BEREA – Place where Bacchides encamped (I Macc. ix. 4). From the context it would seem to be near Jerusalem, though some scholars have identified it on unsatisfactory evidence with Beeroth (Josh. ix. 17; I Esd. v. 19).J. Jr. G. B....
BEREBI – Title of learning in the period of the Tannaim, conferred especially upon scholars who were the sons of scholars, or upon members of the family of the patriarch. The explanation of the word as a compound of ("house") and...
BERECHIAH I., R. – A Palestinian scholar of the second amoraic generation (third century), always cited without the accompaniment of patronymic or cognomen. Once only (Lev. R. i. 4) is he quoted as Berechiah Saba (the Elder), by R. Abin III., the...
BERECHIAH II., R. – A Palestinian amora, of the fourth century. In the Talmud he is invariably cited by his prænomen alone; but in the Midrashim he is frequently cited with the addition of "ha-Kohen," and sometimes with the further addition of the...
BERECHIAH BERAK B. ELIAKIM GOETZEL – A grandson of Berechiah b. Isaac; rabbi and preacher of Klementow, Poland, and Jaworow, Galicia; lived toward the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth. He was a very sincere preacher and suffered...
BERECHIAH BERAK B. ISAAC EISIK – Galician preacher; died in 1664 at Constantinople. He was educated by Nathan Shapira, rabbi of Cracow, and was appointed preacher of that city, where he spent most of his life. He ultimately left for Jerusalem, but died at...
BERECHIAH BEN ISAAC GERUNDI – Payyeṭan; lived in the twelfth century, probably at Lunel. Although he wrote nothing on the Halakah, his brother Zerahiah Gerundi, in his "Sefer ha-Maor," cites him as an authority on the treatise Giṭṭin (to 15b). Berechiah's...
BERECHIAH BEN NATRONAIKRESPIA HA-NAḲDAN – Fabulist, exegete, ethical writer, grammarian, and translator; probably identical with Benedictus le Puncteur, an English Jewmentioned as contributing at Oxford to a donum to Richard I., in 1194. Much discussion has taken place...
BERECHIAH DE NICOLE – English Tosafist; died after 1256. He was of the well-known Hagin family, and son of Rabbi Moses ben Yom-Ṭob of London. He was the rab or chief rabbi of Lincoln (the Norman-French name of which was "Nicole"), and probably lived...
BERED – 1. A son of Ephraim (I Chron. vii. 20). In the genealogy of Num. xxvi. 35 his place is taken by Becher. It may be that Bered and Becher are the same. See Becher.2. A place given in the story of Hagar (Gen. xvi. 14). Beer Laḥai...
BEREK, JOSELOVICH – Polish colonel under Kosciusko and Napoleon I.; born at Kretingen, government of Kovno, Russia, in the second half of the eighteenth century; killed in the battle near Kotzk, government of Syedletz, Russian Poland, 1809. He was...
BERENDSON, MARTIN – German publisher; born at Hamburg in 1824; died June 24, 1899. He was the head of the well-known bookselling and publishing firm of his native city, "Gebrüder Berendson." Berendson devoted much of his leisure to Jewish communal...
BERENDT, GOTTLIEB MICHAEL – German geologist; born in Berlin Jan. 4, 1836. He studied the science of mining; and in his work, "Die Diluvialablagerungen der Mark Brandenburg, Insbesondere der Umgebung von Potsdam," Berlin, 1863, gave the first geological...
BERENGER OF NARBONNE – Viscount of Narbonne in the eleventh century. In the midst of the important wars of that century waged for the assertion of their temporal power, the popes still found time to protect the Jews. Alexander II. was their...
BERENICE – City of the Cyrenaic Pentapolis, at the eastern extremity of the great Syrtis, near the river Lathon. The settlement of the Jews in Berenice, as in the other towns of the Greek colony "Cyrenaica," dates from Ptolemy I. Although...
BERENICE – Daughter of Costobar and Salome, sister of Herod I. Her marriage with her cousin Aristobulus was unhappy. The husband, being proud of his Maccabean descent by his mother, Mariamne, taunted his wife with her low birth. Berenice...
BERENICE – Her Marriages. Daughter of Herod Agrippa I. and of Cypros, the daughter of Phasael; born in 28. She was first married to Marcus, son of the alabarch Alexander of Alexandria. Her husband dying within a short time, her father...
BERENSON, BERNHARD – Art critic and historian; born at Wilna, Russia, June 26, 1865. He was educated in America, and in 1887 was graduated at Harvard. For some time Berenson has been in Italy investigating Italian art, and he is regarded as one of...
BERENSTEIN, ISSACHAR BAER B. SAMUEL – Dutch rabbi; born in Leeuwarden, Holland, 1808; died in The Hague Dec. 13, 1893. He was the son of Rabbi Samuel b. Berish Berenstein, chief rabbi of Amsterdam, and was a dayyan of that town at the time of his father's death in...
BERENSTEIN, SAMUEL BEN BERISH – Dutch rabbi; born in Hanover about 1767; died in Amsterdam Dec. 21, 1838. He was the descendant of a long line of distinguished rabbis, his father and his grandfather, R. Aryeh Loeb—who was the son of Rabbi Jacob Joshua of...
BERERAH – Its Concept. —In Talmudic Law: The concept "Bererah," known to the later Babylonian Amoraim, is a development of the law of joint property, and, just as in Roman law, this branch of the law presents very great difficulties....
BERESHIT – See Genesis.
BERESHIT RABBAH – Expository Midrash to the first book of the Pentateuch, assigned by tradition to the amora Hoshaiah, commonly Osha'yah, who flourished in the third century in Palestine. The Midrash forms a haggadic commentary on the whole of...
BEREZA – Town in the district of Pruszhany, government of Grodno, Russia; situated on the river Jazelda, on the road between Brest-Litovsk and Bobruisk. The Jewish population in 1890 was 850, out of a total of 2,625.Jews first settled in...
BEREZINO – Village of Russia, in the government of Minsk, having a population (1898) of 1,900, almost exclusively Jews (1,824). About 25 per cent of them are artisans and laborers, chiefly loaders. Twenty-four Jewish families are engaged...