other sports.
All sports are amateur, and a much greater number of people
are active in noncompetitive sports. The major sports orga-
nizations are: Ha-Poel, with 300 branches and 85,000 mem-
bers; Maccabi, with 75 branches and 18,000 members; Elit-
zur (founded 1939) for religious youth, with 80 branches and
10,000 members; Betar (founded in 1924), affiliated to Herat,
with 74 branches and 5,000 members; Academic Sports As-
sociation (1953) with nine branches in the institutes of higher
education and 5,000 members.

in international sports. Israel participated in the Olym-
pic Games for the first time in Helsinki in 1952 and thereafter
at all subsequent games. Since 1954 it has also competed at the
Asian Games (with the exception of the Jakarta Games in 1962,
which were canceled due to a boycott of Israel by Indonesia).
Israel has made endeavors to integrate into Asian sport, except
in basketball and volleyball, where it belongs to the zone cov-
ering Europe and the Mediterranean countries. The efforts of
Arab countries to boycott Israel have generally been frustrated
by international sports bodies. Israel's achievements in inter-
national sports have been modest. The Israel national soccer
team reached the World Cup Championships in Mexico in
1970, after defeating Australia in the eliminating round, and
acquitted itself creditably. The small Israel team at the 1970
Asian games at Bangkok won six gold medals, six silver, and
five bronze, finishing in sixth place. Israel tennis players have
competed at Wimbledon and in Davis Cup matches, and since
1962 a youth team has competed at Miami Beach. Gliding has
been practiced in Israel for over 30 years, and free-fall para-
chuting has recently been introduced. Israel won the Asian
Football Championships once, the Asian Youth Champion-
ships four times, and the Asian Champions' Cup twice. Up to
June 1969, Israel's basketball team had won 62 out of 126 offi-
cial international games.

In recent years, dinghy sailing has become popular, and
in 1969 Zefania Carmel and Lydia Lazarov won the world
championships in the 420 class in Sweden. In the following
year the championships were held in Israel off Tel Aviv.

noncompetitive sports. The most popular noncompeti-
tive sports event in Israel are the annual Three -Day March to
Jerusalem, organized by the Israel Defense Forces, the swim
across Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee, started by Ha-Poel),
and the cross-country race around Mount Tabor. The Three-
Day (originally Four-Day) March is in a category of its own.
It is not the same as hiking, which may be motivated by the
wish to "get away from it all"; nor is it comparable with the
walking race, for it is not a race at all. It has been most aptly

described as Israel's folk "happening," although the idea was
taken from a similar Dutch event. Thousands of people of all
ages - organized in clubs or in family groups, coming from of-
fices, factories, banks, or hospitals, and some individuals - go
out tramping over the hills around Jerusalem together with
contingents of soldiers in training. Visitors from overseas also
participate. The army builds camps and lays on entertainment
facilities for the participants, and the event culminates in a
march through the streets of Jerusalem. One -day marches are
also held in other parts of the country organized by Maccabi
and Ha-Poel, and an Israel Defense Forces contingent partic-
ipates every year at the annual Four- Day March in Holland.
Ha-Poel has organized sports activities in factories and offices.
Cross-country running also has a special Israel character: the
route, and sometimes the date of the event, is usually related
to some event in the Bible or Jewish history. On *Hanukkah,
for instance, relays of runners from Maccabi carry torches
from Modi'in, birthplace of the Maccabees, to the presidential
residence in Jerusalem, as well as to various other parts of the
country. There is also the annual run around Mount Tabor.
The annual swim across Lake Kinneret, from Ein Gev to Ti-
berias; the Haifa Bay swim; and the "crossing of the Red Sea"
at Eilat, are mass events with a competitive element. As in the
annual marches, all participants who complete the course are
awarded certificates and, for some events, medallions.

[Yehoshua Alouf and Uriel Simri]

1968-2005. The third decade of the existence of the State of
Israel was marked by a significant improvement of its repre-
sentative sports and by the intervention of politics into the
activities of Israel sports on the international scene. At the be-
ginning of the decade the improvement was modest. Thus at
the Olympic Games of Mexico (1968), Israel had only a fifth
place in soccer to show. Two years later, however, the soccer
team of Israel was to return to Mexico as one of the 16 teams
participating in the World Cup (for professionals and ama-
teurs).

The year 1969 saw Israeli athletes gain their first world
championship, when Zefanya Carmel and Lydia Lazarov be-
came world champions in sailing in the (non- Olympic) 420
class. Since then Israel has gained six more world champion-
ships in this event, the recipients being Joel Sela, Yoram Kedar,
Mordechai Amberam, Eitan Friedlander, Shimshon Brock-
man, and Amnon Samgura.

In 1970 Israel was represented by 27 athletes in the Asian
Games at Bangkok, and they returned with 6 gold, 6 silver and
5 bronze medals. Four years later the Israeli delegation (61 ath-
letes) was to return with 7 gold, 4 silver and 8 bronze med-
als from the Asian Games in Teheran. The appearance at the
games in Teheran may have been Israel's last major appearance
on the scene of Asian sports which, under Arab influence, has
increasingly brought politics into the sphere of sports, with the
result that Israel was excluded from the Asian Games of 1978,
under the pretext of "security reasons" and it was prevented
from participating in many other Asian events.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPORTS

Arab terrorism played havoc on Israeli sports, and 11
Israeli coaches and athletes paid with their lives during an
Arab attack on the Olympic Village at Munich on September
5, 1972. This attack, however, did not prevent Israel from ap-
pearing on the international sport scene. In fact, it returned
with a bigger and stronger delegation to the Olympic Games
in Montreal (1976), gaining a fifth (Edouard Weitz in weight-
lifting), a sixth (Esther Rot in hurdling), a seventh (Rami
Meron in wrestling), and a twelfth place (Micha Kaufmann
in shooting) in individual events, while the national soccer
team reached the last eight in the Olympic tournament. Es-
ther Rot can definitely be considered Israel's top athlete of this
decade, having been elected five times (1970, 1971, 1974, 1975,
1976) athlete of the year in Israel.

Tennis has come to the fore as a popular sport, with 14
centers having opened in various parts of Israel. The most
outstanding Israeli tennis player is Shlomo Glickstein (b.
1958), who first entered the national Israeli youth champion-
ship competition at the age of 10 and won the title for his age
group. He went on to compete in international events, and by
the end of 1981 was seeded 30 in the rankings of the Associa-
tion of Tennis Professionals.

Basketball continued to be Israel's best representative
sport during this period. Major achievements were: Asian
Games championships (1970, 1974), the European Cup for
nations (1976) and the victory of Maccabi Tel Aviv in the
European Cup for champions in 1977 and 1981. Furthermore,
basketball became the first sport in which an Israel national
team defeated a national team of the U.S.S.R. when Israel won
its game in the European junior championship in 1972. Israel
also placed sixth in the Intercontinental Cup of 1977 and fifth
in the European championship of that year. A striking vic-
tory in this sphere of sport was the defeat of the Washington
Bullets, the champions of the U.S. National Basketball Asso-
ciation by Maccabi Tel Aviv in September 1978 by the narrow
margin of 98-97. The major sport events in Israel during this
period were again the Maccabiah Games (the eighth in 1969,
the ninth in 1973, the tenth in 1977, the eleventh in 1981), and
the International Hapoel Games (the ninth in 1971 and the
tenth in 1975). Other major events held in Israel include: The
Olympic Games for the Disabled (1968); the International
Spring Cup in volleyball (1970, 1976); the world champion-
ship in sailing in the 420 class (1970); the Eight Nations' Cup
in swimming (1971, 1978); and the European junior champi-
onship in judo (1974).

At the end of the 1970s Israel was attempting to enter
the European sport scene, as a result of its rejection by Asian
sport organizations. Up to date Israel has been accepted into
the European region of seven sports and is continuing its ef-
forts to be accepted in more European federations.

In January 1979, the praesidium of the Israel Olympic
committee issued a statement breaking off all sporting rela-
tions with South Africa, apparently in order to remove any ob-
jection to Israel's participation in the Olympic Games sched-
uled to be held in Moscow the following year. At a plenary

meeting of the 10 c held a few days later, however, it rejected

the statement. Ultimately Israel did not participate in the 1980

Moscow Olympics.

[Uriel Simri]

The following years were noted in Israel's sports for two
major breakthroughs - one in the political domain, the other
in the athletic arena.

The political breakthrough began in 1989, when the So-
viet Union, under President Gorbachev, relented in its op-
position to the acceptance of Israel into the European zone
of the various international sport federations. Thus Israel,
which had been without a continental affiliation since its ex-
pulsion from Asian sports in the mid-1970s, was able to enter
the European federations and their regular activities. By 1992
this procedure had been completed for all practical purposes,
the European Soccer Federation (uefa) being one of the last
federations that had not granted Israel full membership sta-
tus. At the same time, from 1987 uefa invited Israel's youth
teams to participate in its championships and in 1992 invited
the national champion as well as the cup-holder to participate
in the annual competitions organized by it.

The major breakthrough in athletics occurred during the
Olympic Games in Barcelona in the summer of 1992, when
two Judokas succeeded in bringing to Israel for the first time
Olympic medals - Yael Arad returning with the silver medal in
women's 61 kg. class and Oren Smadja with the bronze medal
in the men's 71 kg. class.

Israel had, in fact, been very close to gaining its first
Olympic medals already at Seoul in 1988. However, Joel Sela
and Eldad Amir had to be satisfied with a fourth place in the
Flying Dutchman class of the Olympic yachting competitions,
after forfeiting one race because it was held on Yom Kippur.
The same couple was placed eighth in the 1984 Olympics at
Los Angeles. Similar placings, which were the best during
those Olympics, were achieved by the yachtsmen Shimshon
Brockman and Eitan Friedlander in the 470 class, as well as
by the marksman Yitzchak Yonassi.

In Israel's representation at the Barcelona Olympics,
11 out of the 31 representatives were newcomers to the State
of Israel, primarily from the former Soviet Union. The top
achievements of those newcomers were the sixth place of
weightlifter Andre Danisov in the 100 kg. class and the eighth
place of Yevgeni Krasnov in the pole vault.

The significant improvement of the standard of the top
athletes can further be seen from a list of achievements in re-
cent years in other sports. In July 1992 Johar Abu-Lashin, a
Christian Arab from Nazareth, became the first Israeli pro-
fessional athlete to gain a world champion's title, when he be-
came lightweight champion of the World Boxing Federation.
The same year windsurfer Amit Inbar was placed second in
the world championship (and a disappointing eighth in the
Olympics), after having ranked first in the previous year. An-
other newcomer from the Soviet Union, the wrestler Max
Geller, succeeded in winning the silver medal at the European
championships in freestyle wrestling in 1991.

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SPORTS

On the other hand basketball, which had been the out-
standing sport in Israel for its quality for a long time, had its
ups and downs. Whereas the men's national team was placed
second in the European championship in 1979, sixth in 1981,
and fifth in 1983, it receded to ninth place in 1985, to eleventh
in 1987, and thereafter did not qualify for the final stages of
the championship (until 1993). However, in 1986 the team
succeeded for the second time in history (after 1954) to qual-
ify for the final stages of the world championship, where it
came seventh.

The Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team also did not suc-
ceed in repeating its earlier successes (wins in 1977 and 1981)
in the European Champions' Cup games. Although the team
reached the finals three years in a row (1987-1989), it was
beaten at that stage by teams from Italy and Yugoslavia. The
women's national team in basketball succeeded in 1990 to
reach the "final eight" in the continental championship, but
this turned out to be a one-time achievement.

Israel's tennis managed to be in the limelight from 1986
until 1989, when the men's team held its place among the top
16 nations in the world within the framework of the Davis Cup
games. As of 1990 attempts to return to the top have not been
successful. The above achievement was mainly due to Israel's
no. 1 player, Amos Mansdorf, who at the peak of his career (in
1987) ranked no. 18 in the world. In the following years Mans-
dorf had a ranking around no. 30.

While soccer remained Israel's most popular sport, the
Football Association had very little to show as far as achieve-
ments on the international scene were concerned. In 1989,
Israel came closest to repeating its appearance in the final
stages of the World Cup (the first and only time was in 1970),
but drew with Colombia in Ramat Gan, after losing by a single
goal in the away game. Israel reached this stage after winning
the zone of Oceania, to which it was removed by fi fa as a re-
sult of the Asian boycott and uefa's refusal, up to that time,
to let Israel participate in the European zone.

In 1988 the Knesset passed the "Sports Law," after tabling
it for 13 years. Its major provisions called for mandatory cer-
tification of coaches and instructors; mandatory health and
loss of income insurance of athletes participating in com-
petitive sports; mandatory periodical medical examinations
for participants in competitive sports; and prohibition of the
use of any doping materials. The Minister of Education and
Culture was given a number of regulatory powers within the
framework of the law.

The Knesset also approved, early in 1991, the appointment
of a deputy minister in the Ministry of Education and Culture
to be in charge of sports. When the Labor Party returned to
power in 1992, it too appointed a deputy minister.

The quadrennial Maccabiah and the Hapoel Games con-
tinued to be the major sports events in the country. While the
participation in the Maccabiah Games expanded - in 1989
athletes from the former Communist bloc participated for the
first time - the athletic standard of the Games left much to be
desired. The Hapoel Games, on the other hand, developed in

scope and in standard up to 1987, but were greatly reduced in
1991 as a result of a serious financial deficit.

Israeli team sports in the 1990s and early 2000s were
dominated by the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team, which
continued to sweep local league play and won three European
championships under Coach Pini *Gershon (2001, 2003, 2004)
after a long drought in international competition. Local bas-
ketball also developed a number of superstars, most playing
for Maccabi but some also for European teams. Among them
were Doron Jamche, Doron Shefer, Gur Shelef, Tal Burst-
ein, and Oded Katash, who led Greece's Panathinaikos to a
championship win over Maccabi, his former team, in 2000.
In women's basketball, Elitzur Holon built a parallel dynasty,
taking 18 Israeli cups and 20 Israeli league championships be-
tween 1977 and 1996. Israeli Shay Doron was an All- American
guard at Maryland and led the Terrapins to an nc a a Cham-
pionship in 2006.

Women's tennis also made great strides, with two stand-
outs on the wta tour. Anna Smashnova finished the 2002 and
2003 seasons with a No. 16 world ranking and through 2005
had taken 11 titles (in 11 finals), chalking up over $2 million
in winnings. Nineteen-year-old Shahar Peer climbed to No.
23 in June 2006. In 2002 Alex Averbach took the gold medal
in the pole vault at the European championships, a first for
an Israeli athlete, and in 2004 Gal Fridman won Israel's first
Olympic gold medal, taking it in windsurfing.

[Uriel Simri / Elli Wohlgelernter (2 nd ed.)]
JEWISH ATHLETES

Association Football (Soccer)

Shortly after 1900, the Bohr brothers, Neils Henrik David
(1885-1962) and Harald August (1887-1951), of Denmark, be-
came famous soccer players in Scandinavia. In 1908 Harald won
a silver medal in the first Olympic soccer competition. Other
* Olympic medalists included Sandor Geller (Hungary) in 1952
(gold); Boris Razinsky (1933- ) (U.S.S.R.) in 1956 (gold), and
Arpad Orban (1938- ) (Hungary) in 1964 (gold). In the 1920s,
Austria's Hakoah- Vienna All- Stars, an outstanding all- Jewish
team, played a series of matches in Palestine and the United
States. In New York City in 1926 Hakoah-Vienna set a U.S.
single-game attendance record (46,000) that was not broken
for over 40 years. Many of the teammates of Hakoah-Vienna
left Austria in the 1930s and continued their soccer careers in
Palestine and the United States. Bela Guttmann (1900-1981), a
Hungarian who also played for Budapest's mtk Club, became
one of the world's top soccer coaches in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Meisel brothers, Hugo (1895-1968) and Willy (1897-
1967), were Austrian soccer personalities. Willy, who became
one of Europe's most respected sportswriters, was a goalkeeper
for the Austrian national team; Hugo founded the Interna-
tional or World Cup competition in 1927 and was head of the
Austrian Football Association in the 1930s. Hungary produced
many outstanding Jewish players, coaches, and administrators,
beginning with a member of the first national team, Olym-
pic swimmer and medalist Alfred Hajos (Arnold Guttmann)

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

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SPORTS

(1878-1955), the first modern Olympic swimming champion,
and his brother, Henrik. Mark Lazarus (1938- ) was a British
soccer player. In the Soviet Union, Mikhail Romm was one of
the organizers of soccer in the 1920s, and Mikhail Loshinsky
played on the national team before World War 11.

The Israel Football Federation was founded in Palestine
in 1928 and its first international match was played in 1934.
The first side representing the State of Israel played in New
York City in 1948. Israel reached the quarterfinal round in the
1968 Olympic Games and the final round of 16 in the World
Cup competition in 1970. The star of the team was the captain,
Mordechai ("Mottele") Spiegler.

American soccer pioneer Nathan Agar (1887-1978) in-
troduced soccer in the New York City area in 1904 and helped
found the United States Football Association in 1913. In 1929
the all-Jewish Hakoah All-Stars of New York City won the
National Challenge Cup.

Johan Neeskens (1951- ) played for Ajax of Amsterdam,
which won the European Cup in 1971-73, and for World Cup
finalist Netherlands in 1974 and 1978. As a player for the New
York Cosmos, he was named to the North American Soccer
League All- Star team in 1979.

Goalie Shep *Messing (1949- ) was a member of the
1972 United States Olympic team and the 1977 North Ameri-
can League champion New York Cosmos. Goalkeeper Ar-
nold Mausser (1954- ) of the Tampa Bay Rowdies was named
American Player of the Year in the North American Soccer
League in 1976, and goalie Alan Mayer was accorded the same
honor in 1978. Mayer played for the San Diego Sockers.

The Maccabee Club of Los Angeles, which included a
number of Israeli students, won the United States National
Challenge Cup in 1973, 1975, and 1977-78.

Alan Rothenberg, a lawyer, was elected president of the
U.S. Soccer Federation in 1990. Rothenberg served as commis-
sioner of soccer in the 1984 Olympic Games. In 1990 Henry
Kissinger, former U.S. secretary of state, was named vice chair-
man of the U.S. World Cup '94 organizing committee.

Yair Allnut was a member of the 1992 U.S. Olympic
Games team and a gold medalist in the 1991 Pan American
Games. Jeff Agoos (1968- ) had 134 international appear-
ances with the national team, played with the U.S. Under- 15,
Under-17, Under-20, World University and Indoor National
Teams, and was a member of five championship teams dur-
ing his mls career. Debbi Belkin played with the U.S. gold
medal team in the inaugural Women's World Championships
in China in 1991. Arcady Gaydamak (Ari Barlev, 1952- ), a
Russian- Israeli billionaire, bought the Betar Jerusalem soc-
cer team in August 2005. He is also owner of the Hapoel Jeru-
salem basketball team. His son, Alexandre "Sasha" Gaydamak,
bought a 50 percent share of the Portsmouth fc soccer team
in January 2006.

Automobile Racing

Britain's Woolf Barnato (1895-1948), a director of Bentley Mo-
tors and son of Barney *Barnato of South African diamond

fame, won three consecutive Le Mans 24-hour Grand Prix of
Endurance races in 1928-30. In a 14-year career, Rene Dreyfus
(1905-1993) of France triumphed in 36 races and gained the
Grand Prix of Monaco (1930) and the Grand Prix of Belgium
( x 934)- After winning the national driving championship in
1936, Mauri *Rose (1906-1981) of the United States drove to
three victories (1941, 1947, and 1948) in the Indianapolis 500-
mile classic. Sheila Van Damm (1922-1987) of Great Britain
was the European women's driving champion in 1954-55. Rob-
ert Grossman (1923- ) of the United States placed among the
top ten finishers in six consecutive Le Mans races (1959-64).
Peter Revson (1939-1974) of the United States won the World
Challenge Cup in 1968, the 1973 British and Canadian Grand
Prix events and was runner-up at the 1971 Indianapolis 500,
but was killed during a practice run in 1974. American Steve
Krisiloff placed fourth in the 1978 Indianapolis 500. Jody
* Scheckter (1950- ) of South Africa placed third in the world
driving championships in 1974 and was runner-up in 1977.
His Grand Prix victories included Swedish (1974 and 1976);
British (1974); South African (1975) and Argentinean, Mone-
gasque and Canadian in 1977. In 1979 Scheckter won the Bel-
gian, Monegasque and Italian Grand Prix events and became
South Africa's first world driving champion. He retired from
international racing competition after the 1980 season. Kenny
Bernstein (1944- ) won a record-tying four consecutive U.S.
National Hot Rod Association Funny Car Championships in
1985-88. He switched to the Top Fuel class in 1990 and the
following year had a record six victories in a season. In 1992
Bernstein recorded four wins and became the first drag racer
to cover a quarter mile at more than 300 miles per hour.

Baseball

Jews early developed an interest in baseball, which had its
origins in the 1840s. Lipman E. (Lip) Tike became baseball's
first professional in 1866 when he played third base for the
Philadelphia Athletics at a salary of $20 per week. In 1882
Louis Kramer (1849-1922) helped organize the major league
American Association, and was its president in 1891. Aaron S.
Stern (1853-1920), a clothing merchant, was a co-founder of
the American Association and owner of the Cincinnati Reds
in 1882-90. The Reds won the first American Association
championship in 1882. Other officials of the Cincinnati club
included Edgar Mayer Johnson (1836-?), secretary, 1877-80,
and Nathan Menderson (1820-1904), president, 1880. Jacob
C. (Jake) Morse (1860-1937), who became a noted sports-
writer, was manager of the Boston team in the Union League
in 1884. Barney *Dreyfuss, president of the Louisville Colo-
nels in 1899 and owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1900
to 1932, founded the World Series in 1903. One of the game's
most controversial owners, Andrew Freedman (1860-1915), a
lawyer and a power behind New York City's Tammany Hall,
was president of the New York Giants in 1894-1902. Louis
W Heilbroner (1861-1933) managed the St. Louis Cardinals
in 1900, and nine years later founded baseball's first statisti-
cal bureau. Harry (Judge) Goldman (1857-1941) was an or-

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ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPORTS

ganizer of the American League in 1900, and with the Frank
brothers, Moses and Sydney, served as an official of the Bal-
timore club in the new league in 1901-2. Besides Pike, the
outstanding players prior to 1900 were William M. (Billy)
Nash (1865-1929), a third baseman who played in the major
leagues for 15 years, a member of pennant- winning teams in
1890 (Boston, Players League) and 1891-93 (Boston, National
League), and manager of Philadelphia in 1896; James John
(Chief) Roseman (1856-1938), an outfielder with the New York
team that won the American Association pennant in 1884,
and player/manager of the St. Louis club in the same league
in 1890; and Daniel E. Stearns (1861-1944), first baseman on
the Cincinnati team that won the first American Association
championship in 1882.

Players who gained success in the major leagues after
1900 included Hank *Greenberg (1911-1986), the first Jewish
member of the Baseball Hall of Fame; pitching great Sandy
*Koufax (1935- ), first Jewish pitcher and youngest player
ever elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame; and Lou *Boudreau
(1917-2001), a member of the Hall of Fame whose mother was
from an Orthodox Jewish family. Al *Rosen (1924- ), third
baseman, American League home run champion in 1950 and
1953, voted the leagues Most Valuable Player in 1953; Erskine
Mayer (1891-1957), a pitcher who won 21 games for the Phil-
adelphia Phillies in 1914 and 1915; Charles Solomon (Buddy)
Myer (1904-1974), an infielder with Washington and Boston
for 17 years who played in the 1925 and 1933 World Series, won
the League batting title of 1935, and compiled the lifetime bat-
ting mark of .303; Larry *Sherry (1935- ), pitching hero of the
Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1959 World Series; Art *Shamsky
(1941- ), an outfielder who hit four home runs in four con-
secutive at bats and batted.300 for the 1969 World Champion
New York Mets; and Kenny Holtzman (1945- ), who had the
most number of wins for a Jewish pitcher and who pitched
no-hitters in 1969 and 1972.

Also George R. Stone (1876-1945), an outfielder for the
St. Louis Browns who won the American League batting
title in 1906; Barney Pelty (1880-1939), pitcher, compiled
a 2.62 earned run average in a ten-year (1903-12) Ameri-
can League career with the St. Louis Browns and Washing-
ton Senators; Benjamin M. (Benny) Kauff (1890-1961), out-
fielder, was the batting champion of the Federal League in
1914 and 1915, and a member of the National League champion
New York Giants in 1917; Sid ^Gordon (1917-1975), 1941-43,
1946-55; Harry Danning (1911-2004), 1933-42; Saul Rogovin
(1922-1995), 1949-53, 1955-57; Samuel A. (Sammy) Bohne
(Cohen) (1896-1977); Andrew (Andy) Cohen (1904-1988),
1926, 1928-29; Calvin (Cal) *Abrams (1924-1997), 1949-56;
Morris (Morrie) Arnovich (1910-1959), 1936-41, 1946; Harry
Eisenstat (1915-2003), 1935-42; Harry Feldman (1919-1962),
1941-46; Myron (Joe) Ginsberg (1926- ), 1948, 1950-54,
1956-62; Moe *Berg (1902-1974), an outstanding linguist
as well as baseball player and a member of the U.S. Intel-
ligence who undertook espionage in Japan and Germany,
and worked for the Office of Strategic Services (oss) dur-

ing World War 11, 1923, 1926-39; Barry Latman (1936- ),
1957-67; James (Jim) Levey (1906-1970), 1930-33; Jimmy
*Reese (1904-1994), 1930-32; Jacob (Jake) Atz (1879-1945),
1902, 1907-09; Goodwin (Goody) Rosen (1912-1994), a
Canadian, 1937-39, i944~45; Philip (Mickey) Weintraub
(1907-1986), i933"35> 37-38, 1944-45; Norman (Norm) Miller
(1946- ),i965- ; Michael P. (Mike) Epstein (1943- ), 1966- ;
Steve *Stone (1947- ), 1971-81, won the Cy Young Award in
1980; Ross Baumgarten (1955- ), 1978-82; Ron Blomberg
(1948- ), 1969, 1971-76; Jeff Newman (1948- ), 1976-84;
Steve Yeager (1948- ), 1972-86; Larry Rothschild (1954- ),
1981-82; Scott Radinsky (1968- ), 1990-93, 1995-2001; Jesse
Levis (1968- ), 1992-99; Alan Levine, (1968- ), 1996, 1998- ;
Brad Ausmus (1969- ), 1993- ; Shawn *Green, (1972- ),
1993- ; Mike Lieberthal, (1972- ), 1994- ; Scott Schoeneweis
( 1 973~ ) 1999 - y Gabe Kapler, (1975- ), 1998- ; Jason Marquis,
(1978- ), 2000- ; Kevin Youkilis (1979- ), 2004- ; Justin
Wayne (1979- ), 2002-2004, Adam Stern (1980- ), 2005- ;
and Adam Greenberg (1981- ), who was hit in the head by
the first pitch he saw in the Major Leagues on July 9, 2005,
and was out for the remainder of the season.

Jacob A. (Jake) Pitler (1894-1968) was an infielder for
the Pittsburgh Pirates (1917-18) and a popular coach for the
Brooklyn Dodgers (1948-57), and Al *Schacht (1892-1984)
pitched for the Washington Senators (1919-21), was a coach
for the Senators and Boston Red Sox and became known as
the "Clown Prince of Baseball." He was followed by Max *Pat-
kin (1920-1999), who was also known as the "Clown Prince
of Baseball" for his goofy antics as a rubber- necked, double-
jointed comic genius. Dolly *Stark (1897-1968) and Al For-
man (1928- ) were National League umpires.

Baseball executives of the modern era included Judge
Emil E. Fuchs (1879-1961), owner and manager (1929) of
the National League Boston club in 1923-35; Leo J. Bondy
(1883-1944), vice president of the New York Giants, 1934-44;
Sidney Weil (1891-1966), owner of the Cincinnati Reds,
1930-33; William Benswanger (1892-1972), son-in-law of
Barney Dreyfuss, president of the Pittsburgh Pirates, 1932-46;
Harry M. Grabiner (1890-1948), vice president of the Chicago
White Sox, 1939-45, and part-owner and vice president of the
Cleveland Indians, 1946-48; Hank Greenberg, vice president
and general manager, Cleveland Indians, Chicago White Sox,
1948 to 1963; Gabe *Paul (1910-1998), was vice president and
general manager of the Cincinnati Reds (1951-1960), president
and general manager of the Cleveland Indians (1961-1973),
president of the New York Yankees (1974-1977), and president
of the Indians (1978-1984). Jerold C. Hoffberger (1919-1999)
helped return major league baseball to Baltimore in 1953, be-
came principal owner of the Orioles in 1965, and sold the
team in 1979; Marvin Milkes, general manager of the Seattle
(1969) and Milwaukee (1970) teams of the American League;
Charles R. Bronfman was chairman and principal owner of
the Montreal Expos from 1968 to 1990. Fred Wilpon (1936- )
is owner of the New York Mets; Walter Haas Jr. (1916-1995)
was owner of the Oakland Athletics from 1980-1995; Lewis

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

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SPORTS

Wolff, U.S., owner of the Oakland Athletics; Jerry *Reinsdorf
(1936- ) has been owner of the Chicago White Sox since 1981
(and the Chicago Bulls since 1985). Jeffrey Loria bought the
Florida Marlins in 2002; the president is David Samson, the
vice chairman is Joel Mael, and the general manager is Larry
Beinfest. Stuart Sternberg became principal owner of the
Tampa Bay Devil Rays in October 2005.

Al Rosen served as president of the New York Yankees
(1978-79), Houston Astros (1980-1985) and San Francisco
Giants (1985-1992). Bob Lurie was owner of the San Fran-
cisco Giants (1976-1992). Theo N. Epstein (1973- ), son of
novelist Leslie *Epstein (1938- ) and grandson of Oscar-
winning screenwriter Philip G. * Epstein (1909-1952), is
general manager of the Boston Red Sox (2002- ). Andrew
Friedman is executive vice president of the Tampa Bay Devil
Rays.

Harold (Lefty) Phillips (1969-71) and Norman *Sherry
(1976-77) managed the American League California Angels;
Larry Rothschild managed the Tampa Bay Devil Rays from
1998-2001, and was pitching coach for the Cincinnati Reds
(1992-1993), Florida Marlins (1995-1997) and Chicago Cubs
(2001-present).

Hank Greenberg's son, Steve, served as the deputy com-
missioner of baseball from 1989-93. Bud *Selig (1934- ), for-
mer owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, was named chairman
of baseball's executive council in 1992 and given the authority
to act as commissioner.

Marvin *Miller (1917- ) served as the executive direc-
tor of the Major League Baseball Players Association from
1966 to 1984.

Basketball

Invented in 1891 in the United States, the game was ideally
suited to the crowded urban areas where most of the nations
Jewish population lived. Jewish settlement houses on New
York's East Side and Chicago's West Side gave Jewish youth
their first opportunity to play the game and set many play-
ers on their way to stardom. Jews played basketball in the
1890s, and in 1900 the first Jewish professional player, Paul
("Twister") Steinberg (1880-1964), began his career at Lit-
tle Falls, New York. Later he coached at Cornell University
(1910-12), and for many years acted as referee at college games.
Frank Basloe (1887-1966), professional player and coach of
the Herkimer, New York, team, organized a squad that toured
the country in 1903-23. Basloe was president of the New York
State League in 1937-48. Harry Baum (1882-1959), a New York
City settlement worker and professor of electrical engineer-
ing at the City College of New York, developed a style of play
that made outstanding professional players of Barney *Se-
dran, Louis Sugarman (1890-1951), Jake Fuller (Furstman),
and Max (Marty) Friedman (1889-1986). Friedman captained
the World War 1 American Expeditionary Force team that won
the Inter- Allied Games basketball tournament and introduced
the sport to Europe. Other outstanding professionals of the
1910-25 era were William Cone and Emanuel (Doc) Newman

(1890-?). Henry Hart Elias (1882-1941) was the first Jewish
college player. He played on the initial Columbia University
team in 1901; was the team's captain in 1903, and the school's
first basketball coach in 1904-05. The first Jewish player to
win collegiate honors, Samuel Melitzer (1888-1970), an All-
East selection in 1907, and an All-American in 1909, was also
from Columbia. William Laub, 1926; Louis Bender (1910-?),
1930, 1932, and David Newmark (1946- ), 1966, also received
All-America recognition at Columbia. From 1909 to 1950 the
City College of New York produced teams that were among
the best in the nation and were nearly all-Jewish. With the ex-
ception of Ira Streusand (1890-1964), 1908, professional star
Nat *Holman trained all the other Jewish players from ccny
who were selected as All- Americans, namely Louis Farer,
1922; Pincus (Pinky) Match (1904-1944), 1925; Moe Spahn,
1932; Mo Goldman (1913-?), 1934; Bernard Fliegel, 1938; Wil-
liam (Red) *Holzman (1920-1998), 1942, and Irwin Dambrot
(1950). All- America selections from other New York City
schools (New York University, Long Island University, and St.
John's) were Maclyn (Mac) Baker (1898-1985), 1920-21; Milton
Schulman, 1936; Robert Lewis, 1939; Jerome (Jerry) Fleishman
(1922- ), 1943; Sid *Tannenbaum (1925-1988), 1946-47; Dolph
*Schayes (1928- ), 1948; Donald Forman (1926- ), 1948; Barry
Kramer (1942- ), 1963-64; Ben Kramer (1913-1999), 1936;
Jules Bender (1914-1982), 1937; John Bromberg, 1939; Daniel
Kaplowitz, 1939; Irving Torgoff, 1938-39; Oscar (Ossie) Schect-
man, (1919- ), 1941; Jackie Goldsmith (1921-1968), 1946; Max
(Mac) Kinsbrunner (1909-1972), 1930; Max (Mac) Posnack,
1931; Nathan Lazar, 1933; Jack (Dutch) Garfinkel (1920- ), 1939;
Harry Boykoff (1922-1978), 1943, 1946; Hyman (Hy) Gotkin,
1944-45; and Allan Seiden, 1958-59. In 1928-31 Kinsbrunner,
Posnack, Albert (Allie) Schuckman and Jack (Rip) Gerson
were members of the "Wonder Five," one of college basket-
ball's most famous teams.

Other All- America players included Cyril Haas, Prince-
ton, 1916-17; Leon (Bob) Marcus, 1918-19; Samuel Pite, Yale,
1923; Emanuel (Menchy) Goldblatt (1904-1994), Pennsylva-
nia, 1925-26; Carl M. Loeb Jr., Princeton, 1926; Edward Wine-
apple, Providence, 1929; Louis Hayman, Syracuse, 1931; Jerry
Nemer (1912-1980), Southern California, 1933; Herbert Bonn,
Duquesne, 1936; William Fleishman, Western Reserve, 1936;
Marvin Colen, Loyola of Chicago, 1937; Meyer (Mike) Bloom,
Temple, 1938; Bernard Opper (1915-2000), Kentucky, 1939;
Louis Possner, DePaul, 1940; Morris (Moe) Becker (1917-1996),
Duquesne, 1941; Irving Bemoras (1930- ), Illinois, 1953; Len
Rosenbluth (1933- ), North Carolina, 1955-57, college player
of the year in 1957; Lawrence Friend (1935-1998), California,
1957; Donald Goldstein, Louisville, 1959; Jeff Cohen, William
and Mary, 1960-61; Arthur Heyman (1941- ), Duke, 1961-63,
college player of the year in 1963; Howard Carl, DePaul, 1961;
Robert I. (Rick) Kaminsky (1942- ), Yale, 1964; Talbot (Tal)
*Brody (1943- ), Illinois, 1965, and subsequently a star in
Israel; Neal Walk (1948- ), Florida, 1968-69; and Dave Kufeld,
Yeshiva U. 1977-1980, and a io th -round draft pick of the nba's
Portland Trailblazers.

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College coaches included Leonard Palmer (1882-?),
first ccny coach, 1909-16; Edard Siskind (1886-1955), Ford-
ham, 1910; Samuel Melitzer, nyu, 1911; Michael Saxe, Villa-
nova, 1921-26; Louis Sugarman, Princeton, 1921; David Tobey
(1898-1988), Savage School of Physical Education, 1924-42
and Cooper Union, 1947-60, an outstanding referee from 1918
to 1945 and the author of the first book on basketball officiating
(1943), and a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame; Leon-
ard D. Sachs (1897-1942), Loyola or Chicago, 1924-42, had a
224-129 record; Emil S. Gollubier (1890-1969), Chicago He-
brew Institute, 1918-62; Dolly Stark (1897-1968), Dartmouth,
1929-36, 1945-46; Bernard (Red) *Sarachek (1912-2005),
Yeshiva, 1943, 1946-69; Harry Stein (1916-1959), Brandeis,
1949-58; Samuel Cozen, Drexel Tech, 1952-68, had a 213-94
record; David Polansky, ccny, 1953-54, 1957-58, 1960-68,
1970-71; Roy Rubin, Long Island University, 1961- , in 1968
liu was the small college national champion; Harold (Hal)
Blitman, Cheyney State, 1962-69; Jules Rivlin, Marshall,
1956-62; Irving Olin (1917-1970), Brandeis, 1964; and Harry
*Litwack (1907-1999), Temple, at the Philadelphia school be-
ginning in 1925 as a player and coach. He became head coach
in 1953 and his teams won over 300 games, including the 1969
National Invitational Tournament in New York City.

The majority of the players who made All -Am eric a in
college went on to play professional basketball. Other Jewish
players who excelled as professionals were David (Pretzel)
Banks (1901-1952), the Original Celtics; George (Red) Wolfe
(1905-1970), Shikey Gotthoffer and Inky Lautman of the Phila-
delphia Sphas; Louis Spindell and Phil Rabin (Rabinowitz) of
the American League; National Basketball Association play-
ers Leo Gottlieb, Sidney (Sonny) Hertzberg, Max *Zaslofsky
(1925-1985), all-NBA guard in 1947-50, who led the league in
scoring in 1948, and Danny Schayes, son of Dolph.

Coaches, managers, and owners of professional teams
included Jack (Nibs) Neiman, manager of the Rochester, New
York, Centrals, 1902; Eddie ^Gottlieb (1900-1979), organized,
played for, and coached the South Philadelphia Hebrew As-
sociation (Sphas) team in 1918-45. In 1946 he helped found
the Basketball Association of America (which became the
National Basketball Association) and from 1947 to 1968 was
a coach and owner of the Philadelphia Warriors; Abe *Saper-
stein (1902-1966), founder, owner, and coach of the Har-
lem Globetrotters; Barney *Sedran (1891-1964), a coach and
promoter in 1932-46; Les ^Harrison (1904-1997), coach and
owner of the Rochester Royals of the nba, 1949-1958; Benja-
min (Ben) Kerner (1917- ), owner of the Tri- Cities/ Milwau-
kee/St. Louis Hawks in the National Basketball League and
the National Basketball Association, 1946-68; Max Winter,
owner of the Minneapolis Lakers in the 1950s; Mark *Cuban
(1958- ), owner of the Dallas Mavericks; Jerry Reinsdorf
(1936- ), owner of the Chicago Bulls; Leslie Alexander, Hous-
ton Rockets; Micky Arison, Miami Heat; William Davidson,
Detroit Pistons; Abe *Pollin (1923- ) Washington Wizards;
Donald Sterling, Los Angeles Clippers; Herb Kohl, Milwaukee
Bucks; and Howard Schultz, Seattle Supersonics.

Arnold (Red) *Auerbach (1917- ), was Boston Celtics
coach and general manager; Red Holzman played for the
Rochester Royals in 1946-54, and led the New York Knicks
to the nba championship in 1970 and 1973. Maurice *Podol-
off (1890-1985) was elected president of the Basketball Asso-
ciation of America in 1946 and served as the first commis-
sioner of the National Basketball Association until 1963. Marty
*Glickman (1917-2001) was a radio broadcaster and founding
father of basketball on radio, and is a member of the Basket-
ball Hall of Fame. Leo Fischer (1897-1970), an outstanding
sportswriter, was president of the National Basketball League
in 1940-44, and Harry Rudolph (1907-1973), president of the
Eastern League. Larry *Fleisher (1930-1989) was head of the
nba players union from 1962-1988, and a member of the nba
Hall of Fame as contributor.

Referees who gained prominence were Sam Schoenfeld
(1907-1956), who starred at Columbia University in 1928-30
and later founded and was first president of the Collegiate Bas-
ketball Officials Association; Mendy *Rudolph (1928-1979),
who became an nba official in 1953 and in 1969 became the
leagues chief of referees; and Norman Drucker, who after 15
years with the nba became supervisor of aba officials in 1969.
Jews coached and won medals at the Olympic *Games. Ju-
lius Goldman, an American, coached Canada to an Olympic
medal in 1936, and Alexander Gomelsky did the same for the
Soviet Union in 1964 and 1968. Canadian Olympic coaches in-
clude Men Abromowitz (1948) and Ruben Richman (1934- ).
Harry D. *Henshel served as chairman of the United States
Olympic Basketball Committee in 1956, and Harold Fischer
coached United States gold medal teams at the 1951 and 1967
Pan-American Games. Tanhum (Tanny) Cohen-Mintz of
Israel was named to the European All-Star team in 1964 and
1965. Members of the Basketball Hall of Fame are Leonard D.
Sachs, David Tobey, Barney Sedran, Nat Holman, Red Auer-
bach, and Abe Saperstein.

Ernie * Grunfeld won gold medals as a member of the
American men's teams at the 1975 Pan-American Games and
the 1976 Olympic Games, and Nancy *Lieberman (1958- )
was a member of the American women's teams which gained
Pan-American Games gold and Olympic Games silver med-
als. Lieberman was named outstanding college player twice,
winning the Wade Trophy following the 1978-79 and 1979-80
seasons, when her school Old Dominion won the women's
championship. In 1979 she helped the United States win the
fib a World Championship and a silver medal in the Pan-
American Games.

Larry *Brown (1940- ) was named Coach of the Year in
the American Basketball Association in 1973 and 1975. In 1979
Brown moved to the college ranks to coach at ucla. His team
reached the finals of the national collegiate (ncaa) champion-
ship in his first season. Brown, basketball's traveling man, then
went to the nba New Jersey Nets (1981-1983), and then to the
University of Kansas, which won the ncaa championship in
1988. He returned to the nba in 1988 with the Antonio Spurs,
which went from a 21-61 record in Brown's first year to 56-26

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the following year - the 35 -game swing from one season to
the next an nba record. In 1992 he moved from San Antonio
to the Los Angeles Clippers, then to the Indianapolis Pacers
(!993 -1 997)> Philadelphia 76ers (1997-2002), Detroit Pistons
(2003-2004), and New York Knicks (2005-2006). His brother
Herb (1936- ) is also a veteran coach.

Alexander Gomelsky (1928-2005) returned to coach
the U.S.S.R. national team in 1977. His team won an Olympic
bronze medal in Moscow.

Players Dolph Schayes (1972) and Max (Marty) Friedman
(1971); coach Harry Litwack (1976); and contributors Edward
Gottlieb (1971) and Maurice Podoloff (1973) were elected to
the Basketball Hall of Fame.

David Stern became the commissioner of the National
Basketball Association in 1983 and in 1992 was named the most
powerful person in sports by a national sports publication. The
Sporting News said of him, "As a direct result of David Sterns
progressive leadership, the nba now has the greatest univer-
sal appeal of any professional sport."

Mickey *Berkowitz (1954- ) is considered the greatest
basketball player in Israel's history.

Senda Abbott *Berenson was the "Mother of Women's
Basketball" and was inducted into the International Basket-
ball Hall of Fame in 1985.

Billiards

John M. Brunswick (1819-1886), who was born in Bengarten,
Switzerland, and settled in Cincinnati, Ohio, was one of the
earliest manufacturers of billiard equipment in the United
States. He built the country's first perfect billiard table in
1845. Moses Bensinger (1839-1904), Brunswick's son-in-law,
invented the balkline game in billiards in 1883, and in 1890
became president of his father-in-law's firm, which had been
moved to Chicago. Outstanding American professional bil-
liard players were Leon Magnus, winner of the first world
three-cushion championship in 1878; Harry P. Cline, world
three-cushion (1907) and 18.2 balkline (1910) champion, and
Arthur Rubin (1905-?), world professional three-cushion
champion (1961 and 1964); Sydney Lee (1903-?), the British
amateur champion in 1931-34 and winner of the world ama-
teur billiard championship in 1933, American amateurs Max
Shimon, winner of the national three- cushion championship
in 1929 and 1930, and Simon ("Cy") Yellin, national pocket
billiard champion in 1929.

Bowling (Tenpin)

The Brunswick Company entered the bowling business in 1888
and helped establish the tenpin game around the world. Bowl-
ing pioneers Samuel Karpf (1866-1923) and Dutch-born Louis
B. Stein (1858-1949) helped organize the American Bowling
Congress in 1895. One of the first to write about bowling in
the United States, Karpf served in 1896-1907 as the first sec-
retary of the American Bowling Congress. Stein, an outstand-
ing bowler, established 300 as the score in tenpin bowling and
determined that the weight of the ball should be 16 pounds.
The Bowling Hall of Fame includes charter member Mortimer

("Mort") Lindsey (1888-1959); Phil Wolf, American Bowling
Congress champion (1928); and Sylvia Wene Martin (1928- ),
women bowler of the year in 1955 and i960.

Mark *Roth (1951- ), Bowler of the Year in 1977, 1978,
1979, and 1984, is a member of Pro Bowlers Association (pba)
Hall of Fame. Roth, Barry Asher (1972-73), and Marshall Hol-
man (1977-78) gained All-America selections. Holman was
player of the year in 1987. Roth and Holman were voted into
the U.S. Professional Bowlers Association's Hall of Fame in
1987 and 1990, respectively. Veteran Barry Asher joined the
pba Hall of Fame in 1988, and the American Bowling Con-
gress' Hall of Fame added Norman Meyers in 1983 and Al
Cohn in 1985.

Boxing

The most active years of Jewish participation in professional
boxing were in the latter part of the 18 th and the first quarter
of the 19 th centuries in England, and in the first half of the 20 th
century in the United States. The best boxers of the early era
were Daniel *Mendoza (1764-1836), champion of England in
1792-95, and Samuel ("Dutch Sam") Elias (1776-1816), cred-
ited with the invention of the uppercut. Other English Jews
who fought in the ring during this period were Barney Aaron
("the Star of the East"; 1800-1850); Henry Abrahams; the Be-
lasco brothers - Abraham ("Aby") (1797-?), Israel (1800-?),
Samuel, and John; Isaac Bittoon (1778-1838); Elisha Crabbe
(d. 1809); Abraham da Costa; Barnard Levy; Keely Lyons;
Daniel Martin; Isaac Mousha; Abraham Robes; Solomon So-
dicky; and the cousins of Daniel Mendoza, Angel Hyams and
Aaron Mendoza.

A number of English fighters bridged the gap between
the early and modern eras. Barney ("Young Barney") Aaron
(1836-1907), son of Barney Aaron, Asher Moss, nephew of
Daniel Mendoza and Israel ("Izzy") Lazarus (1812-1867); an d
his sons Harry (1839-1865) and Johnny, who emigrated to
the United States in the 1850s and 1860s and helped build in-
terest in boxing by giving lessons and putting on exhibitions
around the country. "Young Barney" Aaron won the light-
weight championship of the United States in 1857.

The first Jewish boxer to win a world championship un-
der Marquis of Queensberry rules was Harry ("The Human
Hairpin") Harris (1880-1959), bantamweight, 1901-02.

Other American world professional champions were
light heavyweight Battling *Levinsky (Barney Lebrowitz; 1891-
1949) in 1916-20; Maxie ("Slapsie") *Rosenbloom (1904-1976)
in 1930-1934; and Bob Olin (1908-1956) in 1934-35; middle-
weights Al McCoy (Albert Rudolph; 1894-1966) in 1914-17;
Ben Jeby (Morris Jebaltowsky; 1907-1985), 1932-33; and Solly
Krieger (1909-1964), 1938-39; welterweights Jackie ^Fields
(Jacob Finkelstein; 1907-1987) in 1929-30, 1932-33; and Bar-
ney *Ross; lightweights Benny ^Leonard; Al ("The Bronx
Beauty") Singer (1907-1961) in 1930; and Barney *Ross; feath-
erweights Abe *Attell (1884-1970) in 1901-12; Louis ("Kid")
Kaplan (1902-1970) in 1925-27; and Benny Bass (1904-1975)
in 1927-28; bantamweights Abe Goldstein (1898-1907) in 1924;

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Charley ("Phil") Rosenberg (Green; 1902-1976) in 1925-27; and
flyweight Izzy ("Corporal") Schwartz (1900-1988) in 1927-29.
Other world champions were Ted ("Kid") *Lewis, Great Brit-
ain; Victor ("Young") Perez (1911-1942), France (Tunisia),
flyweight 1931-32; Robert Cohen (1930- ), France (Algeria),
bantamweight 1954-56; and Alphonse Halimi (1932- ), France
(Algeria), bantamweight 1957-59. World junior champions
were Mushy Callahan (Vincent Morris Sheer; 1905-1986), wel-
terweight 1926-30; Jack Bernstein (John Dodick; 1899-1945),
lightweight 1923; and Jackie ("Kid") *Berg (Judah Berg-
man; 1909-1991), Great Britain, welterweight 1930-31. Other
noted American boxers were Monte Attell (1885-1960), Abe's
brother; Jacob ("Soldier") Bartfield (1892-1970); Joe Bern-
stein (1877-1931); Harry Blitman (1908-1972); Phil ("Ring Go-
rilla") Bloom (1894-?); "Newsboy" Brown (Dave Montrose;
1904-1977); Joe Choynski (1869-1943); Leach Cross (Louis
Wallach; 1886-1957); Charley Goldman (1887-1968), who was
also a successful trainer; Ruby ("The Jewel of the Ghetto")
^Goldstein (1907-1984), both a boxer and referee; Willie Jack-
son (Oscar Tobler; 1897-1961); Danny Kramer (1900-1971);
Harry Lewis (Besterman; 1886-1956); Ray Miller (1908-1987);
Young Montreal (Morris Billingkorf; 1897-1978); Young
Otto (Arthur Susskind; 1886-1967); Dave Rosenberg (1901-
1 979); Johnny ("Young") Rosner (1895-1974); Lew Tendler
(1898-1970); Sid ("Ghost of the Ghetto") Terris (1904-1974);
Al "Bummy" *Davis (Albert (Avraham) Davidoff; 1920-1945),
welterweight boxer; Abe ("The Newsboy") *Hollander-
sky (1887-1966, who engaged in more professional bouts
(1,309) than any other fighter in boxing history; and Mike
Rossman, who won the World Boxing Association light heavy-
weight championship in 1978 at age 21, the youngest claim-
ant of the light heavyweight title. He lost the championship
in 1979.

Champions of Europe included British boxers Anshel
("Young") Joseph, welterweight, in 1910; Matt Wells (1886-
1953), lightweight in 1911-12; Harry Mason, lightweight, in
1923; Johnny Brown (d. 1975), bantamweight, in 1923 and Al
Phillips, featherweight, in 1947; and also Albert Yvel, France,
light heavyweight, in 1950-51. Winners of national professional
titles were Jack Bloomfield in 1922, Joe Fox (1892-1965), in 1921;
and Harry Mizler (d. 1990) in 1934 of Great Britain; Al Fore-
man, Curly Wilshur (Barney Eisenberg), Sammy Luftspring
and Maxie Berger of Canada; Tiger Burns (Dan Levine), Al
James, and David Katzen of South Africa; and Waldemar Hol-
berg of Denmark. In 1971, Henry Nissen of Australia (1948- )
won the British Commonwealth flyweight title.

Jews have been involved in all other activities connected
with the boxing business as managers, trainers, and promot-
ers. Promoters included Mike ^Jacobs (1880-1953), J oe Ja-
cobs ("Yussel the Muscle"; 1896-1940), Harry Markson, Her-
man Taylor, Lew Raymond, Johnny Attell, Sam Becker, Larry
Atkins, Goldie Ahearn, Archie Litman, Irving Schoenwald,
Willie Gilzenberg, Bonnie Geigerman, and Jack Begun of the
United States; Bella Burge, Jack ^Solomons, Nathan Shaw,
Mickey Duff, Esther Goldstein, and Harry Levene of Great

Britain; Ludwig Japhet of South Africa; Gilbert Benaim of
France; and Paul Damski of Germany. Ray *Arcel (1899-1994)
is considered the greatest trainer in the sport. Whitey (Mor-
ris) *Bimstein (1897-1969) was another outstanding boxing
trainer. Teddy *Brenner (1917-2000), considered the great-
est matchmaker in boxing history, is a member of the Inter-
national Boxing Hall of Fame. Lou *Stillman (Louis Ingber;
1887-1969) was owner of Stillman's Gym.

The Boxing Hall of Fame, founded by ring historian
Nat ^Fleischer, has enshrined charter members Daniel Men-
doza, Benny Leonard, Abe Attell, Barney Ross, Joe Choynski,
Lew Tendler, Ted ("Kid") Lewis, Battling Levinsky, Barney
("Young") Aaron, and Max *Baer.

Gilbert Cohen of France won the light middleweight
championship of Europe in 1978.

Australian Henry Nissen was the Commonwealth fly-
weight champion in 1971-74. Victor Zilberman of Roma-
nia won a bronze medal in welterweight division, and Rollie
Schwartz served as manager of the very successful American
team at the 1976 Olympic Games.

American Saoul Mamby won the World Boxing Coun-
cil s version of the world junior welterweight championship
in 1980. Shamil Sabyrov of the ussr won a 1980 Olympic gold
medal in the light -flyweight division. Dmitry *Salita, a reli-
gious Jew who does not box on Shabbat, won the nab a junior
welterweight championship in August 2005.

French boxers Gilles Elbilia and Fabrice Benichou en-
joyed ring successes in the 1980s and 1990s. Elbilia won the
French and European welterweight titles in 1982 and 1983
while Benichou won the World and European featherweight
championships in 1989 and 1991.

Scotland's Gary (Kid) Jacobs defeated an Australian op-
ponent and won the British Commonwealth welterweight
championship in 1988. He lost the title the following year. In
1992 he became the British welterweight champion.

Bullfighting

Jewish bullfighters include Sidney * Franklin of the United
States and Randy Sasson (ElAndaluz) of Colombia.

Canoeing

The sport began in 1865 and four years later Montagu Mayer
competed in canoe races in England. In 1880 Arthur *Bren-
tano and Adolph Lowenthal were among the 25 canoeists
who founded the American Canoe Association. Leo Friede
(1887-1959) of the United States won canoe sailing's oldest tro-
phy, the International Sailing Challenge Cup, in 1913 and 1914.
Olympic medalists include Leon Rottman (Romania) two gold
(1956) and one bronze (i960); Imre Farkas (Hungary), two
bronze (1956, i960); Laszlo Fabian (Hungary), gold (1956);
Klara Fried (Hungary), bronze (i960), and Naum Prokupets
(U.S.S.R.), bronze (1968).

The two -man Whitewater team of Joe Jacobi and his part-
ner won a Olympic Games gold medal in 1992. It was only
the fifth canoeing or kayaking gold medal won by the U.S. in
Olympic Games history.

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Cricket

The first Jewish cricket players of note played at Oxford and
Cambridge. D.L.A. Jephson represented Cambridge Univer-
sity in 1891 and 1892 and John E. Raphael played for Oxford
from 1903 to 1905. Both later represented Surrey County In-
ternational cricket players included the South Africans Man-
fred J. Susskind, Norman ("Mobil") Gordon, Dennis Gamsy
and Aron ("Ali") Bacher. The last, a physician who devoted his
early years of medical practice to nonwhites, achieved wide-
spread distinction as a cricketer in the South African victory
over Australia in 1966. He was appointed captain of the South
African team for the 1970 test matches against England, the
first Jew to reach such a position. Though an outspoken ad-
vocate of multiracial cricket, he was to have led his all-white
team in the Commonwealth Matches at Edinburgh in 1970,
but violent opposition in England to South African apartheid
in sport caused cancellation of his team's participation.

Prue Hyman of Great Britain was captain of the wom-
en's team at Oxford and represented her country in interna-
tional competition. Patrons of the game were Sir Julian Cahn
of Great Britain, Wilfred Isaacs of South Africa, and John I.
Marder (d. 1975), president of the United States Cricket As-
sociation. Cricket has been played in Israel since the Man-
date period and later gained popularity with tours of Israel
by Maccabi teams and still later by teams from England. Dr.
Aron (Ali) Bacher of South Africa served as the first Jewish
captain of a national cricket side in 1970-74. In 1979 Julian
Wiener became the first Jewish cricketer to play for Australia's
full international Test side.

Cycling

Louis Gompertz of Great Britain perfected the gear rope, or
bicycle chain, in 1821. Felix Schmal of Austria won one gold
and two bronze medals at the first Olympic Games in 1896.

Equestrian

American Neal Shapiro won an Olympic silver and bronze
medal in 1972 in show jumping, and his countrywoman Edith
Master gained a 1976 Olympic bronze medal in dressage. Mark
Laskin, Canada's top rider in 1978 and 1979, helped his coun-
try win the gold medal at the "alternate Olympics" in Rotter-
dam, the Netherlands, in 1980. Margie Goldstein was named
the 1989 and 1991 American Grand Prix Rider of the Year. In
1991 she became the first show jumper to win eight Grand
Prix events in one season. Serious injuries cost her an Olym-
pic Games opportunity in 1992.

Fencing

Between 1896 and 1976, 38 Jewish fencers won y6 medals (39
gold, 22 silver, and 15 bronze) in Olympic competition. Over
the years they won numerous world, national, European,
British Empire, Commonwealth, and Pan-American games
(see ^Olympic Games). Olympic medalists include Eduard
Vinokurov (silver, 1972 and gold, 1976), Mark Rakita (silver,
1972) and Grigori *Kriss (bronze, 1972), all of U.S.S.R., and
Ildiko Uslaky-Rejtoe (silver, 1972), Hungary. Kriss won the

world epee title in 1971. Albert (Albie) *Axelrod (1921-2004)
was one of the greatest American fencers in history, compet-
ing in five consecutive Olympics from 1952 to 1968 and win-
ning a bronze in i960. Allan *Jay (1931- ) was a British fencer
and a silver medalist in Individual and Team Epee at the i960
Olympic. In 1975 Martin Lang of the United States won a Pan-
American Games gold medal. Americans Yuri Rabinovich
of Wayne State and Paul Friedberg of Pennsylvania won the
sabre event in the national collegiate championships in 1979
and 1980. Leonid Dervbinsky was national epee champion in
1980 and Peter Schifrin (gold) and Edgar House (silver) won
Pan-American Games medals in 1979. American medalists
in the Pan American Games were Elaine Cheris, Paul Fried-
berg, and Jeff Bukantz in 1987 and Nick Bravin, John Fried-
berg, Chris O'Loughlin, and Joseph Socolof in 1991. Israel's
Udi Carmi placed fourth in the foil competition in the 1987
World Championships.

Field Hockey

A women's Olympic Games gold medalist in 1984, and a
bronze medal winner in 1988, Carina Benninga carried the
Netherlands flag at the Olympic Games opening ceremony
in 1992.

Football (American and Canadian)

In 1870, a year after college football began in the United
States, Moses Henry Epstein represented Columbia Univer-
sity against Rutgers in the third game ever played. The follow-
ing year, Emil G. *Hirsch, a future Reform rabbi, appeared
in the initial football game at Pennsylvania University. In
1874, Henry Joseph, a Canadian, played for McGill University
against Harvard in an important series of contests. Lucius Lit-
tauer, future "Glove King of America" and congressman from
New York State, played for Harvard in 1875 and 1877. Littauer
returned to his alma mater in 1881 and became college foot-
ball's first coach. Phil King of Princeton University, one of
early football's greatest players, was an All- American selec-
tion in 1890-93 and a member of the College Football Hall of
Fame. He later coached at his alma mater and at Wisconsin
University. Sam Jacobson, a member of the Syracuse Athletic
Association, helped organize the first football team at Syra-
cuse University in 1889.

Those who followed King as All- American selections
were Sigmund ("Sig") Harris (1883-1969), Minnesota, 1903-
04; Israel ("Izzy") Levene (1885-1930), Pennsylvania, 1905-06;
Joseph Magidsohn (1888-1969), Michigan, 1909-10; Ar-
thur ("Bluey") Bluethenthal (1891-1918), Princeton, 1911-12;
Leonard Frank (1889-1967), Minnesota, 1911; A. Harry Kal-
let (1887-1965), Syracuse, 1911; Victor H. Frank (1900- ),
Pennsylvania, 1918; Joseph Alexander (1898-1975), Syra-
cuse, 1918-20; Ralph Horween (1896-1997), Harvard, 1916;
his brother Arnold Horween, (1898-1985), Harvard 1920;
Max Kadesky (1901-1970), Iowa, 1922; George Abramson
(1903-1985), Minnesota, 1924; Milton ("Irish") Levy, 1925;
Benny ^Friedman (1905-1982), Michigan, 1925, and a mem-
ber of the College and Professional Football Hall of Fame; Ray

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Baer (1905-1968), Michigan, 1927; Benny Lorn, California,
1927-29; Lou Gordon (1908-1976), Illinois, 1927; Fred Sington
(1910-1998), Alabama, 1929-30; and Mike Alexander, a mem-
ber of the College Football H all of Fame; Gabriel Bromberg,
Dartmouth, 1930; Aaron Rosenberg (1912-1979), Southern
California, 1932-33, and a member of the College Football
Hall of Fame; Harry "Doc" Newman (1909-2000), Michi-
gan, 1932; Franklin Meadow (1912-1989), Brown, 1932; David
Smukler (1914-1971), Temple, 1934; Isadore ("Izzy") Weinstock
(1913-1997), Pittsburgh, 1934; Marshall ^Goldberg (1917- ),
Pittsburgh 1937-39, an d a member of the College Football Hall
of Fame; Sid *Luckman (1916-1998), Columbia, 1937-38, and
a member of the College Football Hall of Fame; Leroy Mon-
sky (1916-1981), Alabama, 1937; A. Sidney Roth (1916-2001),
Cornell, 1938; Mervin Pregulman (1922- ), Michigan, 1943;
Dan Dworsky (1927- ), Michigan, 1947; Bernard Lemonick,
Pennsylvania, 1950; Al Goldstein (1936-1991), North Carolina,
1958; Ron *Mix (1938- ), Southern California, 1959; Rich Stot-
ter (1945- ), Houston, 1967; Bob Stein (1948- ), Minnesota,
1967-68; Michael Andrew Seidman (1981- ), Carolina Pan-
thers; and Igor Olshansky (1982- ), San Diego Chargers.

Among other leading football coaches were Israel Lev-
ene (1885-1930), an Ail-American selection, who played for
Pennsylvania and later coached at the University of Tennes-
see and at his alma mater; Fred Lowenthal (1879-1931), who
starred at the University of Illinois and later coached its team;
Edward Siskind (1886-1955), wno played and coached at Ford-
ham University; Frank Glick (1893-1979) of Princeton Uni-
versity, who coached at his university and at Lehigh; Arnold
Horween, Ail-American at Harvard and coach of the team
in 1926-30. Others were Benny *Friedman, Joe Alexander,
Louis Oshins (1902-1975), Marv *Levy (1926- ), and Mau-
rice ("Mush") Dubofsky (1910-1970), captain of the George-
town University team.

Although professional football began officially in 1895,
the Syracuse, n.y., Athletic Association played the game for
money before that date. Jewish members of the team included
the manager and coach, Samuel Jacobson; the Freeman broth-
ers, David and Chuck (1882-?), and an outstanding running
back, Paul (Twister) Steinberg (1880-1964). Steinberg was also
a member of the champion Philadelphia Athletics in 1902,
and the famous Canton Bulldogs in 1905-06. In 1898, Bar-
ney *Dreyfuss of baseball fame was co-owner and manager
of the Pittsburgh Athletic Club, the champions of professional
football. Other professional players included John Barsha
(Abraham Barshofsky) (1898-1976), 1919-20; Leonard Sachs
(1897-1942), 1920-26; the Horween brothers, Arnold, 1921-24,
head coach of the Chicago Cardinals in 1923-24, and Ralph
(1896-1997), 1921-23; Joseph Alexander, 1921-22, 1925-27, head
coach of the ny Giants in 1926; Jack Sack (Jacob Bernard Sack-
lowsky) (1902-1980), 1923, 1925-26; Samuel Stein (1906-1966),
1926, 1929-32; Saul Mielziner (1905-1985), 1929-34; Ollie (Ber-
nard Oliver) Satenstein (1906-1959), 1929-33; Benny Tried-
man, 1927-34, head coach of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1932;
Philip (Motsy) Handler (1908-1968), 1930-36, head coach

of the Chicago Cardinals in 1943-45, 1949; Louis Gordon,
1930-38; Harry "Doc" Newman (1909-2000), 1933-37, in x 933
he led the National Football League in passing for the n.y. Gi-
ants; Charles (Buckets) *Goldenberg (1911-1986), 1933-45; Ed-
win Kahn (1911-1945), 1935-37; David Smukler, 1936-39, 1944;
Marshall "Biggie" Goldberg (1917- ), 1939-43, 1946-48; Sidney
*Luckman (1916-1998) 1939-50, a member of the Professional
Football Hall of Fame; Alexander (Allie) *Sherman (1923- ),
1943-47, head coach of the n.y. Giants, 1961-68; Herbert Rich,
1950-56, an all-league selection in 1952; Sidney Youngelman,
1955-63; Michael Sommer, 1958-63; and Ron Mix, 1960-69, a
member of the all-time American Football League team. Sid
*Gillman (1911-2003) served as head coach of the Los Ange-
les Rams in 1955-59 an d Los Angeles and San Diego Chargers
in 1960-69. Al *Davis (1929- ) was head coach and is now
owner of the Oakland Raiders, and was commissioner of the
American Football League in 1966. Benjamin F. Lindheimer
(1896-1960) was commissioner of the All-America Confer-
ence in 1946-47; and Art *Modell (1925- ), owner of the
Cleveland Browns which became the Baltimore Ravens, and
president of the National Football League in 1967-70. Referees
of note were Norman ("Bobie") Cahn (1892-1965), Joseph J.
Lipp (1889-1958), Joseph Magidsohn (1888-1969), and Samuel
A. *Weiss (1902-1977).

Canadian professional football executives included Louis
Hayman, Harry Sonshine, Neville Winograd, David Loeb,
Samuel Berger, and G. Sydney Halter, the first commissioner
of the Canadian Football League. Halter and Abe Eliowitz
(1910-1981), a U.S. player, are members of the Canadian Foot-
ball Hall of Fame.

Gary Wichard, quarterback, C.W. Post (1971), Randy
Grossman (1952- ), end, Temple (1973) and David Jacobs
(!957 - )> kicker, Syracuse (1978) won All- America honors.
Grossman played professionally with the Pittsburgh Steel-
ers.

Ron Mix (1938- ), offensive tackle with the San Diego
Chargers, retired in 1973 after a 13 -year career. He was named
to the Professional Football Hall of Fame in 1979. Harry New-
man, an All- America quarterback at Michigan in 1932, was
named to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1975.

In 1972 Carroll *Rosenbloom (1907-1979) exchanged
ownership of the Baltimore Colts for the same position with
the Los Angeles Rams of the nfl. Zygmunt Wilf, a child of
Holocaust survivors, became owner of the Minnesota Vi-
kings in 2005. Other owners include Al Lerner (1933-2002),
Cleveland Browns; Arthur Blank (1942- ), Atlanta Falcons;
Robert *Kraft (1942- ), New England Patriots; Daniel Snyder,
Washington Redskins; Malcom Glazer (1928- ), Tampa Bay
Buccaneers (and majority owner of Manchester United), Jef-
frey Lurie (1951- ), Philadelphia Eagles; and Robert *Tisch
(1926-2005), co-owner of the New York Giants.

Players who performed on Super Bowl teams were Lyle
Alzado (1949-1992), Los Angeles Raiders, 1984; Ed Newman
(1951- ), Miami Dolphins, 1985 and John Frank (1962- ) and
Harris Barton (1964- ), San Francisco 49ers, 1989 and 1990.

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Alzado, Newman, Barton, and Brad Edelman of the New
Orleans Saints were named to All-Pro teams during this pe-
riod. Barton, an offensive tackle, was an All-Pro in 1990 and
1992.

Coach Marv Levy, the Phi Beta Kappa scholar who was
hired by the Buffalo Bills in 1986, led the Bills to four consecu-
tive Super Bowl appearances (1991-1994). Coach Sid Gillman
and Al Davis were voted into the Professional Football Hall
of Fame in 1983 and 1992. In 1989 Gillman was also named to
the College Football Hall of Fame. Beginning in i960, Davis
served as a personnel assistant and scout, head coach, gen-
eral manager, league commissioner, principal team owner,
and chief executive officer. Davis was a Gillman assistant in
i960.

Golf

The development of outstanding Jewish golfers was slow as
most established golf clubs barred Jews from membership.
Elaine V. Rosenthal (189 6-?) of the United States was one of
the first successful golfers. She won a number of tournaments
after placing second in the national amateur championship in
1914. Herman Barron (1909-1978) was a leading player on the
United States professional tour in the late 1940s, a member of
the United States Ryder Cup team in 1947, and world profes-
sional senior champion in 1963. Sidney Brews (1899-1972) of
South Africa had a long career as a professional golfer. Begin-
ning in 1925, he won 30 Open championships in six countries.
South African national amateur champions and international
players included Brews' brother-in-law, Mickey Janks, South
African national champion of 1948; Betty Bental Peltz; Flor-
rie Josselsohn; Rita Levitan; Isabel Blumberg; and Judy An-
gel. Martin (Marty) Fleckman of the United States won the
national collegiate title in 1965 and two years later became the
first golfer in history to win the first tournament he entered
as a professional. In 1968, Bruce Fleisher (1948- ) won the
United States amateur championship, and, with Richard Sid-
erowf, was a member of the winning U.S. team at the world
amateur championships in Australia. Fleckman, Fleisher, Sid-
erowf, and Arnold Blum were all members of winning U.S.
teams in Walker Cup competition. Douglas Silverberg of Can-
ada and Roberto Halpern of Mexico were also international
golfers. Jane Weiller Selz, an American, won the women's na-
tional amateur championship of Mexico in i960. In 1960-61,
Lord (Lionel) Cohen of Great Britain served as captain of the
famous Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, Scotland.
Israel opened its first golf course at Caesarea in 1961.

American Amy *Alcott (1956- ) had 29 career wins, in-
cluding five majors, and was inducted into World Golf Hall
of Fame in 1999. Richard Siderowf, an American, won the
Canadian Amateur in 1971 and the British Amateur in 1973
and 1976.

After 13 years as a club professional, Bruce Fleischer re-
turned to the tour and won his first Professional Golf Asso-
ciation tournament in 1991. In 1992, Monte Scheinblum won
the National Long Drive championship. Entertainer Dinah

Shore was the 1985 recipient of the Patty Berg Award for out-
standing contributions to women's golf.

Gymnastics

Germany's Flatow cousins, Alfred (1869-1942) and Gustav Fe-
lix (1875-1945), won six medals (five gold) in gymnastic com-
petition at the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. Other
Olympic medalists included Imre Gellert (Hungary), silver, in
1912; George Gulack (1905-1986; United States), gold, in 1932;
Philip Erenberg (1909-1992); United States), silver, in 1932; Ag-
nes *Keleti (1921- ; Hungary), 11 medals, including five gold,
in 1948-52, and 1956; Alice Kertesz (Hungary) gold and silver,
in 1956; Mikhail Perelman (U.S.S.R.), gold, in 1952; and Vladi-
mir Portnoi (U.S.S.R.), silver and bronze, in i960. Abie *Gross-
feld (1934- ) and Mark Cohn (1943- ) of the United States
won gold medals in the Pan-American Games, and Daniel
Millman (1946- ) of the United States became the first world
trampoline champion in 1964. Joseph Salzman was co-coach
of the United States Women's Olympic team in 1948. Harvey
Berkman, who was physical education director of Chicago's
Jewish People's Institute from 1908 to 1922, was responsible for
the training of some of America's best gymnasts.

Abie * Grossfeld coached the United States men's team at
the 1972 Olympic Games. Marshall Avener was a 1972 Olym-
pian and a 1975 Pan-American Games gold medalist. Sharon
Shapiro of ucla won all four individual events and the all-
around title at the United States women's college champion-
ships in 1980.

Olympic medalists included Mitch *Gaylord (1961- )
of the U.S., who won a gold, silver, and two bronze medals in
1984; Valeri Belenki of Azerbaijan, a gold and bronze winner
in 1992; and Kerri *Strug (1977- ) of the U.S., who won a gold
medal at the 1996 Games.

Soviet gymnast Maria *Gorokhovskaya (1921- ) won
seven medals at the 1952 Olympics. Americans Lucy Wener
and Brian Ginsberg won Pan American Games gold medals
in 1983 and 1987.

Handball

This is a very popular sport with American Jews. During the
1960s, the membership of the United States Handball As-
sociation was 35 percent Jewish. The game has had numer-
ous Jewish national champions including Vic *Hershkowitz
(1918- ), handball's greatest all-round player, and Jimmy * Ja-
cobs (1931-1988), the best player of the 1960s. Hershkowitz
won a record 40 national titles in one-wall, three-wall, and
four- wall play between 1942 and 1968. Jacobs' victories were
gained in three-wall and four-wall competitions.

Handball held its first national championship in 1919,
and the following year Max Gold won the title. Other players
who gained national singles titles were George Nelson, Ken
Schneider, Paul Haber, Simon ("Stuffy") Singer, Martin Deca-
tur, Ken Davidoff, Steve Sandler, Michael Schmookler, Irving
Jacobs, Harry Goldstein, Jack Londin, David Margolis, Joseph
Garber, Arthur Wolfe, the Alexander brothers Seymour and
Morton, and Sheila Maroschick. Members of the Helms Hand-

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ball Hall of Fame include players Hershkowitz and Schneider
and Hyman Goldstein and Judge Joseph Shane, both national
commissioners of the United States Handball Association.

Paul Haber (1970-71) and Fred Lewis (1972, 1974-76,
1978) won United States Handball Association singles titles.

Horse Racing

An English Jew named Lamego was engaged in this sport as
early as the 18 th century. Active in English racing during this
period were Baron Maurice de *Hirsch, who gave all his rac-
ing winnings to charity, and Sir Ernest *Cassel. Philip Levi
(1821-1898) was an early patron of the sport in Australia. In
the United States, Ben Cohen was an officer of the Maryland
Jockey Club in 1830, and six years later a horse owned by
Aaron Philip Hart won the first running of the King's Plate
in Canada.

Americas leading jockey before the Civil War was Jacob
Pincus (1838-1918) who began to ride in 1852. Pincus became
a trainer and in 1881 he saddled the first American-bred horse
to win England's Epsom Derby. One of those who employed
Pincus as a trainer was August *Belmont, who had entered
the sport in 1866 as a founder of Jerome Park and was the
first president of the American Jockey Club. This club in-
cluded many Jewish horse owners. Other prominent Ameri-
can owners and trainers in the 19 th century were David Gideon
(1846-1929), Charles Fleischmann (1834-1897), Moses Gold-
blatt (1869-1941), and Julius (Jake) Cahn (1864-1941), owner
and trainer of the 1897 Kentucky Derby winner, Typhoon 11.

Georges Stern (1882-1928) of France earned the title
"King of the Jockeys" during a career that ran from 1899 to
1926. During that time Stern won almost every major Euro-
pean event, including the 1911 Epsom Derby. America's Wal-
ter Miller (1890-1959), another successful jockey of the same
era, is a member of the national Jockeys Hall of Fame. He
had ridden in the United States (1904-09) and Europe be-
fore weight problems forced his retirement. Miller was the
American riding champion in 1906-07 and had ridden 388
winners in 1906, a record that lasted until 1952. Other out-
standing American jockeys were Lewis Morris; the Renick
brothers, Joseph (1910-?) and Sam (1912-1999); Robert Mer-
ritt (1912- ); Willie *Harmatz (1931- ); and Walter ("Mousy")
*Blum (1934- ), who rode over 3,000 winners from 1953 and
was national riding champion in 1963-64. Harry ("Cocky")
Feldman (1915-1950) was the national riding champion of
South Africa seven times during an 18 -year career. He was
killed in a riding accident, as was Britain's Reginald Sassoon
(1893-1933), an amateur steeplechase rider. Nikolai Nasibov
was the Soviet Union's leading jockey in the 1960s.

The most noted American trainers, who were also own-
ers and breeders, were Hirsch * Jacobs (1904-1970) who sad-
dled more winners (3,596) than any other trainer in history;
his brothers Eugene and Sidney; the Byer brothers, Nathan-
iel, Frank, and Jacob; Mose Shapoff; the Lowenstein brothers,
Jake (1889-1971) and Mose; Philip Bieber, founder and first
president of the Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective As-

sociation; Kentucky Derby winners Sol Rutchick and Jacob
("Jack") Price; Arnold Winick; Howard ("Buddy") Jacobson
(1931-1989), the national training champion in 1963-65; and
Yevgeni Gottlieb of the U.S.S.R.

Prominent owners and breeders included Sir Ellice V.
Sassoon (1881-1961), who had four Epsom Derby winners;
the Joel brothers, Jack (1862-1940) and Solomon ("Solly";
1866-1931); Nat Cohen (d. 1988), winner of the 1962 Grand
National Steeplechase at Aintree; Stuart Levy (1908-1966);
Heinrich Loebstein; Michael Sobell; Sir Henry *d'Avigdor-
Goldsmid; and Evelyn ^Rothschild, Great Britain; Jean Stern
(1874-1962), who won the Grand Steeplechase of Paris four
times; Georges *Wildenstein (1893-1964) and his son Dan-
iel; Alec Weisweiller; Barons Edouard (1868-1949), James
(1878-1957), Maurice (1891-1957) and Guy de Rothschild,
France; Sir Adolph Basser (1887-1964), Australia, winner of
the Melbourne Cup in 1951; Abe Bloomberg and G.M. Jaffee,
South Africa; and the Americans Benjamin Block (1873-1950)
and John D. Hertz (1879-1961; Hertz and his wife Frances
(1881-1963) won the Triple Crown in the United States in
1943 with Count Fleet; Herbert M. Woolf (1880-1964), J.J.
(Jack) Amiel, Harry F. ^Guggenheim, and Isaac Blumberg
were all Kentucky Derby winners; Bernard M. *Baruch, Wil-
liam Littauer (1865-1953); Harry M. *Warner (1881-1958);
Alvin Untermeyer (1882-1963); Louis B. *Mayer; Albert Sab-
bath (1889-1969) whose horse Alsab cost him $700, earned
$350,000 from him and sired winners who earned $4,000,000.
There were also Nelson I. Asiel (1886-1965); Robert Lehman,
Arlene Erlanger (1895-1969); Louis K. Shapiro (1897-1970);
Irving Gushen (1899-1963), president of the Horsemen's Be-
nevolent and Protective Association in 1953-63; Stanley Sagner
(1908-1964); John M. *Schiff; Jacob Sher (1889-1972); Louis
E. Wolfson; Isador (Colonel) Bieber (1887-1974); Maxwell
H. Gluck (1896-1984); Jack Dreyfus Jr. (1914-?), chairman of
the Board of Trustees of the New York Racing Association in
1969-70; and David J. Davis, whose Australian thoroughbred,
Phar Lap, was considered by many to have been the greatest
racehorse of all time.

American racing executives included Louis Smith (1888-
1968), Benjamin F. Lindheimer (1890-1960), Leonard Flor-
sheim (1880-1964), Joseph Schenck (1878-1961), Morris
Shapiro (1883-1969) and his son John D., the originator of
the Washington, d.c, International Classic and president
of the Thoroughbred Racing Association; Mervyn *Leroy
(1900-1987); J.J. ("Jake") Isaacson (1896-?); David Haber; Nat
Herzfeld; Joseph Cohen; Joseph Gottstein (1891-1971); the
Cohen brothers, Herman and Ben, who controlled Maryland's
famous racetrack, Pimlico; Dr. Leon Levy (1895-?) and his son
Robert; Hyman N. Glickstein, Saul Silberman (1896-1971),
Philip H. Iselin, and J. Samuel Perlman (1900- ), a Canadian,
who was publisher and editor of the Daily Racing Form and
Mo rn ing Te legraph .

Harness racing became a major sport in the United States
in 1940 when George Morton Levy (1889-1977) introduced
night racing at Roosevelt Raceway in New York. Levy also

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encouraged and backed the invention of the mobile starting
gate. He is a member of the Hall of Fame of the Trotter. Even
before 1940, track-owner Louis Smith modernized the sport
by eliminating the use of heats to determine winners; he built
and owned New England's first modern racetrack, Rocking-
ham. Sacher ("Satch") Werner (1898-?), was the outstanding
American trainer and driver; before turning professional he
was an amateur champion of Vienna, Austria. Amateur driv-
ers included Nathan S. *Straus (1848-1931), who gave up rac-
ing and yachting to devote himself to philanthropies which
helped lay the foundations of the State of Israel; and Neal
Shapiro, won an Olympic silver and bronze medal in 1972 in
show jumping.

American jockey Walter Blum (1934- ) retired after the
1975 season, after a 22 -year riding career with 4,383 winners.
Maxwell Gluck (1977) and Louis Wolfson (1978) were named
the outstanding American thoroughbred owner-breeders of
the year. Wolfson's horse Affirmed won the 1978 Triple Crown
(Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes) and was
named Horse of the Year in 1978 and 1979. Sir Michael Sobel
and Sir Arnold Weinstock's Troy won the 200 th running of the
English Derby and Harry Meyerhoff s Spectacular Bid won
the Kentucky Derby.

Jockeys Walter Blum and Jacob Pincus were enshrined in
the U.S. Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame in 1987 and 1988.
Blum rode 4,382 winners in a 22-year career (1953-1975), and
Pincus, a leading 19 th -century jockey, was also an outstanding
trainer. Another Hall of Fame entry in 1990 was owner Sam
Rubins John Henry, a two-time American Horse of the Year.

In 1983, with 2,500 victories to his credit, South African
jockey Stanley Amos retired, the same year another South Af-
rican jockey, Basil Barcus, recorded his 1,000 th win.

Ice Hockey

Defense man Yuri Lyapkin of the U.S.S.R. won an Olympic
gold medal in 1976.

Mathieu ^Schneider (1969- ) is a two-time nhl All-
Star and was a member of the U.S. Olympic team and Team
U.S.A.

Gary *Bettman (1952- ) has been commissioner of the
National Hockey League since 1993. Edward and Peter Bronf-
man, owners of the Montreal Canadiens since 1971, sold the
team in 1978. Steve Ellman is owner of the Phoenix Coyotes,
and Ed Snider owns the Philadelphia Flyers. Stan *Fischler
(1932- ) is an author, broadcaster, and leading authority on
ice hockey.

Ice Skating (Figure and Speed)

American Scott Cramer won the mens professional figure
skating gold medal at the world championships in 1980. Dr.
Alain Calmat, an Olympic silver medalist in figure skating in
1964, became Frances Minister of Youth and Sports in 1984.
American Judy Blumberg and her partner won bronze medals
in ice dancing in the World Figure Skating Championships in
1983-85. They placed fourth in the 1984 Olympic Games.

In speed skating, American Andrew Gabel (1964- ) is

a four-time Olympian (1988, 1992, 1994, 1998) and holds a
silver medal as a member of the 1994 5,000 m Short Track
relay team. In figure skating, Sasha *Cohen (1984- ), Sarah
*Hughes (1985- ), and Irina *Slutskaya (1979- ) all skated in
the Olympics and have won numerous medals.

Jai Alai

Richard I. Berenson (1893-1967) was responsible for the suc-
cess of jai alai in the United States. He was president and gen-
eral manager of the Miami Fronton from 1929 until his death.
He was succeeded by his son, L. Stanley ("Buddy") Berenson.
Among Americans who played professional jai alai were Mar-
tin Perfit and Howard Wechsler.

American Joey Cornblit, a professional for 20 years, won
the Tournament of Champions (a meeting of the sport s top
players) in 1992, when he also won his ninth Florida singles
championship.

Judo

In 1964, when this sport was added to the Olympic program
for the first time, James Bregman (1941- ) of the United States
won a bronze medal in the middleweight division. Other inter-
nationalists included Gabriel Goldschmied, Mexico, a bronze
medalist in the 1967 Pan-American Games; Ronald Hoffman
(1944- ), Bernard Lepkofer (1933- ), and Irwin Cohen of the
United States; Ivan Silver of Great Britain; Salvadore Gold-
schmied of Mexico, and Jorge Gleser (1947- ) of Argentina
and the United States.

Irwin Cohen (1971-72, 1974, 1976-78), Steve Cohen (1974-
75 > 1977) an d David Pruzansky (1973) won United States na-
tional titles. Jesse Goldstein won a 1979 Pan-American Games
silver medal for the United States in the heavyweight division.
Amy Kublin won American women's titles in 1976-78, 1980.

After 40 years, Israel won its first Olympic medals in
1992. Yael *Arad gained a silver medal in women's competi-
tion and Shay Oren Smadga took a bronze in the men's events.
Other Olympic medalists were American Robert Berland, sil-
ver, and Canadian Mark Berger, bronze, in 1984.

Pan American Games medalists in 1983 and 1987 in-
cluded Berland, Berger and also American Damon Keeve.

Karate

Between 1986 and 1988, Kathy Jones won two silver and four
bronze medals in World Cup and World Championship com-
petition. Danny Hakim of Australia won a silver medal in the
1988 World Championships.

Lacrosse

Early internationalists were Henry Joseph of Canada, who in
1876 played in a game before Queen Victoria in London, and
Lionel Moses of the United States, the first known Jewish cap-
tain of an intercollegiate sports team. Like Joseph, Moses was
a member of teams that toured Great Britain before 1900. Ber-
nard M. Baruch played the game at the City College of New
York in the late 1880s. Another early American player was
Clarence M. Guggenheimer, who played for Johns Hopkins
and later for Harvard. Milton Erlanger (1888-1969), also of

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Johns Hopkins, served as president of the Intercollegiate La-
crosse Association and was later elected to the Lacrosse Hall
of Fame. Other members of the Lacrosse Hall of Fame include
Henry S. Frank, captain of the 1909 Johns Hopkins team, and
Victor K. Ross, who starred at Syracuse University and led his
team to victory over Oxford- Cambridge in 1922.

Lawn Bowling

This is a very popular game with the Jews of South Africa. In
the 1960s, when Jews represented 1% of the total population,
25% of all lawn bowlers in the country were Jewish. South
African bowlers and administrators included Alfred ("Alf")
Blumberg, who in 1950 became his country's first Jewish lawn
bowling internationalist and winner of an Empire Games'
gold medal in Auckland, New Zealand, that year; Abraham
(Pinky) Danilowitz, 1958 Empire Games gold medalist in
singles, and Leon Kessel who represented South Africa in the
first world lawn bowling championship in 1966. Harry Hart
of Rhodesia was awarded the mbe for his services as player
and administrator in 1964. David Magnus was one of Austra-
lia's star players.

Luge (Toboggan)

American Gordy Sheer won gold medals in the North Ameri-
can Championships doubles in 1990 and 1991. Sheer also par-
ticipated in the 1992 Olympic Games.

Motorboat Racing

In 1905, two years after the sport began, America's Jacob Sie-
gel won the inboard hydroplane National Championship Tro-
phy. The following year, Britain's Lionel de * Rothschild was
co-owner of the winning boat at the Harmsworth Trophy
event in Ireland. Bernard M. Baruch and his brother Hartwig
won the National Championship Trophy in 1906-09. Herbert
Mendelsohn was victorious in the 1937 Gold Cup race, and S.
Mortimer Auerbach (1901- ) won the National Sweepstakes
in 1939. Donald Aronow of the United States, a boatbuilder,
designer, and driver, won the world title in ocean racing in
1967 and 1969. In the latter year, the Union of International
Motorboating awarded him its Gold Medal of Honor. Other
American ocean drivers were Jerry Langer (1966 national out-
board champion), Peter Rothschild (1966 national inboard
champion), and William Wishnick (1924- ; 1970 national
inboard champion). In 1967, Milton Horwitz of the United
States won the national title in predicted-log competition.
Horwitz, Aronow, Langer, and Rothschild are members of
the Gulf Marine Hall of Fame. Other international drivers
included Arnie Levy and his son Derrick, South Africa; and
Alan Bernstein, Rhodesia.

American William Wishnick won the 1971 world ocean
racing title and Dr. Robert Magoon (1971-73) and Joel Halp-
ern (1976-77) United States national ocean racing champi-
onships.

Don Aronow, American boat designer and two-time
world offshore powerboat champion (1967 and 1969), died
in 1987.

Motorcycling

In 1936 Australia's Lionel Maurice Van Praag (19 08-?) won
the world's first speedway championship in Wembley, Eng-
land, and Benjamin Kaufman (1911- ), of the United States,
gained national speedway titles in 1936-37.

Olympic Games

Israel joined the United States and a number of other nations
in the 1980 boycott of the Moscow Olympic Games as a pro-
test against the U.S.S.R. invasion of Afghanistan. See ^Olym-
pic Games for list of Jewish medal winners.

Polo

A favorite sport of the Rothschild banking family since the
1890s, they helped popularize polo in Austria and France.
Leading Rothschild players were Baron Louis (1882-1954),
Austria; Barons Edouard Alphonse James (1869-1949), Robert
(1880-1946), and Elie (1917- ), France and Evelyn (1931- ),
Great Britain. American players included William Littauer
(1865-1953); the *Fleischmann brothers, Julius (1872-1925)
and Max (1877-1951); Robert Lehman (1891-1969); Adam
Gimbel (1893-1969); Samuel Cohen (1896-1965); and John
M. SchifF (1904-1987).

Roller Skating

American Scott Cohen, who won the world free skating cham-
pionships in 1985, 1986, 1989, and 1990, became the first sin-
gles skater to win the title four times. Cohen also won a Pan
American Games silver medal in 1987.

Rowing

In 1858, Britain's Sir Archibald Levin Smith (1836-1901) rowed
in the Cambridge University crew that defeated Oxford and
triumphed in the Henley Royal Regatta. During the 1870s
Henry Altman (1854-1911), Isaac N. *Seligman (1856-1917),
and Lucius * Littauer were engaged in collegiate rowing in the
United States. Seligman rowed at Columbia, Littauer at Har-
vard, and Altman helped to establish the sport at Cornell Uni-
versity. The Lone Star Boat Club of New York City, America's
first Jewish rowing group, was organized in 1887. Samuel G.
Sterne was its president.

In Olympic competition, Allen P. Rosenberg (1931- )
coached the 1964 American rowing team to a pair of vic-
tories. As a coxswain, Rosenberg won a gold medal in the
1955 Pan-American Games. Between 1963 and 1966 Don-
ald Spero (1939- ) of the United States won seven national,
two Canadian, and the 1966 world championship, in sin-
gle-sculls. He was an Olympic finalist in 1964 and winner of
the Diamond Sculls in Britain's Henley Royal Regatta in
1965. Spero and Rosenberg are members of the Helms Row-
ing Hall of Fame. Frederic Lane stroked the University of
Pennsylvania to victory in the Grand Challenge Cup of
England's Royal Henley Regatta in 1955, to defeat a Soviet
crew. George Hermann, Herbert Senoff James Kreis, Jerry
Winkelstein, James Fuhrman (1943- ), and Lawrence
Gluckman (1946- ) were Pan-American Games gold med-
alists.

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Allen Rosenberg coached and David Weinberg was cox-
swain of the American crew that won the 1974 eight-oared
heavyweight race at the World Championships.

Seth Bauer won an Olympic Games bronze medal in
1988. Other American participants in the 1988 Olympic Games
were Sherri Cassuto and Jon Fish. Bauer, Fish, and Cassuto
won Pan American Games and World Championships med-
als between 1985 and 1991.

Pablo Bulgach of Argentina and Betsy Kimmel, U.S., won
Pan American Games gold medals in 1987 and 1991.

Rugby

John E. Raphael (1882-1917) represented England nine times
in international rugby competitions in 1902-06, and Bethel
Solomons (1885-1965), later a leading gynecologist, played
for Ireland ten times in 1908-10. Aaron ("Okey") Geffin of S.
Africa was the hero of the 1949 test series victory over New
Zealand. Samuel Goodman was the manager of the United
States Olympic gold medal teams in 1920 and 1924. Austra-
lia's Albert A. Rosenfeld (1885- ) and Britain's Lewis Harris
were outstanding Rugby League players. Rosenfeld appeared
in the first test series between England and Australia in 1909,
and during the 1913-14 season he scored a record 80 tries for
Huddersfield in the Northern Rugby Football League. Harris
was a member of the Hull Kingston Rovers when they won
the Challenge Cup in 1925 and were Northern Rugby Football
League champions in 1921 and 1923.

Shooting

In 1868, Philo Jacoby (1837-1922) won the Berlin shooting
championship as the representative of the American Sharp-
shooters Association of New York. During the next 30 years
Jacoby made many trips to Europe, where he triumphed in
numerous shooting tournaments. In 1876 he captained the
California team that won the world shooting championship
at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. For many years
he was editor and publisher of The Hebrew, one of the first
Jewish newspapers in San Francisco. Among outstanding
U.S.S.R. modern shooters were Olympic medalists Lev Vain-
shtein, 1952; Allan Erdman, 1956; world champion Mikhail
Itkis, 1958; and Larissa Gurvich, 1967. Gurvich won the Euro-
pean and World skeet championships in 1975. Joelle Fefer of
Canada won three Pan American Games medals in 1983 and
1987. Thomas Bernstein, a member of the Norwegian national
team, won the U.S. national collegiate (ncaa) rifle champi-
onship in 1988.

Squash Racquets & Racquetball

Victor Niederhoffer won United States squash racquets cham-
pionships in 1972-75, and the Canadian and North American
Open titles in 1975. In 1977 Selwyn Machet won the South Af-
rican amateur championship. American Stuart Goldstein won
the World professional title in 1978.

In racquetball Martin Hogen won the United States
championship in 1978, and his second and third national
professional racquetball titles in 1979 and 1980. Kathy May

Teacher won the United States women's national paddle ten-
nis championship in 1980.

Surfing

South African Shaun Tomson won the 1975 American Cham-
pionship Cup and the World professional title in 1977; he re-
mained among the world's best surfers in 1985. After a decade
of competition Tomson had recorded the most victories in the
Association of Surfing Professionals world tour.

Swimming and Water Polo

Jews were active in competitive swimming from the time the
sport began in the 19 th century. Marquis Bibbero of England
participated in swimming races in the 1860s and G. Cohen
set an American record for the 440-yards in 1878. In 1896,
Jews triumphed in all three swimming events at the first mod-
ern Olympic Games. They were Alfred Hajos (Guttmann;
1878-1955), of Hungary and Paul Neumann (1875- ), of Aus-
tria (see ^Olympic Games). Hajos, an architect, built Buda-
pest's main swimming pool and in 1924 won a silver medal
in the Olympic Art competition. Otto Wahle (1880-1963), an
Austrian Olympian, immigrated to the United States, where
he became a coach and helped influence the course of Amer-
ican swimming and coached the American Olympic teams
in 1912 and 1920. His Olympic successor was William (Bach)
Bachrach (1879-1959), who coached the Illinois Athletic Club
swimming team in 1912-54. Bachrach trained many national
and Olympic champions, including the great Johnny Weiss-
muller, and headed the Olympic swimming teams in 1924 and
1928. During the same period, Charlotte Epstein (1885-1938)
established swimming as a sport for women in the United
States. She founded the Women's Swimming Association in
1917 and was responsible for women's swimming being in-
cluded in the 1920 Olympic Games. Miss Epstein was manager
of the women's Olympic swimming teams in 1920, 1924, and
1932, and served as chair of the United States Olympic Wom-
en's Swimming Committee. She was also chair of the United
States Maccabiah Games Swimming Committee in 1935. Leo
Donath of Hungary headed the International Swimming Fed-
eration in the 1930s. Mark *Spitz (1950- ), who won four med-
als in the 1968 Olympic Games, set records in the butterfly
stroke. In 1967, when he was named "world swimmer of the
year," Spitz won five gold medals in the Pan-American Games.
In 1972, the year after he became the first Jewish sportsman to
win the Sullivan Award as the outstanding American amateur
athlete, Spitz won an unprecedented seven gold medals and set
seven world records at the Olympic Games. In 1983, Spitz was
one of the first 20 Olympians named to the U.S. Olympic Hall
of Fame and Museum. Chosen by the National Association
of Sportscasters and Sportswriters, Spitz received the second
highest number of votes cast; only Track and Field great Jesse
Owens received more. Other swimming Olympic medalists
were Eva *Szekely (1927- ) Hungarian- born swimmer who set
ten world records, five Olympic records, and over 100 Hungar-
ian national records while winning two Olympic medals, ten

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World University Championships and 68 Hungarian National
Championships over her 19 -year career. She is a member of
the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Other winners are
Andrea Gyarmati, Hungary (silver and bronze), 1972, Wendy
Weinberg, United States (bronze), 1976; and Lenny *Krayzel-
burg (1975- ), who won four Olympic gold medals.

Israel's star swimmers and divers in the 1960s were Yoav
Raanan, Yvonna Toviss, Abraham Melamed, Gershon Sheffa,
Moshe Gartel, and Yoram Schneider.

Jews were prominent too in water polo at the Olympics
(see ^Olympics). Bela Komjadi (1892-1933), coach of the Hun-
garian national team in the late 1920s and early 1930s, estab-
lished Hungary as an Olympic power in water polo. Ameri-
can Peter Asch won a 1972 Olympic bronze medal in water
polo. Australia's Russell Basser and American Charles Har-
ris represented their countries in the 1984 and 1992 Olympic
Games. Harris was a silver medalist in the 1991 Pan Ameri-
can Games.

In 1980, Helen Plaschinski of Mexico won the Latin
Cup 100 meter freestyle gold medal in Madrid, Spain. Bar-
bara Weinstein won the United States indoor platform div-
ing title in 1979 and the outdoor event the following year. She
also won the 1979 Pan-American Games gold medal in plat-
form competition.

Dara Torres won her second gold and third Olympic
medal in 1992. She gained her first gold in 1984 and received
a Olympic bronze medal in 1988. Other American medalists
in major international competition were John Witchel, 1987,
Pan American Games, two golds, and Cheryl Kriegsman,
Dan Kutler, and Dan Kanner in the World University Games
in 1987 and 1991.

Olympic finalists in 1988 and 1992 were Vadim Alekseev,
U.S.S.R., and Tomas Deutsch, Hungary. Alekseev, who is now
an Israeli, won a Goodwill Games silver medal in 1990.

In Synchronized Swimming, Americans Tracy Long
and Ann Miller won Pan American Games gold medals in
1987 and 1991.

Al Schoenfield, publisher and editor of swimming pub-
lications, and Dr. Paul Neumann, Austria, 1896 Olympic gold
medalist, were named to the International Swimming Hall of
Fame in 1985 and 1986.

In water polo, American Peter Asch won a 1972 Olym-
pic bronze medal. Australia's Russell Basser and American
Charles Harris represented their countries in the 1984 and
1992 Olympic Games. Harris was a silver medalist in the 1991
Pan American Games.

Table Tennis

Table tennis was organized as a modern sport in the 1920s.
It proved a very popular game with Jews and several became
world champions. The Honorable Ivor Montagu (1904-1984)
served as president of the English or International Table Ten-
nis Federation from 1922 to 1967. His mother, Lady Sway-
thling (1879-1965), was also president of the English Table
Tennis Federation and in 1926 donated the men's world team

cup which bears her name. M. Cohen of Great Britain won
the second English open championship in 1922, and Marcus
Schussheim of the United States was the first American cham-
pion in 1931. Dr. Roland Jacobi of Hungary triumphed in men's
singles at the initial world championship in 1927. Other world
champions in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles were Hun-
gary's Zoltan Mechlovitz; Gyozo Viktor *Barna (1911-1972),
who won 22 world titles including five singles championships;
Richard *Bergmann (1919-1970), an Austrian who won four
singles titles; Alfred Liebster, Austria, and Angelica *Adel-
stein-Rozeanu (1921- ), Romania; the sisters Thelma Thall
and Leah Thall Neuberger, United States; and Svetlana Grin-
berg, U.S.S.R.

Ivor Montagu of Great Britain, who became the first
chairman of the Table Tennis International Federation and
held the post for over 40 years, died in 1984.

Tennis and Squash

As most tennis facilities were located in private clubs that
barred Jewish membership, progress in this sport was slow.
Conditions improved after World War 11, as did the rankings
of Jewish players. The first Jewish player officially ranked in
the United States was Dr. William Rosenbaum (1882-1951)
in 1908, and the first to gain the top-ten was Julius Seligson
(1909-1987) in 1929. In Europe, Mikhail Stern represented
Romania in the 1922 Davis Cup competition, and in 1928-30
Baron Hubert de Morpurgo (1897-?) of Italy received world
ranking. Other players who achieved world ranking included
Daniel Prenn (1905- ), 1929 Germany, and 1932 Great Brit-
ain, 1934 (doubles); Ladislav Hecht (1910- ), Czechoslova-
kia, 1934 (doubles), who defeated Britain's Davis Cup player
Bunny Austin; Angela *Buxton (1934- ) Great Britain, who
was a Wimbledon doubles title winner in 1956. Outstand-
ing tennis players also included Abraham Segal (1931- ),
South Africa, winner of South African singles champion-
ship in 1967; Pierre *Darmon (1934- ) France, 1958, 1963-64;
Tom ("the Flying Dutchman") Okker (1944- ), Netherlands,
Dutch national champion who won the Italian national sin-
gles title in 1968; Dick *Savitt (1927- ) an American who was
Wimbledon champion in 1951 and came out of retirement to
win both the singles and doubles championships at the 1961
Maccabiah Games; Herbert *Flam (1928- ), who won more
top world rankings than any other Jewish tennis player and
represented the U.S. Davis Cup team in 1951 and 1952; Ameri-
cans Barbara Breit, 1955, 1957; Anita Kanter, 1952; and Julie M.
Heldman (1945- ), who as a girl of 12 won her first national
title, the Canadian Junior Championship, and later won the
Italian National Women's singles title in 1968; and Pete *Sam-
pras (1971- ), whose father is Jewish and who is considered by
many tennis analysts to be the greatest tennis player of all time.
Among Israel players of note was Eleazar Davidman.

Americans Julie Heldman (1974), Harold *Solomon
(i975 - 77> !979)> Brian Gottfried (1977-79), an d Eliot Telscher
(1980) were ranked among the world's top ten players. Held-
man played in Federation and Wrightman Cup competition

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SPORTS

and Solomon and Gottfried in Davis Cup play. Solomon was
South African Open champion in 1975 and 1976, and Gottfried
won the French (1975 and 1977), World (1975) and Wimbledon
(1976) doubles championships. Brian Gottfried and Harold
Solomon, retired from the professional tour in 1984.

In 1976 liana Kloss of South Africa won the French
mixed doubles and the United States women's doubles titles.
American Bruce Manson won a 1975 Pan-American Games
gold medal, and Dana Gilbert the 1978 United States women's
Clay Court championship.

American Dick Savitt, 1951 Wimbledon winner, was in-
cluded in the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1976.

Other Americans Eliot Telscher, Brad ^Gilbert (1961- ),
Aaron Krickstein, and Jay Berger and Israel's Amos Mansdorf
and Argentina's Martin Jaite joined the world's tennis elite
in the 1980s. These players and Shlomo Glickstein, Shahar
Perkiss, and Gilad Bloom of Israel and Andrew Sznajder of
Canada played in Davis Cup competition. Elise Burgin rep-
resented the U.S. in Federation Cup play.

American Jim Grabb was a member of the men's doubles
combination that won the U.S. Open championship in 1992,
and Brad Gilbert won a men's singles bronze medal in the
1988 Olympic Games.

Joseph Cullman 111, who helped launch the women's pro
tour, was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame
in 1992. Anna Smashnova was ranked No. 16 on the woman's
tour in 2002 and 2003.

National champions in American squash racquets and
squash tennis were Victor Niederhoffer, Victor Elmaleh, Abra-
ham M. Sonnabend (1897-1964), Milton Baron, and James
Prigoff. Prigoff served as president of the National Squash
Tennis Association, and Roger Sonnabend held the same po-
sition with the National Squash Racquets Association. Cecil
Kaplan, David Duchen, and JefFery Maisels were South Afri-
can national champions and internationalists.

Track and Field

Modern track and field had its beginnings in England in the
1850s and 1860s. An early American runner was Lipman Tike,
a professional baseball player. Pike ran 100 -yards against a Ca-
nadian Indian on the Capitoline Grounds in Brooklyn, New
York, in 1869 and four years later became the Maryland State
100 -yard champion. Daniel Stern (1849-1923) began to race-
walk in 1873 and three years later won the one-and three-mile
events at the first American track-and-field championships.
He was an early member and officer of the New York Ath-
letic Club and served on the committee charged with build-
ing the first cinder track in the United States. In 1875, Philo
Jacoby (1837-1922) participated in the San Francisco Olym-
pic Club's first outdoor athletic games. Victor E. Schifferstein
(1863-?) represented the same California club when he won
the national long-jump championship in 1888. Earlier that
year, Schifferstein ran 100 yards in ten seconds to equal the
world record of the time. The greatest American runner of
the 19 th century was Lawrence ("Lon") *Myers. He set world

records in the 440- and 880-yard runs, and won American,
Canadian, and British national championships in 1879-85. In
1900, Myer Prinstein (1880-1925) of the United States became
the first Jewish medalist in Olympic track-and-field compe-
tition. He won the triple jump and placed second in the long
jump. Earlier that year Prinstein had established a new world
mark of 24 feet, 7.25 inches in the long jump. He repeated his
Olympic triple-jump victory in 1904 and added a gold medal
in the long jump. In 1906, Prinstein won another gold medal
in Athens in the long jump, in what was then considered the
Olympic Games, but some 50 years later the 1906 competi-
tion was ruled not to have been an Olympiad. Michael Spring
(d. 1970) won the Boston marathon race in 1904. Abel Kiviat
(1892-1991) won a silver medal at the 1912 Olympics, and set
a world 1,500 m record that year. England's most famous track
star was Harold ^Abrahams who won the 100 meters race at
the 1924 Olympic games; and his brother Sir Sydney ^Abra-
hams also represented Britain at the Olympic Games. Harold
Abrahams in 1969 became chairman of the British Amateur
Athletic Board. Fanny ("Bobbie") Rosenfeld (1905-1969) in
addition to starring in ice hockey, basketball, and softball, tied
the women's world record for the 100-yard dash in 1925, ex-
celled at the Olympics in 1928, and was hailed by the Canadian
press as her country's "outstanding woman athlete of the half-
century." Lillian *Copeland (1904-1964) was an Olympic gold
and silver medallist, and member of U.S. Track & Field Hall
of Fame. Deena Kastor (1973- ) won a bronze medal in the
women's marathon at the 2004 Olympics. Marty *Glickman
(1917-2001) was a U.S. sprinter and a track star who was pulled
from the 1936 Berlin Olympics because he was Jewish.

Jews were also medalists in European, British Common-
wealth and Empire, Pan-American, and Asian Games.

Irena *Kirszenstein-Szewinska (1946- ) of Poland won
seven Olympic medals and ten European Championship med-
als, and is a member of the International Women's Sports Hall
of Fame. Faina Melnik-Velva of the U.S.S.R. won an Olympic
gold medal in the discus throw in 1972.

Abigail (Abby) Hoffman of Canada won a Pan-Ameri-
can Games gold medal in the 800-meter run in 1971 and sil-
ver and bronze medals in the 1975 Pan-American Games. In
1974 YC. Yohanna of India won the long jump event and set
an Asian record in the Asian Games.

Israeli-born Boris (Dov) Djerassi won the United States
national hammer throw in 1975 and 1978, and Ron Wayne won
the U.S. national marathon championship in 1974.

Svyetlana Krachevskya of the U.S.S.R. won a 1979 bronze
medal in the World Cup and a silver medal in the 1980 Olym-
pic Games in the shot-put.

American Pincus (Pinky) Sober (1905-1980), was chair-
man of the International Amateur Federation's technical
committee and longtime Madison Square Garden track an-
nouncer.

In 1992 Mel Rosen served as the U.S. men's Olympic
coach, and Yevgeniy Krasnov of Israel placed eighth in the
Olympic pole vault competition.

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SPORTS

American Ken Flax won medals in the World Univer-
sity Games in 1989 and 1991 (gold) and was named the ninth
ranked hammer thrower in the world in 1991.

In 2002, Russian-born Israeli Alex Averbach took the
gold medal in the pole vault at the European champion-
ships.

Fred Lebow (Ephraim Fishl Lebowitz, 1932-1994) was
president of the New York Road Runners Club and founder
and director of the New York Marathon and the Fifth Av-
enue Mile.

Volleyball

Jews have also had a prominent part in volleyball. Sid Nach-
las' (1920- ) achievements brought him election to the Helms
Volleyball Hall of Fame. Harlan Cohen (1934- ) coached the
American women's Olympic team in 1968. Eugene Selznick
(1930- ) is a member of the Volleyball Hall of Fame. Doug
Beal and Israel's Arie Selinger coached the U.S. Olympic men's
and women's teams to gold and silver medals in 1984. These
were the first medals ever won by American teams in Olym-
pic competition.

In 1992, Selinger coached the Netherlands men to an
Olympic silver medal. Selinger s son Arbital was a member
of the Dutch team. Other Olympic Games medalists were
Bernard Rajzman, Brazil, silver, 1984; and Dan Greenbaum,
US, bronze, 1992.

Water Skiing

David Nations pioneered this sport in Great Britain. He
founded the British Water Ski Federation in 1951 and was the
national overall champion in 1955-56.

Weigh t lifting

Britain's Edward Lawrence Levy (1851-1932) was among the
first to engage in amateur weightlifting in the 19 th century. He
won the first English and international competitions in 1891,
and five years later served as a weightlifting judge at the first
modern Olympic Games. There have been many Olympic
weightlifting medalists (see ^Olympics). Jews also engaged in
the European, Commonwealth, Empire, and Pan-American
Games. Oscar State (1911-1984), obe, of Great Britain orga-
nized the weightlifting competitions at the Olympic Games
in 1948 and 1956, and officiated at nine Olympic Games, 21
Regional meets such as the Pan-Am, Maccabiah, Asian and
Commonwealth Games, two World Games, 24 World Weight-
lifting Championships, 27 World Bodybuilding Champion-
ships, nine Mr. Olympias, 51 international bodybuilding con-
tests and 101 international weightlifting contests, served as
secretary of the International Weightlifting Federation, and
is a member of the International Federation of Bodybuild-
ing & Fitness Hall of Fame. David A. Matlin, a weightlifting
official, served as the 33 rd president of the Amateur Athletic
Union of the United States in 1967-68. Isaac ("Ike") Berger
(1936- ), U.S. Olympic weightlifter, winner of gold and two
silver Olympic medals, and a member of U.S. Weightlifters
Hall of Fame.

David Rigert of the U.S.S.R. won a 1976 Olympic gold
medal in the 198-pound division. Commonwealth Games
medalists were Terrance (Terry) Perdue, England (bronze),
1974, and Ivan Katz, Australia (silver), 1978.

Grigory Novak, U.S.S.R. world champion in 1946 and
1952 Olympic silver medalist, died in 1980.

David Lowenstein of Australia won a Commonwealth
Games silver medal in 1986, and Giselle Shepatin and Rachel
Silverman won silver medals for the U.S. in the Women's In-
ternational Weightlifting Tournaments in 1985 and 1987. Allon
Kirschner of Israel won a gold medal in the World Powerlift-
ing Championships in 1989.

Windsurfing

Gal *Fridman (1975- ) was the first Israeli ever to win an
Olympic Gold medal (2004), and the first Israeli to win two
Olympic medals.

Winter Sports

In 1900-20, Cecil *Hart (1883-1940) pioneered amateur ice
hockey in Canada. He entered the professional game in 1921
and became a successful coach with the Montreal Canadians.
Samuel E. Lichtenhein (1871-1936) owned the Montreal Wan-
ders hockey team (National Hockey Association) in 1911-18.
Americans who owned teams in the National Hockey League
included Sidney Solomon Jr. and Sidney Solomon 111 of the
St. Louis Blues and Edward M. Snider of the Philadelphia Fly-
ers. In 1964 the all- Jewish Ha-Koah-Melbourne team won the
Australian ice hockey championship.

Louis Rubenstein of Canada introduced figure skating
into North America in the late 1870s. He won many titles, in-
cluding the 1890 world championship in Russia. One of the
organizers of the 1890 world competition was Baron Wolff of
the St. Petersburg Skating Club. Rubenstein's brothers and sis-
ters, Moses, Abraham, and Rachel, were all champion skaters.
Lily Kronberger of Hungary was world figure skating cham-
pion in 1908-11. Joel Liberman (1883-1955) of the United States
was founder of the New York Skating Club and an Olympic
judge in 1928 and 1932. Benjamin Bagdade (1902- ) served as
president of the American Skating Union in 1947-51 and was
manager of the U.S. team at the 1948 Olympic Games. Irving
*Jaffee (1906-1981) is a member of the Speed Skating Hall of
Fame. France's Alain Calmat, world figure skating champion
(1965), was awarded the Legion d'Honneur by President de
Gaulle.

Alice Damrosch Wolf Kiaer (1893-1967), a daughter
of conductor Walter * Damrosch, organized the first United
States women's ski team in 1935 and the following year served
as manager of the Olympic team. Richard Rubitscek of Austria
won a gold medal in skiing in the 1933 European Maccabiah
games and was a founder of the Arlberg ski method. Ameri-
can Hayley Wolff won a grand prix mogul gold medal in 1983
and a silver medal in the first world freestyle championship
in 1986. Baron Robert de Rothschild (1880-1946) was the
1936 bobsledding champion of France, and in 1888 E. Cohen
of the United States won the Grand National of Tobogganing

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

149

SPRACHMAN, ABRAHAM and MANDEL

at St. Moritz, Switzerland. The Montreal Curling Club num-
bered Canadian Jews among its members in the early 1800s.
In 1965, Terry Braunstein skipped the Manitoba rink to the
Canadian curling title.

Wrestling

There were a large number of medalists in wrestling at the
Olympics. Jews also won medals for wrestling in European,
Commonwealth, Empire, and Pan-American Games. Alfred
Brull (1876-1944) of Hungary was president of the World
Wrestling League.

David Pruzansky of the United States (1971) and How-
ard Stupp of Canada (1975, 1979) won Pan-American Games
gold medals. Keith Peache of England won a Common-
wealth Games gold medal in 1974, and Victor Zilberman of
the U.S.S.R. was a silver medalist at the European champion-
ship. Zilberman later competed for Canada.

Pan American Games medalists included Canada's Gary
Kallos, sambo wrestling, gold, 1983; Andrew Borodow, free
and Greco -Roman wrestling, two silvers, 1991; and also Amer-
ican Andrew Seras, Greco- Roman wrestling, gold, 1991. Se-
ras and Borodow competed in the Olympic Games in 1988
and 1992.

Ralph (Ruffy) Silverstein (1914-1980) was United States
national collegiate champion in 1935 and Maccabiah Games
coach in 1965.

Yachting

In 1969, Israel won its first world title in any sport when
Zefania Carmel and Lydia Lazarov sailed to victory in the 420
class championship. In the United States, Emil ("Bus") Mos-
bacher, * Jr. (1922-1997), triumphed in American Cup races in
1962 and 1967, and his brother Robert Mosbacher (1927- ) won
the world title in the Dragon Class in 1969. Olympic medalists
in yachting were Robert ("Buck") Halperin (1908-?), United
States, in i960; and Valentin Mankin, U.S.S.R. in 1968 (gold).
The Levinson brothers, Alan and Harry, won a silver medal
for the United States in the 1967 Pan-American Games. Other
yachtsmen included Baron Phillipe de Rothschild (1902-1988)
and Baron Edmund de Rothschild (1845-1934), France; and
August *Belmont (1816-1890), Mortimer L. Schiff, and Walter
N. *Rothschild (1892-1960), United States.

In Olympic Games competition, Valentin Mankin of the
U.S.S.R. won gold (1972, 1980) and silver (1976) medals, and
Daniel Cohan of the United States was a bronze medal win-
ner in 1972.

American helmsman Larry Klein won four world's cham-
pionships between 1983 and 1991. He was named U.S. Yachts-
man of the Year in 1989.

[Jesse H. Silver /Elli Wohlgelernter (2 nd ed.)]

bibliography: I. Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages
(1932 2 , repr. i960), 381-90; L. Rabinowitz, Social Life of the Jews of
Northern France in the i2 th -i4 th Centuries (1938), 225-29; Baron, Com-
munity, 1 (1942), 16, 197-98. B. Postal et. al. (eds.), Encyclopaedia of
Jews in Sports (1965). add. bibliography: J.M. Siegman, Jewish
Sports Legends (2000 3 ); R. Slater, Great Jews in Sports (rev. 2000).

SPRACHMAN, ABRAHAM (1896-1971) and MANDEL
(1925-2002), Canadian theatrical and institutional architects.
Abraham Sprachman was born in Honczarow, near the Car-
pathian mountains between Lvov and Chernovitz. His family
settled in Toronto when Abe was a youngster. While he was
studying bookkeeping in secondary school, a school inspector
noticed his artistic talents and transferred him to a program
in architecture. In about 1919 he opened his first architectural
office in his bedroom. When a degree in architecture became
required in 1935, he was retroactively made a member of the
Ontario Association of Architects and the Royal Architectural
Institute of Canada. Sprachman lived and worked in an almost
exclusively Yiddish world, and most of his clients were Jews.
With architectural opportunities for Jews limited in Canada,
he first designed homes for Jewish clients referred to him by
a friend building an accounting firm. Just as the Depression
began, one of these clients gave him his first theatrical com-
mission, the Circle Theatre. Theater architecture was some-
thing of an architectural extension of the largely Jewish movie
business in which Jewish producers in Hollywood created the
films that Jewish entrepreneurs exhibited in small neighbor-
hood theaters, affectionately known as the "Nabes." Sprach-
man and a partner, Harold Kaplan, built many substantial
neighborhood movie houses in Canada for the Famous Play-
ers, Loews, 20 th Century, and Premier Operating chains. Their
most significant theaters were in the Art Deco style: the Vogue
in Vancouver (1941) and the Eglinton in Toronto (1936), which
was honored with the Governor General's medal. As his list of
theater designs grew, American architects came to Toronto to
study Sprachman's work.

Although theaters were their most prominent contribu-
tion to the Canadian streetscape, Kaplan and Sprachman also
designed a number of Jewish community buildings including
Jewish community centers in Toronto and Hamilton, the To-
ronto Mt. Sinai Hospital, the Baycrest Home for the Aged in
Toronto, and several synagogues in Toronto and across west-
ern Canada.

Abe's son, Mandel, also became an architect known for
his theater designs, albeit in a much changed Canada. Mandel
was a child of the movies. He had spent his childhood in his
father's movie theaters and at building sites doodling at the
drawing board. In 1951 he translated his love of theater and
screenwriting into a degree in architecture from the University
of Toronto. After graduating, Mandel worked in Sweden, then
in his father's office before opening his own firm in 1958. Like
his father, Mandel designed movie houses that reflected the
tastes of his times. Among his innovations were the first multi-
plexes, incorporating several screening rooms in one building
and using televisions in the lobbies to promote the films.

Mandel was a striking man, known for his bowties and
lapel pansies. Like his father, Mandel designed a number of
striking synagogues in Ontario. His crowning achievement
was his successful struggle to restore the 1913 Elgin Winter-
garden Theatre in Toronto. One of the few remaining "double-
decker" or stacked Edwardian theaters in the world, the Elgin

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SPRINGFIELD

Wintergarden had been the flagship of the Loew s chain of
vaudeville theaters. Under Mandel's direction, it was pains-
takingly restored with added backstage and lobby areas. It re-
opened in 1989 and was soon a Toronto landmark.

[Paula Draper (2 nd ed.)]

°SPRINGER, AXEL CAESAR (1912-1985), German pub-
lisher. Born in Altona/Hamburg. As he was unfit for war ser-
vices, he did not fight as a soldier in the German Wehrmacht
during World War 11. Until 1941 Springer was editor in his
fathers newspaper Altonaer Nachrichten y whose publication
was stopped due to a Nazi order. After the war he first started
as a book publisher, but soon after that he founded many
popular German magazines and newspapers. With the daily
newspaper Bild Springer reached his greatest success, though
critics complained about the one-sided conservative political
opinions spread by this tabloid and a lack of serious journal-
ism. In 1967, Springer postulated as the four main goals to
which every editor of the Springer Press had to subscribe: The
engagement for the German re-unification in freedom and
in a united Europe, the reconciliation between Germans and
Jews as well as the defense of the rights of the Israeli people,
the rejection of political totalitarianism, and the defense of the
free social market economy. In addition, the Springer Press
always demonstrated sympathy and solidarity for American
politics, particularly during the Vietnam War. As a non-Jew,
Springer was a known friend of the Jewish People and Israel.
This fact irritated many left-wing critics, who viewed in the
the conservative Springer Press their main enemy. During the
student protests in the 1960s, Bild condemned the protesters
and many critics accused Bild of "heating- up" the atmosphere.
In 1972 the Springer Publishing House in Berlin was the target
of a bomb attack carried out by leftist extremists.

Springer gave substantial donations to Israel and Jew-
ish organizations, e.g., for the library of the Israel Museum
in Jerusalem (1966) and the Leo Baeck Institute in New York
(1963). In 1968, Springer endowed $250,000 for the establish-
ment of the Ottilie Springer Chair at Brandeis University.
As a result of his social and political engagement Springer
was honored with numerous awards, such as the Leo Baeck
Medal (1978), and honorary doctorates from Temple Univer-
sity in Philadelphia (1971), Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan
(1974), and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1976). In 1983,
Springer was awarded the title "neeman Yerushalayim" (pre-
server of Jerusalem). In 1984, he received the gold medal of
the Israeli Association of Daily Paper Publishers and in 1985
the gold medal of the B'nai B'rith League. Moreover, Springer
was an honorary member of the Weizmann Institute of Sci-
ences in Rehovot, Israel.

In 1972, Springer published a collection of his speeches
and essays: Von Berlin aus gesehen. Zeugnisse eines engagi-
erten Deutschen.

bibliography: Axel- Springer- Verlag(ecL), The Axel Springer-
Group's Commitment to Israel (2001); E. Cramer, A. Springer, "Israel
und die Juden," in: A. Nachama et al (eds.), Aufbau nach dem Unter-

gang. Deutsch-judische Geschichte nach 1945 (1992), 347-56; G. Kruip,
Das "Welt"-"Bild" des Axel Springer-Verlags. Journalismus zwischen
westlichen Werten und Deutschen Denktraditionen (1999).

[Monika Halbinger (2 nd ed.)]

SPRINGFIELD, city in Massachusetts. As of 2005, Springfield
and its suburbs had a total population of 251,000, including
an estimated 10,000 Jews, a figure largely unchanged in the
past quarter-century Jews did not begin to settle in Spring-
field in large numbers until the East European immigration
of the 1880s, though individual Jews were recorded in the
city previously, among them Leopold Karpeles (1838-1909), a
Congressional Medal of Honor winner in the Civil War who
lived in Springfield before the war. The first synagogues - B'nai
Jacob and Beth Israel - were organized in 1891-92, and within
a decade five other Orthodox congregations were established
to serve the rapidly growing community, whose numbers
increased from about 300 to 3,000 between 1901 and 1907
alone, ymha was organized in 1905 and a Jewish Home for
the Aged in 1912. One of the first local Jews to attain promi-
nence in these years was the Lithuanian-born Henry Lasker
(1878-1953), the first local Jew to be admitted to the bar and
who between 1908 and 1916 was first elected alderman and
then president of the city council. Lasker was a leader of B'nai
B'rith and many other Jewish and civic organizations. Two
other prominent Jews were the Russian immigrants Moses
Ehrlich, who had a successful scrap-iron business and Ra-
phael Sagalyn (1881-1949), a successful wholesale dry goods
and real estate businessman. Ehrlich was a prime initiator
and first president of Congregation Kodimoh; Sagalyn was
founder of the United Hebrew Schools and president of its
board of directors.

Following the restrictive immigration laws of the 1920s,
the Jewish population of Springfield ceased its rapid growth
but institutional life continued to develop. In 1921, the first
Conservative synagogue, Congregation Beth El, was founded,
and in 1932 a Reform congregation, Sinai Temple. The Jewish
Community Council (predecessor to the Jewish Federation of
Greater Springfield) was established in 1925, and the Jewish
Social Service Bureau was established in 1927. In 1966, eight
synagogues and temples were in existence in Greater Spring-
field, five Orthodox, two Conservative, and one Reform. The
initial settlement took place in the city's older residential areas,
primarily the North End area. After World War 11, both the
newer urban areas and the suburb of Longmeadow became
increasingly popular. By 1966, only 5% of Greater Springfield's
Jews still lived in the older area of settlement, while 60% lived
in the newer urban areas. Of the 35% who resided in the sub-
urbs, all but 3% were in Longmeadow, which adjoins the larg-
est of the newer urban areas within Springfield proper, For-
est Park. Accordingly, three of the largest Jewish institutions
in the city, Temple Sinai, Congregation Beth El, and the Jew-
ish Community Center, are all located near each other on the
Longmeadow - Forest Park line, with two other synagogues
remaining in Forest Park.

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151

SPRINZAK, JOSEPH

High educational achievement and occupational affili-
ation characterized the Jewish community in the late 1960s.
Among adults, 40% had had at least some college education.
One-fourth were engaged in professional work and 40% were
managers or proprietors. An additional 27% were employed as
clerical or sales workers; only 8% of the Jews were blue collar
workers. Almost 80% of the Jews of Springfield were affiliated
with a congregation; slightly more persons were members of
Orthodox synagogues (41%) than of Conservative congrega-
tions (39%), and 20% belonged to the Reform Temple. Part-
time religious schools were affiliated with the various syna-
gogues, and there were the community- wide United Hebrew
School and two day schools, the Heritage Academy and the
Lubavitcher Yeshiva Academy. Two- thirds of all children be-
tween 5 and 14 years of age were enrolled in some program
of Jewish education.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, a different picture
has emerged, consistent with demographic trends throughout
the country. Springfield's Jewish affiliation rate is now approxi-
mately the same as the national average of just above 40%. Al-
though Springfield's Jewish community remains highly edu-
cated, much of the population is engaged in the professions
(medicine, law, etc.), with very few proprietors and entrepre-
neurs. The Jewish population is increasingly older, with a small
number of young families continuing to move to the area. In
2005, Springfield/Longmeadow had two day schools (Heritage
Academy, Lubavitcher Yeshiva Academy) and six synagogues:
three Orthodox (Congregation Kodimoh, Kesser Israel, and
Beth Israel), two Conservative (Beth El and B'nai Jacob), and
one Reform (Sinai Temple).

The Jewish community has grown significantly in the
area just north of Springfield to the Vermont border. The
communities of Northampton and Amherst, in particular,
have witnessed significant Jewish growth, with approximately
5,000 Jews in these communities. Home to the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst College, Smith College and others,
the area attracts many academics, artists, and young profes-
sionals from larger cities. In 2005, the Upper Pioneer Valley
boasted four synagogues, two of them with several hundred
families. There are two Conservative synagogues (B'nai Israel,
Northampton; Temple Israel, Greenfield), one Reform (Beit
Ahavah, Northampton), and one Reconstructionist (Jewish
Community of Amherst). Founded in the 1990s, the Solo-
mon Schechter School of the Pioneer Valley has opened its
doors to 100 students.

A variety of organizations and services continue to cater
to the needs of the community. The Springfield Jewish Com-
munity Center traces its origins to the ymha. The Jewish com-
munity supports a wide range of Zionist and fraternal orga-
nizations, with a strong Federation and an active Hadassah
chapter, as well as many groups under temple auspices. The
community is also the home of the Harold Grinspoon Foun-
dation. Among notable members of the Springfield Jewish
community are Frank Freedman, mayor, elected in 1967; Alan
Sisitsky, state representative, elected in 1968; Paul Akerman,

city councilman; Joel Levitt, president of the Springfield Jew-
ish Federation (founded in 1938) and president of the Spring-
field Sugar Company; Irving Geisser, executive director of
the federation and a member of the executive committee of
the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council;
Charles Nirenberg, Founder of Dairy Mart; and Harold Grin-
spoon, nationally recognized philanthropist and founder of
Aspen Square Management.

[Sidney Goldstein / Harold Berman (2 nd ed.)]

SPRINZAK, JOSEPH (1885-1959), Israeli labor leader and
first speaker of the Knesset, member of the First to Third Knes-
sets. Sprinzak was born in Moscow. His father, a manufacturer,
was a member of Hovevei Zion and was active in Jewish com-
munity affairs. In 1891, when the Jews were expelled from Mos-
cow, Sprinzak's family moved to Kishinev and then to War-
saw. Their home was a center for young Hebrew writers and
active Zionists. In 1903, Sprinzak took part in organizing the
Zionist group Ha-Tehiyyah, led by Yitzhak *Gruenbaum. In
Warsaw he worked for a while in the Hebrew publishing house
Ahi'asaf, and wrote for Hebrew and Yiddish newspapers. In
1905 he returned to Kishinev, where he was a cofounder of
the *Ze'irei Zion movement in Southern Russia, and in 1906
he participated as its delegate at the *Helsingfors Conference
of Russian Zionists, after having formulated the Ze'irei Zion
program together with Haim * Greenberg.

In 1908, after spending several months in Constanti-
nople, where he was in touch with various Zionist leaders,
including David *Wolffsohn, Menahem *Ussishkin, Nahum
*Sokolow, and Vladimir *Jabotinsky, in an attempt to influence
the new regime of the Young Turks, Sprinzak went to study
medicine at the American University in Beirut. However, in
1910 he was asked by Ha-Po'el ha-Za'ir to discontinue his stud-
ies, and become the party's secretary in Palestine. Inter alia, he
was active in the absorption of the immigrants from Yemen. At
the 11 th Zionist Congress in Vienna in 1913, Sprinzak organized
a faction of 41 delegates, consisting of members of Ha-Po'el
ha-Za'ir and Ze'irei Zion. During World War 1 he remained
in Palestine and was instrumental in organizing help for the
yishuv in general and the Jewish workers in particular. After
the war he took part in creating the framework of the world
movement *Hitahadut, which encompassed Ha-Po'el ha-Za'ir
and Ze'irei Zion. At its founding conference in Prague in 1920,
together with Aharon David ^Gordon, Hugo Bergmann, and
Eli'ezer * Kaplan, he was the moving spirit of the Ha-Po'el ha-
Za'ir delegation from Palestine. Chairing the conference's
meetings, he summed up its deliberations. At the 11 th Zionist
Congress in Carlsbad in 1921, he was the first representative of
the labor movement in Erez Israel to be elected to the Zionist
Executive. For seven years he served on the Executive as head
of the Labor Department and later of the Aliyah Department
as well. In the 1920s, Sprinzak was a co-founder and leading
member of the *Histadrut, a member of the Tel Aviv munici-
pality, and played an active role in the establishment of Asefat
ha-Nivharim and the Va'ad Le'ummi, and in the formation of

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ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SREM

*Mapai through the merger of *Ahdut ha-Avodah and Ha-Po'el
ha-Za'ir. In 1942-59, he served as chairman of the presidium
of the Zionist Executive, and in 1944-49 served as the secre-
tary general of the Histadrut.

After the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, he
was elected to chair the Provisional State Council. He was
elected to the three first Knessets on behalf of Mapai, and
served as Knesset speaker from 1949 until his death in 1959.
As the Knesset s first speaker, he played a major role in mold-
ing the written and unwritten rules of Israel's parliamentary
life. Sprinzak oversaw the competition for the planning of the
new Knesset building at Givat Ram, but its construction began
only after his death. His friendly, warm, and moderate char-
acter endeared him to both Israeli citizens and Jews abroad.
His sense of humor and sensitivity enabled him to overcome
conflicts. He favored a form of humanist, social-democratic
Zionism, which regarded the process of national regeneration
as an evolutionary one in which the workers were to play a
major role in both urban and rural settlements.

Sprinzak's son Ya'ir was a scientist who worked at the
Weizmann Institute, and was a member of the 12 th Knesset
on behalf of Moledet.

Among his writings are Bein ha-Teimanim ("Among the
Yemenites," 1918); Bi-Khetav u-be-al Peh, a collection of arti-
cles and speeches (1952); and Yosef Shapira (ed.), Iggerot Yosef
Sprinzak, a collection of letters (1965-69).

[Susan Hattis Rolef (2 nd ed.)]

SQUADRON, HOWARD MAURICE (1926-2002), Ameri-
can Jewish communal leader. Squadron was born in New York
City and graduated in law from Columbia University, where
he was an editor of the Columbia Law Review. After teaching
at the University of Chicago, he practiced law in New York,
and after spending two years as staff counsel for the Ameri-
can Jewish Congress, he reentered private practice in 1954. He
ultimately became the senior partner at Squadron, Ellenoff,
Plesen & Sheinfeld.

Active in the American Jewish Congress for 25 years, and
serving as its senior vice president, chairman of the National
Governing Council, chairman of the national Commission on
Law and Social Action, and chairman of the Congress's New
York Metropolitan Council, he was elected president in 1978,
retaining the position until 1984. In that capacity, he helped
spearhead an assembly of mayors from around the world
held annually in Jerusalem. At the 1999 conclave, Squadron
was awarded the Guardian of the City of Jerusalem Medal.
Squadron was an active participant in the America- Israel "Di-
alogue," an annual symposium conducted by the American
Jewish Congress in Jerusalem. From 1980 to 1982 he served as
chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American
Jewish Organizations.

Active in the cultural life of New York City, Squadron
was chairman of the executive committee of the Foundation
for Joffrey Ballet, Inc., as well as of the Fifty- fifth Street Dance
Theater Foundation.

SQUILL (Heb. 2"$T\ y hazav (mish.) or 21211, hazuv), the Urginea
maritima, a plant with a very large bulb that grows wild in al-
most every district of Israel. It lies dormant in the summer,
its leaves withering, but later a stalk with a large inflorescence
bearing hundreds of flowers bursts out of the bulb. The roots
are very long and descend vertically into the earth as if dig-
ging into it, and some connect its name (hazav; "to dig") with
this characteristic. Because of this the squill was sometimes
used for demarcating fields (cf. bb 55a). According to tradition
Joshua marked out with it the boundaries of Israel and of the
tribes (tj, Pe'ah 2:1, i6d). It was said that "the squill cripples
the wicked" (Bezah 25b), because it prevents them from re-
moving the boundaries. The rind of its bulb is juicy and was
used by some for implanting fig shoots (Kil. 1:8; so too Theo-
phrastus, Historia Plantarum y 2:5, 5). Its leaves and bulb con-
tain poisonous matter and few animals eat it. According to the
baraita (Shab. 128a) it was eaten by gazelles and Noah prepared
"squills for the gazelles" (Gen. R. 31:14) in the ark.

bibliography: Loew, Flora, 2 (1924), 188-94; E. and H. Ha-
Reubeni, He-Hazav (1938); J. Feliks, Kilei Zera'im ve-Harkavah (1967),
161-2; H.L. Ginsberg, Kohelet (1961), 131-2; idem, Five Megilloth and
Jonah (1969), 77. add. bibliography: Feliks, Ha-Zomeah, 68.

[Jehuda Feliks]

SRAFFA, PIERO (1898-1983), British economist. Sraffa was
born in Turin, Italy, the son of a professor of law. He became a
professor of economics at the University of Caligari, Sardinia,
at the age of 28 but was forced to flee to Britain the following
year after his writings offended Mussolini. Sraffa spent the rest
of his life at Cambridge University, where he served as Mar-
shall Librarian, fellow of Trinity College, and reader in eco-
nomics. Sraffa developed a legendary reputation as one of the
great theoretical innovators in 20 th -century economics, origi-
nating the theory of imperfect competition and making sig-
nificant and influential contributions to the orthodox theory
of value. He wrote little, but some of his ideas appeared in his
Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (i960).
He is equally well known for his co-editing of 11 volumes of
the correspondence of David *Ricardo, published in 1951-73,
regarded as one of the great works in the history of econom-
ics. Sraffa also exerted a strong influence on many of the lead-
ing intellectual figures of his time and is credited with helping
Ludwig * Wittgenstein move away from his earlier logical posi-
tivism to his later orientation towards linguistic analysis.

bibliography: odnb online.

[William D. Rubinstein (2 nd ed.)]

SREM (Ger. Schrimm; Pol. Szrem; Yid. Strim), town in
Poznan province, W. Poland. Jews settled in Srem in the late
16 th century and engaged in commerce, weaving, and gold-
smithery In 1656, during the war between Poland and Swe-
den, the Polish general S. Czarniecki persecuted the Jews of
Srem, and those who survived left the town. In the 1670s Jews
resettled in Srem and a community was organized. In 1683 a
meeting of the council of the galil (province) of Poznan (see

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

153

SS AND SD

^Council of the Lands) took place there. In the 18 th century
Srem Jews engaged in the trade of agricultural products, tai-
loring, shoemaking, and liquor production. In 1765 the Jewish
community numbered 327. In the mid-i8 th century Samuel b.
Azriel of Landsburg was the rabbi of Srem. From 1815, under
Prussian rule, the Jewish population increased, numbering
924 (27% of the total) in 1840 and 1,127 ( 1 9%) m 1871. The Jews
were engaged mostly in the building trade, tailoring, transpor-
tation, and shopkeeping. In the late 1870s many Jews left for
Poznan and other cities in central Germany. In 1895 only 607
Jews were left (11%), and this number decreased to 318 (4.5%)
by 1910. In the early 20 th century the Srem community main-
tained charitable institutions and an association for Jewish
historical and literary research. In 1921, in independent Po-
land, there were 103 Jews (1.5%) there.

[Arthur Cygielman]

Holocaust Period

Before World War 11 there were 26 Jews in Srem. Under Ger-
man occupation, it belonged to the Regierungsbezirk Posen
of the Warthegau. In October 1939 the Jews were deported to a
transit camp in Poznan, from where they were probably sent to
the General Government or to a larger town in Warthegau.

[Danuta Dombrowska]

bibliography: Halpern, Pinkas, index; B. Wasiutyriski,
Ludnosc zydowska w Polsce w wiekach xix i xx (1930), 167; A. Hep-
pner and J. Herzberg, Aus Vergangenheit und Gegenwart der Juden
und der Juedischen Gemeinden in den Posener Landen (1909-29), in-
dex; D. Lewin, Judenverfolgungen im zweiten Schwedisch-polnischen
Kriege (1901), 28, 31.

SS AND SD (ss - Schutzstaffeln, "Protection Squad"; sd -
Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsfuehrers ss, "Security Service
of the Reichsfuehrer ss"), Nazi order that executed the "*Fi-
nal Solution" (see also ^Holocaust: General Survey) and other
acts of mass and individual terror committed by the Nazis in
Europe. The organization from its inception was connected
with the idea of the "security" of the leader, and grew up as a
racial elite formation around the myth of *Hitler the Fuehrer
and his "mission."

The ss was originally a select group of bodyguards
charged with protecting Hitler and the Nazi elite. It was set
apart from other Nazi organizations by its distinctive black
shirts, and eventually adopted the insignia of the death's-
head. Its first leader was Jules Schreck, a personal body guard
and chauffeur to Hitler. Other local party groups established
similar means of protection, which were used not only defen-
sively but offensively. The ss participated in the 1923 Munich
Putsch and was outlawed together with the Nazi Party for a
short time afterward.

In 1929, Heinrich *Himmler was appointed Reichsfueh-
rer-ss (rfss), and as the party expanded he transformed the
ss into a racial elite formation. From several hundred mem-
bers in 1929, it expanded to some 50,000 by 1932 before Hit-
ler came to power. In 1931, two years before the Nazis came
to power, Himmler set up an intelligence service exclusively

for the ss, headed by Reinhard *Heydrich: the Sicherheitsdi-
enst (sd). The sd assisted in keeping an eye on deviators in
the party, but at the time the Nazis rose to power it was still
only a skeleton organization. He also established the Race and
Settlement Office (rIisha) to protect the racial purity of the
ss. Special emphasis was placed on loyalty and disciplined ap-
pearance in uniforms, and racial criteria were established for
membership, including an Aryan appearance and a registry
of ancestors, including those of wives. The ss attracted and
recruited people of a higher social class than the sa (storm
troops). The ss was divided along military lines model into
platoons, companies, and regiments. Its distinctive black uni-
form was first used in 1932.

When Hitler took power, Himmler began to attain con-
trol over all the internal security organs of Germany. Within
a year the ss increased fourfold and Himmler consolidated
his power. Beginning as the commander of the Bavarian po-
litical police, he soon took over the political police of other
German states, and in 1934 the *Gestapo, the secret political
police of Prussia. In 1934, the ss led the assault against Ernst
Rohm and the sa and destroyed it decisively. In July 1934 after
the assault, the ss became independent of the sd within the
party. Afterwards there were no potential rivals to its power
and its status rose.

The ss, the political police, and the concentration camps
acted as a three -fold system devised to shadow the enemies of
the regime and intern or destroy them politically or physically.
Of particular importance was the vesting of the authority over
concentration camps in the ss system and not subordinated to
government authority, thus constituting what became known
as the ss-state. In the process of differentiation of special tasks
of the ss, special units were established, such as ss Totenkop-
fverbaende (Deaths Head Units) to guard the concentration
camps and ss Verfuegungstruppe, which served as a nucleus
of the armed (Waffen) ss.

In 1936, Himmler became head of the entire German po-
lice, as the Reichsfuhrer ss and Chef der Deutschen Polizei im
Ministerium des Innern. Himmler created a series of homes
for wives of the ss men and single mothers to breed the mas-
ter race - Lebensborn, the Well of Life. The Ancestral Heri-
tage Society tried to document the superiority of the master
race. The ss was envisioned by Himmler as the paradigm of
the master race, the core of its future development.

Until World War 11

By the time World War 11 broke out (1939), the ss numbered
hundreds of thousands of members and millions of helpers.
The duplication and competitiveness of the departments in
the complicated, vast ss administration were intentional. To
control the administration of both state and party functions,
Himmler set up a field organization of ss and higher police
leaders (Hoehere ss - und Polizeifuehrer - hsspf). A nucleus
of ss men engaged in work abroad, including intelligence work
against future victims of Germany, and, last but not least, the
"mobile killing units" (the Einsatzgruppen), which followed

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ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

SS AND SD

along with the Wehrmacht to the occupied countries to deal
with "internal security matters."

Some ambitious younger men, including Adolf *Eich-
mann, Dieter Wisliceny, and Herbert Hagen, became experts
in the Jewish question. Section 11/112 of the sd began dealing
with classifying world Jewry and its institutions according to
the German organizational tables, studied Jewish literature
and newspapers, and spied on Jewish leaders and organiza-
tions, in the full belief that the Jews had a worldwide intel-
ligence service. The sd also began pressing to speed up Jew-
ish emigration by all means and sought to work out practical
ways to do so. One suggestion was to incite and organize riots
such as the *Kristallnacht y carried out two years later. The an-
nexation of Austria in March 1938 permitted the sd executive
initiative to establish (through Eichmann) the *Zentralstelle
flier juedische Auswanderung in Vienna, the first compulsory
Jewish emigration center. Eichmann personally supervised the
registration of Jews and expropriation of their property prior
to their emigration. This first initiative led to the establishment
of similar offices in the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia and
in Germany itself. Eichmann headed the centers, and the di-
rector of the Gestapo, Heinrich *Mueller, acted as the chief
supervisor. Thus the sd became an executive arm alongside
the Gestapo, and finally the two authorities, the sd and the
Gestapo, were united under the ss reorganization scheme in
November 1939.

The ss organization now split up into main offices
(Hauptaemter), among which the most important were the
*rsha - Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshaupt-
amt); wvha - Main Office for Economy and Administration
(Wirtschafts-und Verwaltungshauptamt); and rush a - Main
Office for Race and Settlement (Rasseund Siedlungshauptamt).
The rsha, which was essentially a combination of the security
police and the sd, was given charge over internal security, the
liquidation of enemies in the first stages of conquest by the
Germans, and the dispatch of prisoners to camps. The prison-
ers were subordinate to the wvha, on a combined ideologi-
cal and "economic" base. The wvha exploited the prisoners
in the giant ss enterprises and in private German enterprises,
while life in the camps and the work itself were functionally
organized to bring about the physical "neutralization" or deci-
mation of many of them. The wvha also carried out pseudo-
medical experiments on human beings on orders given by "sci-
entific and research" institutes of the ss and by Himmler, who
wished to establish proofs for his racial concepts.

With the German invasion of Poland in September 1939,
the ss attained almost sole responsibility for the Jews of Po-
land. The security police and sd, together with the regular po-
lice, interned the Jews in ghettos, deprived them of all their
means, and starved them. To reduce all the Jews to the same
level in the uniform repression scheme, * Judenraete were set
up to assume direct and personal collective responsibility for
the Jews, with the German authorities in charge. In the rsha,
several suggestions for a radical "Solution of the Jewish Ques-
tion" were made during 1940, including the concentration of

Jews in a "reservation" in Poland or their dispatch to Mada-
gascar (see ^Madagascar Plan). Historians have come to view
local initiatives to deal with the local problem of Jews as an
essential component of what later developed into the "Final
Solution." Many emphasize the functionalist approach, with
the destruction of Jews being a priority in solving a local prob-
lem, the apparatus of destruction evolving locally before being
centralized and implemented throughout the German-con-
trolled areas. Meanwhile, the invasion of Soviet Russia was
in the offing. It commenced on June 22, 1941. Hitler decided
that in the final stage of the "struggle for the vast Lebensraum
in the East," the Jews of Russia and the Baltic states along
with gypsies and Soviet commissars should be murdered by
ss Einsatzgruppen with the cooperation of the army and the
civil occupying administration. The Einsatzgruppen were di-
vided into Einsatzkommandos (assault commando units) and
Sonderkommandos (special commando units).

The "Final Solution."

The killing of Jews evolved in stages. First the mobile killing
units, the Einsatzgruppen, went into towns and villages cap-
tured by the Wehrmacht and alone or together with local gen-
darmeries, and native antisemites assembled the Jews, confis-
cated their possessions, and murdered them one by one, town
by town, village by village. After the murder of several hun-
dred thousand Jews in the East by execution, gas vans were
developed by the ss personnel on the ground, using retrofitted
trucks. Many of these initiatives were taken locally, but this
process proved to be too public, disquieting for inhabitants
of conquered territories, and psychologically difficult for the
killers. Thus a new mode of achieving the "Final Solution" (a
camouflage term - see *Nazi-Deutsch) of the "Jewish Ques-
tion" in all of Europe was initiated. The rsha, with Eichmann
as its Jewish expert and Mueller as the chief executor, was in
charge of the dispatch of Jews to the death camps. The extermi-
nation centers differed from the older concentration camps as
the former were constructed to deal with the immediate mass
murder of the arrivals under the direction of the wvha. A gi-
gantic network was organized for the mass-scale plundering of
property and possessions of the murdered, and for exploiting
the victims' clothing, hair, and gold teeth. Not infrequently,
concentration camps were set up alongside the death camps
for exploiting the condemned for slave labor until the inmates,
suffering from starvation and maltreatment, were "selected"
for the gas chambers for automatized murder run by the ss
technicians. Through its various agents, of which the ss was
chief, the German occupiers compelled the various Judenraete
in the ghettos to supply them with batches of victims for the
death chambers and, until the ghettos' liquidation, with slave
laborers for German industry. Throughout, the goal of utiliz-
ing Jewish labor by economic arms of the ss was at odds with
the overriding goal of the "Final Solution" - the killing of the
Jews. Dead Jews could not work. The ghettos were steadily re-
duced, until the final liquidation of all their inhabitants at the
end of 1943 (with Lodz, the most notable exception). The use

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

J-55

STACHEL, JACOB

of camouflaged language and the dispatch of Jews in varying
stages and by different bodies - sometimes by the rsh a and
sometimes by the security police commanders (all of which
were part of the ss and served one aim) - helped to keep in
check any possible revolt or resistance by the Jews. In the
Western countries and satellite states of the Reich, the ss main-
tained experts whose task was to dispatch the Jews.

The organizational principles that aided Himmler in his
first steps turned the ss finally into a monster organization
with millions of officials and soldiers with thousands of mul-
tiple and duplicate functions. In 1943 Himmler, the Reichs-
fuehrer ss, also became minister of the interior of the Reich,
and in 1944 he drafted many foreigners to the legions of the
Waffen-ss, including members of those considered by Nazi
ideology to be of "inferior races." The attempts in 1939-41 of
the ss to solve by mass extermination such problems as the
existence of mentally ill and retarded children in German
society, or its war against the churches, failed largely due to
protests among the German public. But the murder of Jews,
gypsies, Soviet prisoners of war, and members of "inferior peo-
ples" was carried out without inhibition and virtually without
protest. At the end of 1944, Himmler, as commander of the
reserves and battlefront, retreated from the "Final Solution."
He apparently still believed that the Jews under his control
could be used as a bargaining chip to divide the Allies and
forge a separate peace with the United States and Great Britain
against the Soviet Union. He presumed that the Allies would
accept his ss organization as an instrument of order and se-
curity in Germany. However, the Allies condemned the ss at
the Nuremburg trials as a criminal organization and sentenced
some of its heads to death. Many others were sentenced to se-
vere punishments, but received amnesty. From the 1960s, the
German judiciary dealt with the subsidiary organizations of
the ss in a series of trials.

bibliography: G. Reitlinger, ss, Alibi of a Nation (1956); H.
Hoehne, The Order of Death's Head: The Story of Hitler s ss (1969);
H. Krausnick, et al., Anatomy of the ss State (1968); S. Aronson,
Reinhard Heydrich und die Fruehgeschichte von Gestapo und sd (1970);
E. Neusuess-Hunkel, Die ss (1956); L. Stein, Die Waffen-ss (1965); E.
Kogon, The Theory and Practice of Hell (i960 2 ); A. Bullock, Hitler, a
Study in Tyranny (1962 2 ), index, add. bibliography: R. Hilberg,
Destruction of the European Jews (1961, 1985, 2003).

[Shlomo Aronson / Michael Berenbaum (2 nd ed.)]

STACHEL, JACOB (Jack; 1900-1966), U.S. Communist
leader. Stachel, born in Galicia, was taken by his family to
New York City in 1911. He became active in the Socialist Party
Youth and in 1924 joined the Communist Party. By 1927 Sta-
chel headed the party's national organizational secretariat,
and in 1933 he became director of its Trade Union Educa-
tional League. His main geographical area of responsibility in
the 1930s was Michigan, where he staged a demonstration of
100,000 unemployed workers in Detroit in 1930 and pressed
for Communist Party support of the Congress of Industrial
Organizations (cio) when it was founded in 1936. In 1939 Sta-

chel was made executive secretary of the party's central exec-
utive committee, giving him much power behind the scenes
until his indictment under the Smith Act in 1950, along with
ten other party leaders, for advocating the violent overthrow
of the United States government. After serving a five-year
term in a federal penitentiary Stachel remained active in the
party until his death.

bibliography: New York Times (Jan. 2, 1966), 73; M. Epstein,
Jew and Communism (1959), 405-7.

STADTHAGEN, JOSEPH (d. 1715), German rabbi. One of
a venerable line of rabbis, he was born in Metz and was Lan-
desrabbiner of Schaumburg-Lippe for many years, taking his
name from his home in Stadthagen. An acknowledged rabbin-
ical authority (author of Divrei Zikkaron y Amsterdam, 1705),
with a thorough knowledge of the New Testament and apolo-
getic works, he participated in several religious disputations.
In July 1704 he was called upon by Leffman *Behrend, the
powerful Hanoverian *Court Jew, to accept the challenge of an
apostate, who had been making the rounds of Jewish commu-
nities, challenging the scholars to disputations and blackmail-
ing them into paying him to desist. The disputation was held
in the presence of the elector of Hanover, the future George I
of England, and his court. Stadthagen deftly refuted the stock
charges of the apostate, gained the sympathy of the tolerant
court, and established his intellectual and moral superior-
ity. He made a vivid impression on the electress Sophie who
parted from him with the words, "We all have but one God."
The debate was transcribed by Stadthagen in Hebrew and Yid-
dish in his Minhat Zikkaron, which was edited, translated, and
published by A. Berliner, Religionsgespraech (1914).

bibliography: D. Kaufmann, in: rej, 22 (1891), 98f.; J.
Rosenthal, in: Aresheth, 2 (i960), 159.

STAHL, FRIEDRICH JULIUS (1802-1861), German con-
servative politician and political thinker. Born Julius Jolson in
Wuerzburg, Bavaria, he grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family,
but converted to Lutheranism in 1819, seemingly more out of
inner conviction than in order to obtain a government post in
a Catholic country. Stahl studied law at various Bavarian uni-
versities and was prominent in the Burschenschaften move-
ment (see ^Student Fraternities, German). After his doctorate
and a first position in Munich, he became a professor of law
in Erlangen and Wuerzburg. During this time, he completed
his two main works Die Philosophie des Rechts nach Geschicht-
licher Ansicht (2 vols., 1830-37), a historical view of the phi-
losophy of law based on Christian theology, and Die Kirchen-
verfassung nach Lehre und Recht der Protestanten (1840), an
important contribution to the debate about the structure of
the Protestant church.

In 1840 Stahl succeeded Edward *Gans as professor of
law at the University of Berlin where his lectures attracted
widespread attention. He expounded his conservative opin-
ions on contemporary politics in his lectures and published a
series of pamphlets calling for the mobilization of the Chris-

156

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

STALIN, JOSEPH VISSARIONOVICH

tian state against liberalism and republicanism. Following the
suppression of the 1848 revolution, he was made a member of
the Prussian Upper House and gained considerable political
influence at the court of Friedrich Wilhelm iv. While his po-
litical ideas have frequently been described as extreme and re-
actionary, it is now evident how important Stahl's contribution
was for the modernization of German conservative thought,
including the acceptance of constitutionalism.

Stahl rejected the full emancipation of the Jews and es-
pecially defended the exclusion of non- Christians from state
functions. As a zealous and rhetorically gifted defender of tra-
ditional rights, justice and order, his views were approved of by
*Bismarck and *Treitschke who were, nevertheless, troubled,
as were his contemporaries, by the figure of a former Jew from
Catholic Bavaria, forging the ideology of Prussian Lutheran
conservatism. Stahl's philosophy was later repudiated by the
Nazis as an expression of Jewish theocracy.

bibliography: R.A. Kann, in: ylbi, 12 (1967), 55-74; E. Ham-
burger, Juden im oeffentlichen Leben Deutschlands (1968), 197-209 and
index, add. bibliography: W. Bussmann, in: M. Greschat (ed.),
Gestalten der Kirchengeschichte (1985), 325-43; W. Fuessl, Professor in
der Politik: Friedrich Julius Stahl (1802-1861) (1988); C. Link, in: H.
Heinrichs (ed.), Deutsche Juristen Judischer Herkunft (1993), 59-83;
J.B. Mueller, in: H.C. Kraus (ed.), Konservative Politiker in Deutsch-

land (1995), 69-88.

[UfFa Jensen (2 nd ed.)]

STAHL, HEINRICH (1868-1942), president of the Jewish
community of ^Berlin under the Nazi regime. A prominent
insurance executive, Stahl was a liberal Jew who attached great
value to Jewish tradition. He became president of the Berlin
community in May 1933, when its executive consisted of seven
liberals (Reform), three Zionists, and one Orthodox represen-
tative. He was influential in the establishment of the Reichs-
vertretung der Deutschen Juden, and signed its first procla-
mation. In November 1935, the Nazi authorities demanded the
reduction of the executive to seven members, and the Zionists
put in their claim for 50% of the seats. Stahl saved the situa-
tion by reducing the number of his own liberal faction from
seven to three. He attempted to retain a special status for the
Berlin community vis-a-vis the * Reich svertretung. He did not
succeed, though it was agreed that its headquarters would re-
main in Berlin. Stahl, the patrician businessman, did not see
eye to eye with the scholarly rabbi, Leo *Baeck. Deported to
*Theresienstadt in 1942, in the month preceding his death
he became deputy chairman of the camps *Judenrat under

Jacob *Edelstein.

[Kurt Jakob Ball-Kaduri]

°STALIN (Dzhugashvili), JOSEPH VISSARIONOVICH

(1879-1953), Bolshevik revolutionary, ruler of the Soviet
Union, and leader of world * Communism. Through his en-
tire career, Stalin had to deal with the "Jewish question," and as
the autocratic ruler of the Soviet Union his policy had a pro-
found influence on the fate of the Jewish people. At the early
stages of the factional strife in the Russian Social Democratic

Party, during which Stalin unreservedly joined *Lenin and the
Bolsheviks, he became involved in the Jewish problem through
their bitter dispute with the *Bund. In 1913, with Lenin's ap-
proval, he published an essay titled "Social Democracy and
the National Question" (later renamed "Marxism and the Na-
tional Question"), in which the Jews figured prominently as
the subject of a theoretical analysis of ethnicity and nation-
hood. In this essay Stalin denied the existence of one national
Jewish entity throughout the world, stressing the differences
between the Jewish communities in East and West. He con-
ceded that certain ethnic characteristics exist in each Jewish
community separately, but denied the Jews any national status
and adhered to Lenin's concept of the unavoidable progressive
assimilation and disappearance of the Jews under advanced
capitalism (e.g., in Western Europe and in America) and cer-
tainly under Socialism.

In contrast to this view, Stalin, as commissar of nationali-
ties in the first Soviet government (1917-23), was responsible
for the policy of fostering Yiddish cultural and educational
activity, Jewish administrative institutions, and agricultural
settlement, and it was he who gave the formal permit to the
young Hebrew theater *Habimah in Moscow. In his contro-
versy and blood feud with L. *Trotsky, G. Zinovyev, L. *Ka-
menev, K. * Radek, and other members of Lenin's old guard,
hardly any anti- Jewish allusions were discernible. He did not
refrain, however, from accusing his prominent Jewish victims
of being agents of the Nazis and the *Gestapo. Although there
were Jews among the executors of the bloody purges, the up-
heaval of the party and government structure caused by these
purges resulted in a reduction of Jewish personnel in many
branches of the bureaucracy.

At the same time a marked change occurred in Stalin's
policy toward Jewish cultural activity and to the evolution
of Jewish settlement and territorial autonomy, which had
culminated in the ^Birobidzhan project. Stalin's trend, con-
current with the great purges, was to liquidate the Yiddish
school system, Yiddish publications, research institutes, the-
aters, etc., so that at the end of the 1930s only token vestiges of
them remained (as, e.g., the State Jewish Theater in Moscow).
During his rapprochement with Nazi Germany (1939-41) he
suppressed in the Soviet press and radio all mention of Nazi
antisemitism and anti- Jewish atrocities, but himself refrained
from using anti-Jewish allusions while attacking the Western
"imperialist" powers. He extradited to the Nazi regime Ger-
man communists who had fled to the Soviet Union, many of
them Jews. The German attack on the Soviet Union (June 22,
1941) and his adherence to the anti-Nazi alliance induced Sta-
lin to establish the Jewish *Anti- Fascist Committee, which, for
the enlistment of Western Jewish support for the Soviet war
effort, was allowed to exploit the sentiments of world Jewish
solidarity and "brotherhood" and even use Jewish historical
and nationalist rhetoric, in full contradiction to his original
ideological concept of Jewish identity. Immediately after the
war, when he was presented with a plan to allow returning
Jewish evacuees to settle in the Crimea, Stalin opposed it on

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

157

STAMFORD

the grounds that in the event of war a "Jewish Crimea" would
constitute a security risk for the Soviet Union.

An exceptional episode in Stalin's attitude to Jewish na-
tionhood was his resolute and energetic support in 1947-48
for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, a policy
clearly directed against Britain's position in the Middle East
and largely reversed during the explicitly antisemitic (and
"anti-Zionist") stance of his last years (1948-53), which coin-
cided with the Cold War. An ominous prelude to these "black
years" was the camouflaged assassination of the de facto head
of Soviet Jewry Solomon *Mikhoels, the chairman of the Jew-
ish Anti- Fascist Committee, on Jan. 13, 1948, a crime to which
Stalin was at least a passive accomplice.

From the end of 1948 until his death, Stalin displayed an
extremely hostile attitude toward everything Jewish (mostly
labeled "Zionist"). He embarked on a course of complete liq-
uidation of the last Jewish institutions and personalities who
engaged in Yiddish literature and culture. The Jewish Anti-
Fascist Committee and the publishing house Der Ernes were
closed down. Mass arrests of leading Jewish writers and artists
followed. Jewish intellectuals and professionals active in vari-
ous fields were also arrested. Among the arrested was Molo-
tov's Jewish wife, whom Stalin believed to be sent by Zionists
to spy on her husband. These purges were accompanied by a
vituperous campaign of the Soviet press against Western-ori-
ented * "Cosmopolitans" in which Jews were the obvious tar-
get. In mid-1952 a closed trial was held against members of
the Anti- Fascist Committee and other leading personalities
in Jewish cultural life, 26 of whom were secretly executed on
August 12 of that year. They were accused of Jewish national-
ism, of having maintained contact with Western espionage,
and of having planned to detach the Crimea from the Soviet
Union. Jews were assigned a prominent role in the Slansky
^Trials, staged in Czechoslovakia on Stalin's orders, and based
mainly on an alleged link between Jews, Zionism, and U.S.
espionage. This trial indicated Stalin's intentions to use anti-
semitism not only in the Soviet Union, but also in the satel-
lite countries of Eastern Europe. The ^"Doctors' Plot," staged
under Stalin's supervision in 1952 and published on January
13, 1953, represented his fears and suspicions of the Jews. It is
generally believed that Stalin's death on March 5 of that year
prevented a major disaster to Soviet Jews.

Personal Anti- Jewish Bias

Stalin's ruthlessness and secretive nature make it impossible
to prove conclusively when and to what extent a personal
anti- Jewish bias played its role in his policy toward individual
Jews and the Jewish people. Jews were known to him from his
childhood and adolescence, since both Georgian towns - Gori,
his birthplace, and the capital Tbilisi, where he received his
Greek- Orthodox education - had a sizable Jewish population.
A jest to which he referred in an article in 1907, in which the
Bolsheviks' rivals, the Mensheviks, were portrayed as a "Jew-
ish" faction of the Social- Democratic Party, and the humorous
allusion made to the fact that it would not have been a bad idea

if the Bolsheviks staged an intraparty "pogrom" seemed to in-
dicate a certain train of thought. On the other hand, on Jan. 12,
1931, in an interview with a representative of the Jewish Tele-
graphic Agency, Stalin made one of the sharpest statements
ever made against antisemitism, describing it as "the most
dangerous vestige of cannibalism," and in 1936 he allowed
this statement to be published in the Soviet Union (Pravda>
Nov. 30). However, there is a series of indications of a personal
anti- Jewish bias, as, e. g., a remark made to General Sikorski,
the head of the Polish government in exile, in 1941 ("the Jews
are rotten soldiers"), and various hints and remarks he ut-
tered in 1948 to the Yugoslav Communist Milovan Djilas, or,
in his family life, his disapproval of his son Yakov's marriage
to a Jewess, his highly emotional irritation over his daughter's
romance with the Jewish film director Kapler (having him
arrested and sent to a labor camp) and avoiding meeting his
Jewish son-in-law. The enthusiastic response of Soviet Jews to
the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 seemed to have
reinforced his antagonism. He said to his daughter, Svetlana,
that the entire older generation of Soviet Jews was contami-
nated with Zionism and that they were teaching it to their
young people. Thus it seems evident that, while consciously
exploiting deep-rooted anti- Jewish suspicions of the populace
for his political ends - through the anti- "Cosmopolitan" cam-
paign, the Slansky Trials, and the Doctors' Plot, which high-
lighted his nationalist, anti-Western Cold War policy - Stalin
himself became more and more paranoid and disturbed in his
attitude to Jews and the Jewish people.

See also ^Antisemitism: In the Soviet Bloc.

bibliography: I. Deutscher, Stalin: A Political Biography

(1949, 1963 3 ); S.M. Schwarz, The Jews in the Soviet Union (1951);

idem, Yevrei v Sovetskom Soyuze, 2 (1966 4 ); M. Djilas, Talks with

Stalin (1962); S. Allilueva, Twenty Letters to a Friend (1967); idem,

Only One Year (1969).

[Shimon Redlich]

STAMFORD, town in Lincolnshire in northeastern England.
In 1190 the local Jews were attacked by the crusaders assem-
bled there at the Lent fair and those unable to find shelter in
the royal castle were massacred. The community later rees-
tablished itself and in the 13 th century there was an *archa. In
1222 members of the community were arrested on a charge of
mocking Christianity, possibly the result of a misunderstand-
ing of a Purim masquerade. No Jewish community has been
established in modern times.

bibliography: Roth, England, index; Rigg-Jenkinson, Ex-
chequer, index.

[Cecil Roth]

STAMFORD, corporate and finance center in Connecti-
cut; population (2004) 111,000; Jewish population (2004) est.
14,000. The earliest Jewish merchants were Nehemiah Marks
(1720), and Jacob Hart (1728), who by 1738 was the fifth high-
est taxpayer in town. He owned property also in Greenwich
and Darien but as a Jew was not eligible to vote or serve on
the grand jury. Hart's children were the first of the Jewish faith

15S

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

STAMPFER, JEHOSHUA

born in Stamford. Jewish families came from New York dur-
ing the American Revolution, among them were Isaac Pinto
who translated the first English High Holy Day prayer book in
America (1761) and the daily English prayer book in 1766 but
did not remain afterwards. Sporadic Jewish settlers continued
to come until 1856 when Wolff Cohen advertised his clothing
store in The Advocate. In 1868 there were five Jewish-owned
businesses but no community or congregation. Through the
1870s Jewish owned saloons as well as clothing and fancy and
dry goods establishments. The first Jewish marriage with a
full minyan was held in 1805, but it was not until 1871, when
Rabbi Henry Vidaver of New York married Henry Bernhard
and Rachel Cohen, that a description of the ceremony and re-
ception were printed in full detail in The Advocate. Samuel H.
Cohen, Stamford's first Jewish attorney, was appointed probate
judge in 1876. In 1881 Jacob Rosenblum arrived in Stamford; he
is considered the first Eastern-European Jew from Lithuania to
reach there, coming via Sharon, Pennsylvania. Young, single
peddlers, Isadore Alexander and Solomon Osmansky, followed.
The first worship services were held in an attic on Cedar St.
In 1887 David Cohen, a new arrival, reports that the first High
Holy Day services were held in Stamford in Jacob Rosenblum's
tenement flat on Stillwater Ave. The same year Pacific St. began
to develop as the retail hub for the new arrivals who opened
a variety of retail stores and small manufacturing. By World
War 1, this street had become Stamfords version of New York's
Lower East Side. Mainstream Jewish stores were also on Main
St. and Atlantic Street. In 1889 a congregation was chartered as
Agudath Sholom with 22 signers. In 1891 a cemetery association
was chartered with the name of Agoodat Solima and purchased
land on West Hill Rd. The congregation during this decade was
dormant and by 1901, it was simply reported as "The Hebrew
Society" with no building of its own. In 1904 a second charter
for a Cong. Agudath Sholom was issued and ground was bro-
ken for the first synagogue, completed 1908. There were secular
Jewish organizational chapters, such as L'Maan Zion that be-
gan in 1902, and the Independent Lodge started in 1903, which
also established its own cemetery on Hoyt St. in Darien in 1904.
B'nai B'rith was chartered in 1910, and the National Council for
Jewish Women in 1911; a Stamford Hebrew Political & Social
Club was chartered in 1907. Of all the aforementioned groups,
only the Independent Lodge survives. In 1911 attorney Alfred
Phillips was elected to the state legislature, and in 1913 he be-
came the first Jewish secretary of state in Connecticut. In 1916
The Hebrew Institute was founded as the meeting place for so-
cial and later also some worship activities of the community. It
dissolved in 1927 and was succeeded by The Stamford Jewish
Community Center which dedicated its building on Prospect
St. in 1930. Roosevelt Lodge of the Masonic Order was founded
1922, because Jews were refused membership in Stamford's
Union Lodge F.&A.M. The jcc moved to its present location
on Newfield Avenue in 1982. Temple Beth El, a Conservative
congregation, was founded in 1920 and met in the Hebrew
Institute until 1927, when its first synagogue was dedicated on
Prospect St. The congregation moved to its newer structure

on Roxbury Rd. in 1974. Temple Sinai, a Reform congregation
founded in 1954, has a synagogue complex on Lakeside Drive.
The Orthodox Congregation Agudath Sholom has worshiped
since 1965 in its current building, which also has a mikveh y
on Colonial Road. Young Israel is an Orthodox congregation
with a synagogue on Oaklawn Avenue. Chabad is constructing
a school complex on High Ridge Rd., and The Fellowship of
Jewish Learning, founded 1973, is a liberal congregation shar-
ing a meeting house on Roxbury Rd. All congregations have
religious schools. The Bi-Cultural Day School founded in 1956
is renowned for its full curriculum from kindergarten through
grade eight. Jewish Family Services has offices to serve all in
need of assistance. Offices of The United Jewish Federation,
and The Jewish Endowment are located in the jcc. The Jewish
Historical Society of Lower Fairfield County was founded in
1983 in Stamford. Julius Wilensky was elected and served as the
first and only mayor of the Jewish faith of The City of Stam-
ford, 1969-73. Stamford is the birthplace and boyhood home
of United States Senator Joseph Lieberman who was the first
candidate of the Jewish faith to be nominated and run for vice

president of the United States.

[Irwin Miller (2 nd ed.)]

STAMPFER, JEHOSHUA (1852-1908), a founder of *Petah
Tikvah. Born in Szombathely, western Hungary, Stampfer
attended Azriel *Hildesheimer's yeshivah at Eisenstadt. The
obtainment of national independence by Hungary in 1867
aroused in Stampfer a desire to go to Erez Israel to ensure the
survival of the Jewish people and the Torah. Leaving home
in 1869 and completing his journey to Jerusalem on foot, he
joined a group of young people who were trying to establish
an agricultural settlement in the country. In 1878 he and his
companions settled on land that belonged to the village of
Mulabbis, near the Yarkon River, and founded the first Jew-
ish agricultural settlement, * Petah Tikvah. For many years
Stampfer was chairman of the Petah Tikvah local council,
which sent him abroad to collect funds from philanthropists
and also encourage settlement in Erez Israel. In 1903 he at-
tended the *Zikhron Ya'akov assembly, which was convened
to form the organizational framework of the yishuv; he was
the representative of the conservative faction, which had as
one of its aims the abolition of women's right to vote. He ad-
ministered the affairs of Petah Tikvah in an ultra- Orthodox
spirit and accepted the first pioneers of the Second Aliyah with
mixed feelings: he was pleased by the influx of new blood to
the country and tried to help the newcomers integrate and
learn farming, but, on the other hand, he bitterly opposed
their detached attitude toward religion and feared their influ-
ence on the settlers and their children. Stampfer s son, Solo-
mon isaac stampfer (1877-1961), became the first mayor
of Petah Tikvah in 1934.

bibliography: Y. Yaari-Poleskin, Holemim ve-Lohamim
(1946 2 ), 38-46; idem (ed.), Sefer ha-Yovel le-Petah Tikvah (1929), 107-22;
M. Smilansky, Mishpahat ha-Adamah, 1 (1944), 65-68.

[Yehuda Slutsky]

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

159

STAMPFER, JOSHUA

STAMPFER, JOSHUA (1921- ), U.S. Conservative rabbi,
historian. Stampfer was born in the Jewish Quarter in the Old
City of Jerusalem and was brought at the age of two to the
United States, where he grew up in Akron, Ohio. He earned
his B.S. from the University of Chicago in 1943 and his M.S.
from the University of Akron in 1945. He returned to Jeru-
salem to study at the Hebrew University and volunteered to
fight with the *Haganah in Israel's War of Independence. He
was ordained at the *Jewish Theological Seminary in 1949
and received a D.H.L. from the * University of Judaism in
1972. In 1987, he was awarded an honorary Ph.D. from Pa-
cific University. He served as rabbi of Congregation Tifereth
Israel in Lincoln, Nebraska (1949-53) before becoming rabbi
of Congregation Neveh Shalom in Portland, Oregon (emeri-
tus since 1993). Under his leadership, Neveh Shalom grew to
more than 1,000 families, to become one of the leading Con-
servative synagogues in the Pacific Northwest. Influenced by
his teacher Mordecai *Kaplan, Stampfer initiated egalitarian
changes, encouraging women to read the To rah and counting
them in the minyan long before it became more commonplace
within the movement.

A past president of both the Oregon Board of Rabbis
and the Pacific Northwest Region of the ^Rabbinical Assem-
bly, Stampfer brought dynamism to the greater Oregon Jew-
ish community as well. In addition to developing innovative
educational programs at his own synagogue, Stampfer was
instrumental in founding the first Jewish day school in the
city, Hillel Academy (now the Portland Jewish Academy).
He established and chaired the Oregon Jewish Historical Soci-
ety, the Oregon Holocaust Resource Center, the Oregon Jew-
ish Museum, and the Oregon Israel Jubilee Committee. In
1983, he founded the Institute for Judaic Studies, sponsoring
symposia and conferences (in conjunction with the Univer-
sity of Oregon and Portland State University, where he serves
on the faculty) that bring Jewish scholars to an area of the
country considered remote. Remembering the influence of
Shlomo *Bardins Brandeis Camp on his own life, Stampfer
founded and directed Camp Solomon *Schechter, the only
Conservative Jewish summer camp in the Pacific North-
west.

Stampfer created and nurtured organizations beyond
the boundaries of Oregon as well. His travels and contacts
with the remnants of the ancient Jewish community of Kai-
feng, China, and the Converso families of Belmonte, Portugal,
led him to become the founding president of the Society for
Crypto- Judaic Studies, to support research on the vanishing
traces of the ^Diaspora. He was also an organizer and the first
vice president of the Sino- Judaic Institute.

Stampfer has maintained close personal and professional
ties with Israel. He spent his sabbaticals working for and teach-
ing at the fledgling Center for Conservative Judaism in Jeru-
salem. He encouraged support for Israel at home and led more
than a dozen community and clergy tours to Israel. He was
a co-founder of Oregonians for Peace Now and a member of
the national board of Americans for Peace Now.

Stampfer was a long-standing appointee to the Oregon
Government Ethics Commission and was actively involved in
interfaith dialogue with Muslim and Christian leaders. He was
the author of Pioneer Rabbi of the West: The Life and Times of
Julius Eckman (1984), and a volume on ancient history, Cradle
of Civilization in the Middle East (n.d.). In addition, Stamp-
fer edited six books: Prayer and Politics: The Twin Poles of A.J.
Heschel (1985); Dialogue, the Essence ofBuber (1986); The Se-
phardim: A Cultural Journey from Spain to the Pacific Coast
(1987); All Its Paths Are Peace (1987); Islam and Judaism, 1400
Years of Shared Values (1988); and The Last Crypto Jews of Por-
tugal (1990). A biography of Stampfer s life, To Learn and to
Teach (by David Michael Smith) appeared in 2003.

[Bezalel Gordon (2 nd ed.)]

STAMPS. The first post offices in the Holy Land were estab-
lished by the European great powers, by arrangement with
the Sublime Porte, in the mid-i9 th century (see ^Israel: Postal
Services for further details).

The following post offices were established by the Euro-
pean powers:

(a) French Post Offices. There were three French post of-
fices in Erez Israel. The office in Jaffa was opened in June 1852,
while those in Jerusalem and Haifa were opened in 1900 and
1906, respectively. The postage stamps of France were in use
until 1885, when they were replaced by stamps specially issued
for the French post offices in the Levant.

(b) Austrian Post Offices. The post offices in Jaffa and
Haifa were opened in 1854 and that in Jerusalem in 1859. Post-
age stamps were introduced in 1863 with the issues of Lom-
bardo-Venetia, followed in 1867 by the first stamps for the
Austrian post offices in the Levant.

(d) The Italian Post Office. This was the only postal ser-
vice to issue stamps specially overprinted with the name of
the city "Gerusalemme."

The period of the Turkish post offices ended with the
conquest of Erez Israel by General Allenby (1917-18). The
British then opened post offices, staffed by army personnel,
in the principal towns and cities. At that time there were no
postal facilities for the civilian population, and the inhabitants
of Erez Israel were unable to communicate with their relatives
and friends abroad. Cut off from the outside world for a long
time, the people of Erez Israel eagerly awaited the resumption
of postal services. On Dec. 9, 1917, approval was given by the
military authorities for printing the first stamp under the Brit-
ish occupation. This stamp, first issued on Feb. 10, 1918, bears
the initials eef ("Egyptian Expeditionary Forces") and cost
one piaster. A total of 338,881 of these stamps were printed on
ungummed paper, and they remained in use until July 1, 1920.
In addition, 20 separate stamps of various monetary denomi-
nations, all appearing with the same basic design, were issued.
The Civil Administration replaced the Military Administra-
tion on July 1, 1920, when the letters oet (or oetaeef), the

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ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

STAMPS

abbreviation for "Occupied Enemy Territory Administration,
Egyptian Expeditionary Force," were removed from the oblit-
erators used in all post offices. It was decided by the govern-
ment to issue stamps bearing inscriptions in the then official
languages of the country: English, Hebrew, and Arabic. The
inscription on these stamps, issued in September 1920 in the of-
ficial languages, read "Palestine"; the Hebrew inscription hav-
ing the additional letters V 'K (the abbreviation for Erez Israel)
added after the word "Palestine" ('"H nmttf/D). These stamps
were used in various overprints, until the appearance in 1927
of the only pictorial set to be issued by the British government,
and which continued in use until the State of Israel was es-
tablished in 1948. This pictorial issue had four basic designs:
Rachel's Tomb near Bethlehem for the 2,3, and 10 mil values;
the Dome of the Rock in the Old City of Jerusalem for the 4,
6, 8, 13, and 15 mil values; the Tower of David near Jerusalem's
Jaffa Gate for the 5, 7, and 20 mil values; and Tiberias and the
Sea of Galilee for the 50, 90, 100, 200, 250, 500 mil, and £ pi
values. Three sets of postage due stamps were also issued; these
stamps were normally used to collect charges on taxed letters
or letters with insufficient postage.

On the departure of the British in April- May 1948, many
of the post offices were taken over by the Minhelet ha- Am,
and, from May 15, 1948, by the Government of Israel. During
the War of Independence communications were extremely
difficult, and from time to time the supply of postage stamps
ran out. In order to overcome this shortage and to continue
a regular postal service until the Government of Israel could
supply the new stamps, many issues of a local and provisional
nature appeared. Noteworthy among these, and eagerly sought
by philatelists, are the Jewish National Fund labels overprinted
with the word Doar ("Post") and the local issues of Safed, Ris-
hon le-Zion, and Petah Tikvah. On May 9, 1948, while Jeru-
salem was under siege, the first set of local Jerusalem stamps
were issued. These were jnf stamps showing the map of Erez
Israel with the frontiers of the Jewish State and the "Interna-
tional" city of Jerusalem as proposed by the United Nations
in its decision of Nov. 29, 1947. Overprinted with the word
Doar and their value in mils in Hebrew lettering, the stamps
were in use until June 20, 1948, when the stamps of the State
of Israel became available.

The first stamps issued by the State of Israel were printed
on a small letter-press machine under strict secrecy. On
May 16, 1948, the Doar Ivri ("Hebrew Post") stamps bearing
pictures of ancient Jewish coins were put on sale throughout
Israel. Since the name of the new state was not known until
the Proclamation of Independence on May 15, the designa-
tion Doar Ivri was used. The nine values of this first set are
today a highly prized collector's item. From 1948 to the end
of 2005 Israel produced a total of 1,827 stamps, including sou-
venir sheets and special issues. Their attractive and colorful
designs have won them international recognition. The defini-
tive series of ancient coins, the twelve tribes, the signs of the
zodiac, and emblems of the towns and cities of Israel; airmail
issues of birds, landscapes, and exports of Israel; annual Jewish

New Year and Independence Day commemoratives; and many
other fascinating subjects have introduced Israel to philatelists
throughout the world. Many philatelic clubs, both in Israel and
abroad, are devoted to the study of the postal history of Erez
Israel. Collections of Erez Israel stamps are regularly displayed
at philatelic shows such as at the Philympia exhibition in Lon-
don, where a number of exhibitors of Erez Israel stamps were
awarded medals. Israel stamps are much in demand, and the
early issues, for example, sell for high prices. They have also
been a considerable source of revenue to the state.

[Moshe Hesky / Alan Karpas]

Jews and Judaica on Stamps

Over the years philatelists the world over have increasingly de-
voted their collections to a single theme, subject, or country.
One such thematic category is "Judaica" and "Jews on Stamps."
These stamps, issued by Israel and many other countries, de-
pict religious symbols and objects, synagogues, portraits of
famous Jews in all walks of life, sites of significance in Jew-
ish history, Bibles, statues of and by Jews, and almost every
aspect of life connected with Judaism and Jews. There are a
number of enthusiasts all over the world who devote them-
selves to this aspect of stamp collecting, and who have united
themselves into societies. One of these publishes the Judaica
Historical Philatelic Journal in the U.S.

Among the subjects in the Judaica collection are the fol-
lowing:

Nobel Prize Winners: Niels Bohr, Paul Ehrlich, Fritz
Haber, and Albert Einstein.

Statesmen: Benjamin Disraeli, Walther Rathenau, Paul
Hymans, and President Zalman Shazar (on a Brazilian stamp
issued in honor of his visit to that country in 1966).

Scientists and Scholars: Heinrich Hertz, Armin Vambery,
David Schwarz, Robert von Lieben, Ferdinand Widal, Wale-
mar Haffkine, Otto Lilienthal.

Philosophers: Henri Bergson, Maimonides.

Musicians: Anton Rubinstein, Henri Wieniawski, Karl
Goldmark, Felix Mendelssohn- Bartholdy, Gustav Mahler,
Paul Dukas.

Artists: Isaac Levitan, Amadeo Modigliani, Marc Cha-
gall, Mark Antokolsky

Actors: Rachel, Sarah Bernhardt.

Poets and Writers: Heinrich Heine, Shalom Aleichem,
H.N. Bialik.

Revolutionaries and Resistance Fighters: Rosa Luxem-
burg, Karl Marx, Jacob Sverdlov, Matyas Rakosi.

Other subjects include the Bible; Hebrew letters (on the
stamps of the un, Russia, Denmark, and Jordan); and syna-
gogues of Prague, Surinam, Cochin, Panama, and the Nether-
lands Antilles. A field of special interest to collectors of Judaica
is the period of the Holocaust, including antisemitic issues,

and the Ghetto stamps.

[Alan Karpas and Shaul Dagoni]

bibliography: M.J. Wurmbrand (comp.), in: Philatelic Lit-
erature Review, 5, no. 3 (1955); H.F. Kahn, in: Postal History Journal
(Jan. 1966), incl. bibl.; I. Livni, Livnis Encyclopedia of Israel Stamps.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

161

STAND, ADOLF

Catalogue 1969 (Heb. and Eng. 1968); London. Mosden Stamp Com-
pany. Catalogue of the Postage Stamps of the State of Israel (1959); idem,
Holy Land and Middle East Philatelic Magazine; Holy Land Philatelist:
Israels Stamp Monthly (Tel Aviv); Israel Philatelist: Official Organ of
the Israel Philatelic Exchange Club (Tel Aviv); Simons Catalogue of
Israel Stamps (Heb.). add. bibliography: Stamps of Israel En-
cyclopedia and Catalogue, cdd-rom (1998); M. Arbell, The Spanish
and Portuguese Jews in Postage Stamps (1988).

STAND, ADOLF (1870-1919), Zionist leader in Galicia and
one of the leaders of world Zionism. Born in Lemberg, Stand
became a Zionist in the 1880s. He was very active in the or-
ganization of Zionist societies and was the editor of the fort-
nightly Polish -language paper Przyszlosc ("Future") and later
of the important Zionist annual in Polish Rocznik Zydowski
("Jewish Yearbook"). He joined Theodor *Herzl and always
regarded himself as his disciple. A period of great activity
ensued for Stand as, traveling through Galicia, he won over
audiences with his Zionist speeches and established various
Zionist groups. He was considered one of the finest speakers
of his generation. In addition to his Jewish education, he had
mastered German and Polish cultures, and put them to good
use in his speeches.

He largely built up the Zionist movement in Galicia. In
1907 he was elected to the Austrian parliament for the dis-
trict of Brody-Zloczow in eastern Galicia, and was among the
founders of the Club of Jewish Members of Parliament, the first
of its kind in Jewish parliamentary history. Despite his great
admiration for Herzl, he opposed the *Uganda Scheme. In
opposition to Herzl, Stand favored practical settlement activ-
ity in Erez Israel. On the outbreak of World War 1, Stand fled
to Vienna together with other Jewish refugees from the areas
of Galicia conquered by the Russian army but was unable to
adapt himself to his new circumstances, although he joined
the Austrian Zionist leadership, and with the end of hostilities
was appointed chairman of the East Galician National Council
Mission in Vienna. In fact, his position as the leader of Gali-
cian Jewry had come to an end in 1914. After World War 11,
letters from Herzl to Stand were discovered and transferred to
the Zionist Archives in Jerusalem. A Hebrew selection of his
writings, Kitvei Stand y was published in Tel Aviv in 1942.

bibliography: N.M. Gelber, Toledot ha-Tenuah ha-Ziyyonit

be-Galizyah, 2 vols. (1958), index; Z.F. Finkelstein, Stuermer des

Ghetto (1924).

[Aryeh Tartakower]

STANDE, STANISLAW RYSZARD (1897-1939), Polish poet
and translator. Stande's numerous verse collections were po-
litical salvoes for communism and range from Mloty ("Ham-
mers," 1921) to Nasz krok ("Our Step," 1937). From 1931 he was
an exile in the USSR, where he joined the editorial board of
the monthly Internatsionalnaya Literatura. During the Stalin-
ist purges of the late 1930s Stande died in prison.

STANISLAV (Pol. Stanislawow; now called Ivanov
Frankovsk), city in Ukraine; under Poland-Lithuania until

1793; under Austria until 1918; and in Poland until 1939. A few
months after the town was founded on his estates by Hetman
Jedrzej Potocki (1662), he granted the Jews the right to settle
there, extending to them other rights as well. The Jewish pop-
ulation consisted of leaseholders, innkeepers, craftsmen, and
merchants, the last in competition with the Armenians living
in the town. As a result of a succession of epidemics in the first
20 years of the 18 th century, the number of Jews declined con-
siderably, but within a dozen years or so this situation changed
for the town's squires tried to attract Jews to the town. Around
1720 Jozef Potocki confirmed the rights granted to the Jews in
1662. In 1745 the bishop of Lvov gave Stanislav Jews permission
to erect a new synagogue but it was never built. Permission
was obtained once more, with certain limitations, in 1761. In
the fire of 1868 a large part of the town, including the syna-
gogue and many Jewish houses, was burnt down.

The Jewish population grew from 404 families (about
45% of the total population) in 1793 to 2,237 persons (41.5%)
in 1801; 6,000 (55%) in 1849; 10,023 (53%) i n 1880; 15,860
(30.7%) in 1921; and 24,823 (41.3%) in 1931. From 1784 until
the Holocaust, members of the ^Horowitz family were rabbis
in Stanislav. In the first half of the 19 th century, influenced by
the center in *Tysmenitsa, the Haskalah movement spread
there. By the mid-19 th century the rich merchants and the in-
telligentsia, who had assimilationist tendencies, dominated
the community, but in 1880 Zionist influence became pre-
dominant in these groups. A regional Zionist committee was
founded in Stanislav in 1898, and the Bar Kochba Students' As-
sociation at the beginning of the 20 th century. Markus (Mor-
decai Ze'ev) *Braude played an important role in the devel-
opment of Zionism and in the social and cultural life of the
Jews of Stanislav. The Yiddish weekly, Stanislaver Nakhrikhten,
edited by B. Hausmann, was published from 1902 to 1912.
Other Yiddish weeklies were Der Yidisher Veker (1905-07) and
Stanislaver Gloke (1909-14). A Hebrew literary monthly, Ha-
Yarden (1906-09), was edited by Eleazar *Rokach.

During World War 1 Stanislav was twice occupied and
destroyed by the Russian army; the synagogue was burnt
down, and a large number of Jews escaped to Bohemia and
Vienna. In 1918 the town was the temporary seat of the au-
thorities of the West Ukrainian Republic; the Jewish National
Council for East Galicia also had its seat there. During this
period, in spite of the Ukrainian nationalist repressions, the
social and cultural life of the Jews flourished; they organized
a Jewish militia for *self-defense which included demobi-
lized soldiers. In May 1919 the units of Jeff Haller (see Haller's
*Army) entered the town, instigating pogroms and looting

Jewish property.

[Jacob Goldberg]

In Independent Poland

In June 1919 the Polish authorities, influenced by the *Endecja
party, dismissed the heads of the Jewish community of Stan-
islav, as well as all Jewish officials in the municipality, the post
office, and railroad. Jewish teachers were not allowed to teach
at public or private schools. By the end of August 1919 the situ-

162

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

STANISLAVSKY, SIMON JUDAH

ation improved somewhat after the visit of Henry Morgenthau
(see Morgenthau ^Commission). At the end of the year the
Zionist leader Karl Halpern was appointed head of the com-
munity. At the 1922 elections to the Polish *Sejm, three Jew-
ish delegates were elected from Stanislav and the province. In
1923, 13 Jews were elected to the 36 -member municipal council.
In order to minimize the importance of the Jewish commu-
nity in the municipality, the Polish authorities incorporated
several surrounding villages into Stanislav, thereby decreas-
ing the percentage of Jews in the total population. At the 1927
municipal elections the Zionist leader Alexander Rittermann
was elected deputy mayor, and out of eight town councilors
three were Jews. The Jewish hospital was reopened in 1922.
From 1922 the economic situation of Stanislav Jews consider-
ably improved. In addition to wholesale and retail trade, they
were occupied in the developing tanning industry, wood pro-
cessing, and the production of alcoholic beverages and indus-
trial alcohol. In 1924 the local yeshivah reopened. A Jewish
secondary school was opened in 1924/25 and had 300 pupils
a year later. There was also a Hebrew school, Safah Berurah.
Vocational training institutes for boys, girls, and adults were
established in the 1920s. A Yiddish weekly, Dos Yidishe Vort>
close to Po'alei *Zion, appeared in 1918-19, and Shtegen, a Yid-
dish literary monthly edited by Max Tabak, was published
from 1932 to 1935. Between the two world wars there were 55
synagogues and prayerhouses in Stanislav (including one of

the Sadagura Hasidim).

[Arthur Cygielman]

Holocaust Period

The number of Jews in Stanislav had increased to approxi-
mately 30,000 in 1939. The Soviets occupied Stanislav on Sept.
18, 1939, and immediately prohibited the activities of the vari-
ous Jewish organizations. However, for a while, Zionist youth
organizations continued to function underground. Public
trials against Jewish merchants were staged, and Zionist and
other leaders were imprisoned.

When the German-Soviet War broke out in June 1941,
the town was occupied by the Hungarian army, and soon the
Ukrainians carried out acts of murder, robbery, and degrada-
tion against the local Jews. At the same time over 1,000 Hun-
garian Jews were brought into the city. When the town came
under direct German administration (July 26, 1941), a Juden-
rat was appointed, headed by Israel Zeiwald. The first victims
of the German extermination policy were 1,000 Jews of the
local intelligentsia who were massacred in a nearby forest. In
the largest and most ruthless Aktion, on Oct. 12, 1941, over
10,000 Jews were put to death at the local Jewish cemetery.
Two months later the ghetto was established. Starvation and
epidemics claimed further victims. On March 31, 1942, all
the refugees from Hungary as well as 5,000 local Jews were
dispatched to *Belzec extermination camp. On the basis of a
rumor spread in August 1942 that a young Jew had struck a
Ukrainian policeman, the Germans asked Mordecai Gold-
stein, then chairman of the Judenrat, to deliver 1,000 Jews to
the Nazis. When he refused, he was hanged together with all

the other members of the Judenrat; and over 1,000 Jews were
murdered. On the first day of Rosh Ha-Shanah 1942, German
soldiers broke into the ghetto, rounded up some 5,000 Jews,
and sent them to Belzec. Many others were killed on the spot.
There were further round-ups and in one of them the Germans
shot about 1,000 Jews caught without labor permits (Jan. 26,
1943). The murder of the remainder of the community took
place on Feb. 22, 1943, at the local Jewish cemetery. During the
last stages of the liquidation of the Jewish community of Stan-
islav, several groups of young Jews organized themselves into
partisan units. One group was headed by Oskar Friedlender
of Buchach, and in another, a young woman engineer, Anda
Luft, was known for outstanding partisan activities.

Some 1,500 Jews from Stanislav, some of whom had es-
caped prior to the Nazi occupation, survived in various parts
of the world. In the city itself the Jewish community was not
reestablished after the war. Organizations of Jews from Stan-
islav function in Israel and in the United States.

In later years, the renewed Jewish community in Ivanov-

Frankovsk established a synagogue, a Jewish day school, and a

community center. In 2003 the Jewish community opened an

exhibition entitled "Jewish Stanislav." Dedicated to the history

and development of the Jewish community in Stanislav, the

exhibition depicts the history of the local community and

synagogue. A new Holocaust memorial was erected near the

city.

[Aharon Weiss / Ruth BelofF (2 nd ed.)]

bibliography: D. Sadan and M. Gelehrter (eds.), Sefer
Stanislav (Arim ve-Immahot be-Yisrael, vol. 5, 1952); E. Weitz, Al
Horvotayikh Stanislavov (1947); L. Streit, Dzieje Wielkiej Miejskiej
Synagogi w Stanislawowie (1936); A. Szartowski, Stanislawl i powiat
Stanislawowski pod wzgllem historycznym (1887); S. Barcaz, Pamitki
miasta Stanislawowa (1858); Leibesmann, in: Yad Vashem Bulletin, 14
(1964), 64-66; H. Jonas, in: Chwila (Sept. 17, 1933).

STANISLAVSKY, SIMON JUDAH (1849-1921), author and
scholar. Born in Nikopol, S. Russia, Stanislavsky received a tra-
ditional education, and influenced by I. *Orshanski, entered
a Russian gymnasium at the age of 23.

His first contribution to the Hebrew press dealt with
problems of education, especially for girls. Later he wrote
studies on the history of Russian Jewry as well as mono-
graphs on Isaac Erter, Abraham Abba Glusk, the Maggid of
Dubno (Jacob *Kranz), Mendel *Lefin, Israel *Zamosc, and
others. Most of his works were published in the Russian-Jew-
ish press, mainly in Yevreyskaya Biblioteka and Voskhod. He
also contributed to Hebrew periodicals, such as Ha-Shiloah
and Reshummot. Stanislavsky was one of the first maskilim in
Yekaterinoslav (^Dnepropetrovsk) where he resided, contrib-
uting many reports on the activities of his community to the
Hebrew and Russian- Jewish press.

bibliography: SJ. Stanislavsky; Autobiografiya, in: N. So-

kolow (ed.), Sefer Zikkar on (1889); Haaretz (Sept. 9, 1921); S. Levin,

Mi-Zikhronot Hayyai, 3 (1939), 215; Y.L. Baruch, in: Hed Lita (1924),

no. 23, 13-14.

[Yehuda Slutsky]

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

163

STAR, DARREN

STAR, DARREN (1961- ), U.S. television writer and pro-
ducer. Star was born in the Washington, d.c, suburb of Po-
tomac, Md., the eldest son of an orthodontist father and
freelance -writer mother. As a child, he was obsessed with Hol-
lywood. By age 15, he had a subscription to the trade publica-
tion Variety, and, while in high school, he took screenwriting
classes at American University. After graduating college from
ucla, Star worked odd jobs to support his writing career, and
at age 24 sold his first screenplay, Doin Time on Planet Earthy a
sci-fi movie for teens (starring Adam West of tvs Batman). In
1990, Fox paired Star with famed tv producer Aaron *Spell-
ing (Charlies Angels, Dynasty) to write the pilot for a dramatic
series set in high school, and Beverly Hills, 90201 (1990-2000)
was born. It was an enormous hit, which spawned another Fox
series, Melrose Place (1992-99), based on an apartment com-
plex in Los Angeles where Star once lived. Star's first solo ven-
ture, Central Park West (1995), lasted only 17 episodes. How-
ever he followed this with the hbo cable hit, Sex & the City
(1998-2004), a racy comedy about a New York sex columnist
(Sarah Jessica *Parker) and her three best friends (Cynthia
Nixon, Kim Cattrell, and Kristen Davis), which was ground-
breaking in its depiction of stylish contemporary women and
their relationships. It was a critical hit with many nominations
and awards, including winning Golden Globes for Best Com-
edy Series (2000, 2001, 2002) and the Emmy for Outstanding
Comedy Series (2001). Star continued to create new shows,
including Miss Match (2003) starring Alicia Silverstone, and

Kitchen Confidential (2005).

[Amy Handelsman (2 nd ed.)]

STARA Z AGORA, city in central Bulgaria. It seems that ref-
ugees from Spain established a community in Stara (Old) Za-
gora. In 1858 there is a mention of the Jewish quarter. The Rus-
sians, who conquered the town in 1877, looted the houses of
the Jews and the synagogues; some of the Jews lost their lives.
In 1884 an Alliance Israelite Universelle school was opened.
In 1885 there were 332 Jews in the town and in 1893, 480. The
Jews engaged in the export of grain. In 1943 there were 560
Jews in the city. After the establishment of the State of Israel,
most of the Jews of Stara Zagora immigrated there together
with other Bulgarian Jews. In 2004 there were 110 Jews in the
city, affiliated to the local branch of the nationwide Shalom
organization. For further information on the Holocaust Pe-
riod, see ^Bulgaria.

bibliography: S. Mezan, Les Juifs Espagnols en Bulgarie
(1925), 53, 77; Rosanes, Togarmah, 6 (1945), 125-8.

[Simon Marcus / Emil Kalo (2 nd ed.)]

STARER, ROBERT (1924-2001), U.S. composer of Austrian
birth. Starer was born in Vienna, where he studied from the
age of 13 at the State Academy of Music. After the Anschluss
he settled in Jerusalem and continued his studies at the con-
servatory with Josef *Tal, Solomon * Rosowsky, and Oedeon
* Partos. After serving with the British Royal Air Force from
1943 to 1946, he went in 1947 to the U.S. on a Juilliard School

of Music postgraduate scholarship, studied with Aaron Co-
pland in Tanglewood in 1948, and joined Juilliard s faculty in
1949, teaching there until 1974. In 1957 he received Ameri-
can citizenship. In 1966 he was appointed professor of music
at Brooklyn College and at the Graduate Center of the City
University of New York, where he taught until 1991 and was
named a Distinguished Professor (1986). Starer was elected a
member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1994)
and awarded the Medal of Honor for Science and Art by the
president of Austria (1995). He received an honorary doctor-
ate from the State University of New York in 1996.

Starer is the author of Rhythmic Training (1969), Basic
Rhythmic Training (1986), and an autobiography, Continuo:
A Life in Music (1987).

Starer wrote a great deal of ballet music, including The
Story of Esther for Anna *Sokolow (first performed i960), The
Dybbuk for Herbert *Ross (Berlin Festival, i960), Samson Ago-
nistes (1961) and Phaedra (1962) for Martha Graham. His op-
eras include The Intruder (1956) and Pantagleize (1973). He also
wrote Kohelet (1952); Sabbath Eve Service (1967) Psalms of Woe
and Joy (1975); Anna Margaritas Will, (1979); Letter to a Com-
poser, (1994), two symphonies (1950, 1951); three piano concer-
tos (1947, 1953, 1972); violin concerto, 1979/80; viola concerto,
1986; cello concerto, 1988; Nishmat Adam for narrator, choir
and orchestra (1990); concerto for two pianos (1996).

Starer was a composer of eloquent style in a post-Bergian
atonal idiom. His works reflect his encounter in Palestine with
Arabic scales and rhythms, and his affinity to jazz he learned
in the U.S. He absorbed some influences of the 1960s avant-
garde and turned them into vehicles of his penchant for dra-
matic processes.

bibliography: Grove Music Online.

[Yuval Shaked (2 nd ed.)]

STARK, ALBERT ("Dolly"; 1897-1968), U.S. baseball umpire,
radio announcer, and college basketball and baseball coach.
Stark was born on the Lower East Side. His father died when
he was a youngster, and his mother became blind, leading to
a poverty-stricken childhood and forcing Stark to earn money
as a pushcart peddler. Stark played for Jersey City and Newark
in the International League, before failing in his tryout with
the Washington Nationals for his lack of hitting. Stark umpired
college baseball for a few years and then began officiating in
the Eastern League in 1927. On February 3, 1928, he was ap-
pointed an umpire in the National League. He became one of
the most celebrated and popular umpires in baseball from 1927
until 1940, so much so that on August 24, 1935, Stark was given
a "day" at the Polo Grounds and presented with an automobile
before the scheduled game, an event virtually unheard of for
umpires. In 1934 and 1935 he was voted the most popular um-
pire in a players poll. In 1936 Stark became the first umpire in
history to hold out for more money, sitting out the season and
working as a radio announcer in Philadelphia. He returned
the following year, retired in 1939, came back in 1942, and then
retired for good. In the off-seasons Stark coached basketball

164

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 19

STAROBINSKI, JEAN

at Dartmouth College, as head coach of the freshman team
from 1925 to 1928 and coach of the varsity from 1929 to 1936
and 1945-46, finishing with a 102-59 record. After his career,
Stark became a successful designer of women's clothes, known
for the originality of his "Dolly Stark" dress.

[Elli Wohlgelernter (2 nd ed.)]

STARK, EDWARD (1863-1918), U.S. hazzan and composer.
Stark was the son of a hazzan and became hazzan of Temple
Emanu-El in San Francisco in 1893 and remained there for
20 years. He was one of the most influential musicians in the
service of the American Reform Synagogue. His compositions
evince the influence of *Sulzer and *Lewandowski and the
style of the classical oratorio, but are based for the most part
on traditional Jewish thematic material. He insisted on the use
of the hazzan as soloist, thus reversing previous trends in the
Reform synagogue. Under the title Anim Zemiroth, he pub-
lished compositions for the Sabbath and the High Holidays
(1909-13). In Day of God (1898) he arranged the *Kol Nidrei
melody for soprano solo, choir, and small orchestra.

STARK, LOUIS (1888-1954), U.S. journalist. Stark, a lead-
ing labor reporter for almost 20 years, worked on The New
York Times from 1917 until his death. He wrote firsthand ac-
counts of fights in the Kentucky coalfields, sit-down strikes,
and lockouts, and among the awards he won for his report-
ing was the Pulitzer Prize (1942). From 1931 to 1951 Stark was
in Washington covering the White House. He then returned
to New York to join the Times editorial board.

STARKENSTEIN, EMIL (1884-1942), pharmacologist. Born
in * Pobezovice, Bohemia, Starkenstein was professor of phar-
macology at the Prague German University from 1920 until
1938. Initially he studied purines, inosite, and metabolism of
purines. Later he investigated the metabolism of inorganic
substances and the effect of compound drugs in the treat-
ment of pain. His study of seasickness led him to develop an
effective counteracting drug. Starkenstein endeavored to fur-
ther collaboration between the Czech and the German uni-
versities of Prague. He resigned at the time of the Sudeten
crisis (1938) and moved to the Netherlands in 1939, where he
concentrated on research into quinine. He was arrested after
the Nazi occupation and killed in the concentration camp of
Mauthausen. Starkenstein had a keen interest in the history of
pharmacology and of Bohemian Jewry, and published articles
on the history of his family (he was a descendant of Eleazar
*Loew) and on his native community (see bibliography there).
Starkenstein took a leading part in the activities of the terri-
torial lodge of * B'nai B'rith in Czechoslovakia.

He published more than 300 articles. His books include
Der Einfluss experimentell-pharmakologischer Forschung auf
Erkennung und Verhuetung pharmakotherapeutischer Irrtu-
emer (1923); Pharmakologie der Entzuendung (1929); and in
collaboration with J. Pohl and E.E. Rost: Lehrbuch der Toxi-
kologie (1929).

bibliography: M. MatouSek and J. Kok, in: Arzneimittelfor-
schung- Drug Research, 14 (1964), 1367-68 (bibl. of articles published
in 1939-42 on p. 1368); S.R. Kagan, Jewish Medicine (1952), 219-20;
Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Aerzte, 2 (1993); S. Her-
mann, in: hj, 8 (1946), 104.

[Suessmann Muntner]

°STARKEY, JOHN LLEWELYN (1895-1938), British archae-
ologist. After World War 1, he excavated with *Petrie at Qau
and Badari. From 1924 to 1926 he was field director of the Uni-
versity of Michigan expedition to Kom Washim. In 1926 he
joined Petrie's expedition to Palestine, working at Tell Jamma
(1926), Tell Sharuhen (1927), and Tell al- c Ajjul (1929-31). He
directed the Wellcome -Mars ton expedition to Tell *Lachish
from 1932 to 1938. Starkey was a successful field director with
efficient methods. During the 1936-39 riots he was assassi-
nated by Arabs while on his way to Jerusalem for the opening
of the Palestine Archaeological Museum.

[Michael Avi-Yonah]

STAROBINSKI, JEAN (1920- ), Swiss literary critic and au-
thor. The son of a physician, Starobinski was born and edu-
cated in Geneva, where he obtained doctorates in both litera-
ture and medicine. He lectured on French literature at Johns
Hopkins University from 1953 to 1956 and then returned to
Geneva University, where he became professor of French liter-
ature in 1964. He published articles and books on a vast range
of subjects - medicine (Histoire de la Medecine, 1963; A History
of Medicine, 1964); psychoanalysis, psychiatry {VInvention de
la Melancolie, i960); architecture and art (LTnvention de la Lib-
erte, 1964; The Invention of Liberty, 1964); sociology, linguis-
tics, and above all literature, especially that of the 18 th century.
Two works in this last field were Montesquieu par lui-meme
(1953) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau: la Transparence et VObstacle
(1957). In VInvention de la Liberte Starobinski traced the birth
of the concept of freedom in the plastic arts, and in VOeil Vi-
vant (1961) dealt with phenomena such as literary creation
and a comprehensive vision of the world. Sta