BAHIR – Authorship Erroneously Ascribed. Pseudonymous work attributed to the tanna Neḥunya ben ha-Ḳanah, a contemporary of Johanan ben Zaḳḳai (first century) because it begins with the words, "R. Neḥunya ben ha-Ḳanah said" ( ). No...
BAHRAM GOR – See Persia.
BAHRAM TSHUBIN – Persian general; king of Persia from June 27, 590, to June 26, 591. Hormiz IV. (578-590), through his cruelty, brought the empire to the brink of destruction. His subjects were dissatisfied; and the political enemies of Persia...
BAḤTAWI, ABU YA'AḲUB JOSEPH, THE BABYLONIAN – Karaite scholar; flourished in the ninth century. He was called "the teacher of the diaspora," and esteemed for his brilliant intellect. None of his works has survived; but many of them are known by quotations made by Karaite...
BAḤUR – A youth," particularly a student of the Talmud among the Ashkenazic Jews; called also "yeshibah baḥur" (academy youth), and in Yiddish, "orem boḥer" (poor young man). In Biblical Hebrew the word signifies an adult but unmarried...
BAḤUR, ELIJAH – See Levita, Elijah.
BAHURIM – A locality in Benjamin to which Phaltiel accompanied his wife Michal from Gallim, when she was being conducted to David at Hebron(II Sam. iii. 16). After David, in his flight from Absalom, had passed over Mt. Olivet, he came to...
BAḤYA (BEḤAI) BEN ASHER BEN HALAWA – Introduces Cabala into Bible Exegesis. One of the most distinguished of the Biblical exegetes of Spain; born about the middle of the thirteenth century at Saragossa; died 1340. A pupil of Solomon ben Adret, Baḥya did not, like...
BAHYA BEN JOSEPH IBN PAḲUDA – System of Ethics. Dayyan and philosopher; flourished at Saragossa, Spain, in the first half of the eleventh century. He was the author of the first Jewish system of ethics, written in Arabic in 1040 under the title "Al Hidayah...
BAIERSDORF – Small city in Bavaria, near Erlangen, once the summer abode of the margraves of Kulmbach-Bayreuth. Little is known concerning the history of the Jews there. It is certain that in thefourteenth century a Jewish community had been...
BAIERSDORF, SAMSON BEN MANASSE – Court Jew of the margrave Christian Ernst of Brandenburg-Bayreuth; died in 1712. He was highly esteemed at the court of the margrave, at the same time using his influence for the good of his coreligionists. It was chiefly...
BAIGNEUX-LES-JUIFS – Capital of a canton, arrondissement of Chatillon-sur-Seine, Côte d'Or, France. As the name indicates, there were Jewish inhabitants in this place during the Middle Ages. A secret inquiry was made between 1306 and 1308 into the...
BAIL – In English and American law, the obligation of sureties in a sum named, that the person under arrest in a civil or criminal cause will, if set at large, deliver himself up to stand trial and submit to judgment. Such obligation...
BAILLY, JEAN-SYLVAIN – Astronomer and publicist; born in Paris Sept. 15, 1736; guillotined Nov. 12, 1793. He was elected a member of the Académie des Sciences in 1763 and of the Académie Française in 1784. In 1789 he was elected by the citizens of...
BAILMENTS – Delivery of personal property for the purpose of a trust. A bailment arises when one person (the bailee) is lawfully put in the possession of goods belonging to another (the bailor) with the understanding that he will return...
BAIRAMCHE – See Bessarabia.
BAJA – City on the Danube, in the county of Bács-Bodrog, Hungary. As early as the end of the eighteenth century, Baja, owing to its favorable location, was a bustling commercial town. The first Jewish families probably settled there...
BAJAZET II. – Turkish sultan; born 1447; succeeded in 1481; died 1512. During his reign the Jews enjoyed a period of complete and uninterrupted peace, which was reflected in the flourishing condition of Jewish culture and letters. Under...
BAK – A family of Hebrew printers in Italy and Prague, who exercised their craft for two centuries. The name is said to be an abbreviation of "Bene Ḳedoshim" (Children of the Holy), an assumption, however, which is somewhat...
BAKBUK, SONS OF – A family of Nethinim that returned with Zerubbabel (see Ezra ii. 51 and the corresponding list of Neh. vii. 53). The identification of these with "the sons of Acub" mentioned in I Esd. v. 31 (compare Ezra ii. 45) is doubtful.J....
BAKBUKIAH – A Levite who returned with Zerubbabel (Neh. xii. 9); "second among his brethren" (Neh. xi. 17). He was one of those that lived in Jerusalem, and was a porter of the storehouse at the gate (Neh. xii. 25). G. B. L.J. Jr....
BAKER – Among the Hebrews the task of preparing the daily supply of fresh bread fell to the housewife. It was only in the larger cities that professional bakers were found, and, even in these, not at a very early date. Bakers and baking...
BAKEWELL HALL – A large building in the neighborhood of the Guildhall, London, on the site now occupied by Gresham College. In a document at the British Museum (Add. MS. 4542, f. 37), a synagogue of the Jews is described as being on the same...
BAKHCHI-SARAI – Former residence of the Tatar khans (fifteenth century to 1783); now a town in the government of Taurida (Crimea), Russia, situated on the rivulet Churuksu, nearly midway between Simferopol and Sebastopol. In a total population...
BAKHMUT – City in the government of Yekaterinoslav, Russia. It has 4,000 Jews in a population of 19,000. The district of Bakhmut, including the city, has a Jewish population of 9,469 in a total of 332,171. Until 1882, the Jews of the...