BORODAVKA – Lithuanian farmer of taxes and distillery privileges; lived in the sixteenth century at Brest-Litovsk. He is first mentioned in a grant issued by King Sigismund August, Jan. 1, 1560, to David Shmerlevich of Brest-Litovsk, and...
BOROFSKY, SAMUEL HYMAN – Born at Wolkovyshki, government of Suvalki, Russian Poland, April, 1865. He was educated in the schools of his native place, and afterward in the Jews' Free School at Manchester, England, to which place he had been taken in...
BOROWSKI, ISIDOR – Soldier under Bolivar y Ponte, and, later, a Persian general; born at Warsaw, Poland, 1803; killed at the siege of Herat in1837. This military adventurer in Persia and Afghanistan was a Polish Jew who was reared in the United...
BORROW – See Commerce and Trade.
BORROWER – One who receives, at his own request, the property of another, for free use, upon the agreement that it shall be returned to the owner (Ḳid. 47b). He is distinguished from the borrower of money, the "loweh" ( ), in that the...
BOSHAL (BOSTAL), MOSES BEN SOLOMON DE – Turkish Talmudist and preacher of the seventeenth century. He wrote "Yismaḥ Mosheh" (Moses Rejoices), a homiletic commentary on the Pentateuch (Smyrna, 1675), which is now very rare.Bibliography: Zunz, G. V. p. 445;...
BOSHETH – Used concretely by the Prophets as "the shameful thing" to designate the Baalim and their images. (See Hosea ix. 10 and Jer. iii. 24, xi. 13, where the word is parallel with "the Baal" [compare Jer. iii. 24]). Later usage...
BOSKO, AGRON MACHIMOVITSCH – See Lithuania.
BOSKOVITZ, WOLF – The first rabbi of the congregation of Budapest; died 1818. In 1787 the Jewish community at Pest was sufficiently large to rent a hall where divine services could be held, though all religious questions were at this time still...
BOSKOWITZ – Town in Moravia, about 21 miles to the north of Brünn. It has one of the oldest and most important communities in the province, though in numbers it had dwindled to 1,967 Jewish inhabitants in 1880. Even in early times there was...
BOSKOWITZ, ḤAYYIM BEN JACOB – Palestinian author; lived about the middle of the eighteenth century. He wrote the "Toẓe'ot Ḥayyim"(Life's Issues), a commentary on the Pentateuch (Amsterdam, 1764, printed with the text), which deals chiefly with the moral...
BOSLANSKI, YOM-ṬOB LIPMAN HA-KOHEN – Russian rabbi; born 1824; died in Mir, government of Grodno, Dec. 26, 1892. In his younger days he was rabbi in Khaslavich and other communities; but for the last eighteen years of his life he stood at the head of the Jewish...
BOSNIA – Province of the Balkan peninsula, on the frontier of Austria and of Montenegro. Formerly under Turkish rule, it came under the protection of Austria by the Treaty of Berlin, 1878.According to some historians, the first Jews...
BOSOR – 1. A city of Gilead, which Judas Maccabeus conquered (I Macc. v. 26, 36). It may be identified with the modern "Buṣr el-Bariri" (Buhl, "Geographie des Alten Palästina," p. 253). 2. The Septuagint reading for Besor (I Sam. xxx....
BOSORA – See Bozrah.
BOSPORUS, CIMMERIAN – Name of the ancients for the strait of Yenikale or of Theodosia; on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. The country on both sides of the Cimmerian Bosporus formed in ancient times the kingdom of Bosporus, the latter name being...
BOSTANAI – First exilarch under Arabian rule; flourished about the middle of the seventh century. The name is Aramaized from the Persian "bustan" or "bostan" (as proper name see Justi, "Iranisches Namenbuch," p. 74). Almost the only...
BOSTON – Capital and chief city of the state of Massachusetts in the United States.Nothing definite is known of Jews in Boston prior to 1842. In that year there was established the first congregation, whose founder and first president...
BOTANY – Early Classification. The science that treats of plants. Like grammar and other sciences based on logical thought, scientific botany originated with the Greeks, and from them found its way to the Jews. Agriculture, gardening,...
BOTAREL (BOTERELLO, BOTRIL, BOTRELLI), MOSES – See Moses Botarel.
BOTON – Spanish family, which immigrated to Salonica, Turkey, in 1492, and which has produced many eminent rabbis and Talmudists. Jews bearing the name are still to be found in Constantinople, Salonica, Safed, and other cities of the...
BOTTLE – The Authorized Version (partly after the example of the Vulgate, which uses "lagena," I Sam. x. 3; "laguncula," Lam. iv. 2) introduced the incorrect translation "bottle" for various words that in reality signify "skins for...
BOULÉ – Court of justice, or Sanhedrin; also the seat of the senate (Josephus, "B. J." v. 4, § 2; hence also , βουλευτής = "senator"; Giṭ. 37a; Sem. viii., "the boulés or senates of Judea"). According to Yer. Ned. iii. 2; Shab. iii. 8;...
BOUNDARIES – Limits of a tract of land. When the Hebrew tribes gave up their nomadic life and settled in Palestine in agricultural communities, the most important matter was the fixing of definite boundary-lines to separate the lands of the...
BOURGAS – City of eastern Rumelia (southern Bulgaria) and port on the Black Sea; six hours distant from Constantinople. The Jews of Bourgas came originally from Yambol and Carnabat, the first family settling in 1879. There are a...