BACHRACH, JUDAH B. JOSHUA HESKIEL – Rabbi and Talmudist; born in Lithuania about 1775; died at Seiny, government of Suwalki, April 25, 1846. He was a lineal descendant in the seventh generation of Tobias Bachrach, who, together with Israel ben Shalom, was beheaded...
BACHRICH, SIGISMUND – Hungarian violinist and operatic composer; born at Zsambokrét, Hungary, Jan. 23, 1841. He began the study of the violin with Böhm at the Vienna Conservatory in 1851, from which institution he was graduated in 1857. He then...
BACKOFEN, JACOB – See Reischer.
BACON, ROGER – English philosopher and scholar of the thirteenth century; born at Ilchester, England, about 1214; died about 1294. He studied at Oxford and spent some years in Paris, where he obtained the degree of doctor of theology. In 1250...
BADCHEN – See Badḥan.
BADEN – City in Lower Austria. After the expulsion of the Jews from Lower Austria in 1670, none lived in Baden until 1805, when the Jew Isaac Schischa, who had formerly lived in Mattersdorf, Hungary, succeeded in obtaining permission...
BADEN, GRAND DUCHY OF – A state of the German empire, bounded on the north by Bavaria and Hesse; on the east by Bavaria, Württemberg, and Hohenzollern; on the south by Switzerland, and on the west by Alsace-Lorraine and Rhenish Bavaria. Owing to the...
BADGE – Mark placed on the dress of Jews to distinguish them from others. This was made a general order of Christendom at the fourth Lateran Council of 1215. At the instigation of Innocent III., the decision of the Council ordered the...
BADGER, ROCK – See Coney.
BADGER SKINS – See Taḥash.
BADḤAN – A merrymaker, professional jester, whose business it is to entertain the guests at a marriage-feast with drollery, riddles, and anecdotes. Whether they existed in Talmudic times is not certain. Two men are reported to have...
BADIS (Muzaffar Nasir) – Oldest son of King Habus of Granada, whom he succeeded in 1038. In a struggle with the Berbers, who wished to make his younger brother, Bologguin, king, he was supported by the Arabs and by his vizier, Samuel ibn Nagdela. After...
BAECK, SAMUEL – German rabbi; born at Kromau, Moravia, April 1, 1834. His father, Nathan, was rabbi in Kromau; his grandfather, Abraham, rabbi in Holitsch, Hungary. Baeck married the daughter of Abraham Platschek, chief rabbi of Moravia, and...
BAENA, FRANCISCO DE – Spanish poet of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, brother of Juan Alfonso de Baena, and secretary to the governor Diego de Ribera. One of his poems appears in his brother's "Cancionero." Recent investigation points to the...
BAENA, JUAN ALFONSO DE – Spanish troubadour in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; born at Baena, Cordova. He was "escribano escribiente" (notarial secretary) at the court of John II. Under the title "Cancionero del Judino Juan Alfonso de Baena," he...
BAER, BEER, BEHR – Jewish prænomen and family name, derived from the German "Bär" (bear). The Jews of Germany, like those of other countries, borrowed their names from their non-Jewish fellow-citizens; chiefly when equivalents of these names could...
BAER, ABRAHAM – German cantor, musician, and composer; born in Russia Dec. 26, 1834; died at Gothenburg, Sweden, March 7, 1894. His father destined him for the rabbinate; but his love for music and the song of the synagogue caused him to elect...
BAER (ABRAHAM), ADOLF – German physician and medico-forensic author; born in the province of Posen, Prussia, Dec. 26, 1834; educated at the universities of Vienna, Prague, and Berlin. From the last-named institution he received his degree of doctor of...
BAER, ASHER – Russian mathematician and engraver; born at Seiny, government of Suwalk, in the first quarter of the nineteenth century; died at Jerusalem in 1897. He made many important discoveries in mathematics and especially in mechanics,...
BAER, DOB B. SAMUEL – Polish Ḥasidic writer of the end of the eighteenth century. He is the author of "Shibḥei ha-Besht" (Praises of Israel Ba'al Shem-Ṭob), which his son Judah Löb published after his death, in 1815. The book, which is a collection...
BAER, HERMAN – American author; born of Jewish parents at Herxheim, Germany, Jan. 29, 1830; died at Charleston, S. C., Jan. 2, 1901. He emigrated to America when a lad of seventeen, and settled in Charleston, where he obtained employment as...
BAER, ISRAEL – See Ashkenazi, Baermann.
BAER, ISSACHAR B. ELHANAN – Rabbi at Eibenschütz; born at Frankfort-on-the-Oder in the second half of the seventeenth century. He was the author of a collection of cabalistic homilies and commentaries, entitled "Arba' Ḥarashim" (Four Skilful Artificers),...
BAER, ISSACHAR BEN PETHAHIAH BEN MOSES – Cabalist; lived at Kremnitz, Hungary, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. He seems to have traveled in the East and sojourned some time at Safed; and he frequently refers in his writings to the cabalistic school...
BAER, ISSACHAR BEN SOLOMON – Biblical and rabbinical commentator; died at Wilna in 1807. He was the brother of Elijah b. Solomon, the Wilna gaon, and like him was distinguished for simplicity and lucidity in commenting on Biblical and rabbinical topics....