BLAU, LUDWIG – Hungarian scholar and publicist; born April 29, 1861, at Putnok, Hungary; educated at three different yeshibot, among them that of Presburg, and at the Landesrabbinerschule in Budapest (1880-88); studied philosophy and...
BLAUSTEIN, DAVID – Educator; born May 5, 1866, at Lida, near Wilna, Russia. He received his first education in Hebrew in the ḥeder and yeshibah of his native town; went at the age of eighteen to Prussia, where he studied Hebrew and rabbinical...
BLAUSTEIN, OZER – Russian teacher, and writer in Russian and Judæo-German; born at Dünaburg in 1840; died in Warsaw April 27, 1899. His Russian grammar was recommended for Jewish public schools by the Ministry of Public Instruction. He is the...
BLAYNEY, BENJAMIN – English divine and Hebraist; born 1728; died Sept. 20, 1801. He was educated at Oxford, took the master's degree in 1735, and became fellow and vice-principal of Hertford College in 1768. He was employed by the Clarendon Press...
BLAZON – See Coat of Arms.
BLEEDING – In accordance with the pathology of its epoch, the Talmud declares, "At the head of the list of human ailments stands plethora (B. B. 58b). The Rabbis say elsewhere (Bek. 44b), "Where there is an abundance of blood, there is...
BLEEK, FRIEDRICH – Christian theologian; born July 4, 1793, at Ahrensböck, Holstein; died at Bonn in 1859. After a preparatory course at the gymnasium of Lübeck and two years of philosophical study at Kiel, he entered the University of Berlin,...
BLEIBTREU, PHILIP JOHANN – Jewish convert to Christianity; born at Frankfort-on-the-Main in the middle of the seventeenth century; died there in 1702. He published a German work entitled "Meïr Naor" (The Enlightened Meïr, from his Jewish name, Meïr),...
BLEICHRÖDER, GERSON, BARON VON – German banker; born Dec. 22, 1822; died Feb. 19, 1893, in Berlin. At the age of sixteen he entered the banking firm founded by his father, and on the death of the latter, in 1855, assumed its management. It was due to his large...
BLEMISH – Blemishes Disqualify for Sacrifice. The Hebrew term for "blemish" ( or ) seems to have originally meant a "black spot" (compare Gesenius-Buhl, "Handwörterbuch," s.v.). It denotes anything abnormal or deviating from a given...
BLES, DAVID S. – Communal worker at Manchester; born at The Hague, Holland, in 1834; died at Vienna on Oct. 14, 1899. He was senior partner in the firm of Messrs. S. D. Bles & Sons, merchants and shippers of Manchester; from which firm he...
BLESSING OF CHILDREN – Among the Ancient Hebrews. In the domestic life of the ancient Hebrews the mutual respect existing between parents and children was a marked feature. While prominent among other Semitic peoples (Smith, "Rel. of Sem." p. 60), it...
BLESSING AND CURSING – Efficacy of Blessing and Cursing. The Hebrew verb for "bless" is "berek" ( ). Since in Assyrian and Minæan the corresponding verb appears to be "karabu," it is not likely that the Hebrew is connected with its homonym "berek" (...
BLESSING, JACOB'S – See Jacob, Blessing of.
BLESSING, MOSES' – See Moses, Blessing of.
BLESSING, PRIESTLY – One of the most impressive and characteristic features of the service both in the Temple of Jerusalem and in the synagogue, having its origin in the blessing pronounced by the Aaronites in accordance with the command and the...
BLIN D'ELBŒUF – French manufacturer who introduced into France woolen cloth for ladies' use. It was soon considered the best in Europe, and obtained the prize at the Vienna Exhibition of 1870. Blin in presenting a sample of his cloth to...
BLIND, THE, IN LAW AND LITERATURE – The ancient nations regarded blindness as the lowest degradation that could be inflicted upon man; hence gouging out the eyes of an enemy was a form of national retaliation. The Philistines bored out the eyes of Samson, and the...
BLIND-COHEN, FERDINAND – German student who made an attempt on the life of Prince Bismarck May 7, 1866, and on the following day committed suicide in prison. He was a stepson of the well-known radical Karl Blind, whose name he assumed. Blind-Cohen left...
BLINDNESS – Statistics, wherever obtainable, show that the proportion of blindness is greater among modern Jews than among their non-Jewish neighbors. Thus, according to Dr. Georg Mayr ("Die Verbreitung der Blindheit, der Taubstummen, des...
BLIOCH (BLOCH), IVAN STANISLAVOVICH – Receives Public Recognition. Russo-Polish financier, economist, and railway contractor; distinguished as an advocate of universal peace; born at Radom, Poland, July 24, 1836; died at Warsaw Dec. 25, 1901. He attended the...
BLITZ, JEKUTHIEL BEN ISAAC – Corrector of the press in the Hebrew printing-office of Uri Phoebus at Amsterdam; lived there in the second half of the seventeenth century. He translated the Bible into Judæo-German (Amsterdam, 1679). The translation, which was...
BLOCH, ANDRÉ – French musician; son of a rabbi at Wissembourg, Alsace; born in that city in 1873. At the age of seven Bloch began to compose music, writing a waltz for the piano, for four hands, which pleased a publisher so much that he...
BLOCH [ISSACHAR] BAER B. SAMSON ḤASID – Austrian rabbi of the eighteenth century; a native of Hamburg, and son of the author of the Tosafot Ḥadashim on the Mishnah. Bloch was rabbi of Eiwanowitz, Moravia, when, in 1767, he was called to the rabbinate of Kojetein, in...
BLOCH, BIANCA – German authoress; born at Lauban, Silesia, Jan. 19, 1848, where her father was attendant at a local court. Owing to the reduced circumstances of the family, she was restricted to merely a rudimentary education, but subsequently...