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lated by Ibn Daud in bis "Sefer ha-Kabbalah" <"Med. Jewish Chronicles," i. 67, line 24), connects Bari with the four teachers who in 960 set out from that port for the purpose either of providing dowries for brides, or, as Graetz thinks, of seeking aid

for the languishing schools in Babylonia. On their way to Sebaste, their ship is said to have been captured by the Moorish admiral Ibn Rumahis, and the teachers were sold into slavery (see the references in

"Migdal Hananel," p. 28, and Graetz, "Plist. of the Jews," Hebr. tr., iii. 478). It is quite uncertain if these teachers came from Babylon, as is usually held {see, even.Halberstamm, in "Jewish Quart. Rev." vi. 596). They may have been Italians from Bari itself {Weiss, "Dor," iv. 265; Schechter, in "Jewish Quarterly Review," xi. 645), as the extant manuscripts of the " Sefer ha-Kabbalah " say simply, " four renowned scholars from the city of Bari." Nothing further is known of the fortunes of the Jews in this place Benjamin of Tudela does not •even speak of it in his travels. Mention is made of a Moses Khalfo of Bari in 1025 (Carmoly, in " Revue Orientale," ii. 116) and of a physician and copyist, Isaac ben Solomon, whose family name was "del Bari," in the middle of the fifteenth century (Carmoly, ib. i. 435, ii. 108; idem, " Notice Histor. sur Benj. de Tudele," p. 14). According to Porges, the manual for the reader of the Law, called n""1in tOlpil, was brought from Jerusalem to Bari (" Revue Etudes Juives," xxiii. 310; "Jewish Quart. Rev."

iv. 613).

Bibliography

For the Chronicle ol Ahimaaz, see the ed. of cited above ; on the Yalkut and Pesihta passages, Israel LeVi, in Revue Etudes Juives, xxxii. 378 et sea,.; Bacher, ib. xxxiii. 40; Krauss, in MonaUschrift, xli. 554 et seq.; Bacher, ib. pp. 604 et seg.; and Israel Levi, in Revue Etudes Juives, xxxv. 338. Compare, also, Neubauer, The Early Settlement of the Jev>s in Southern Italy, in Jewish Quart. Rev. iv. 606 et seq.; see Ahimaaz ben Paltiel.

Neubauer

G.

j.

BAR.IS.

See Antokia.

BARIT, JACOB (sometimes called Jankele Kovner): Russian Talmudist and communal worker bora at Simno, government of Suwalki, Sept. 12, 1797; died at Wilna March 6, 1883. He parents early at the age of fourteen came to the lost his

in

life,

and

city of Kovno, where he

studied

Talmud

in the

" bet

ha-midrash " of the suburb Slobodka. At the age of eighteen he married the daughter of a wealthy relative, and with the financial assistance of that

relative continued his

Talmudic studies Jacob Barit.

for

another six years, when his wife died and he There he entered the bet ha-

removed to Wilna. midrash of Rabbi Hayyim Nahman Parnes, at the same time studying modern languages and sciences and he soon acquired a fair knowledge of Russian, Like German, French, algebra, and astronomy.

many

Bari Barit

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

of the Russo-Jewish scholars of that time, he

whisky distillery, and with his and energy made quite a success of it. But unfortunately, private distilleries in cities were prohibited by the Russian government by the law of 1845, and as a consequence Barit was financially started a business, a versatility

ruined.

When

Sir

Moses Montefiore

visited

Wilna

in 1846,

he spent considerable time in Barit 's house, and wT as guided by his advice as to the form of the petition to Emperor Nicholas I. in behalf of the oppressed Russian Jews. In 1850, when Hayyim Parnes established a " yeshibah " (college) for the education of rabbis, Barit was appointed principal ("rosh-yeshibah "), which position he held for twenty-five years, until sickness forced him to resign. About twenty-five learned Talmudic students attended his lectures daily, and many of the eminent Russian rabbis and scholars were graduates of his yeshibah. He was much

admired for the logical and shrewd style of his lectures, which differed much from the scholastic and sophistic style of the Polish Talmudists of his time. While he refused to hold the office of a rabbi, he was

many years one of the "dayyanim" (judges) of the Wilna community. But his chief merit, in addition to his work in these two posts, was his valuable services rendered to the Jews of Wilna and to those of all His Russia in representing their interests Authority before the Russian government. From as 1849, when he was chosen as a delegate Delegate, by the Jewish community of Wilna, he was always the representative speaker In 1852 in behalf of that important community. he was one of the delegates from Wilna to petition the czar Nicholas I. in regard to the oppressive con scription duties of the Jews by the ukases of Jan. 8 1852 ("Second Complete Russian Code," xxv., No 24, 768) and of Aug. 16, 1852 (ib. xxvii., No. 26, 502) Barit was a man of great tact and political wisdom a, pleasant and impressive speaker and conversation alist. In 1855, when a project was laid before the government to appoint chief rabbis in the capitals of the various governments of Russia, Vladimir I vanovich Nazimov, then governor- general of Wilna, recommended Barit to be chief rabbi of the government of Wilna. In 1857, when the Rabbinical Committee—which was established by the law of May 26, 1848, to be attached to the Ministry of the Interior, to sit upon questions involving the Jewish religion, but had rarely been called together was again summoned to St. Petersburg, by the edict of May 25, Barit was appointed as one of the members, and during the whole session of six months acted as its chairman. He acted in the same capacity at the for

—

Rabbinical Conference of 1861, which lasted about In both of these assemblies Barit five months. bravely defended the honor of his coreligionists against the calumnies of their enemies, and his arguments, coming from the heart, found their way into the hearts of the authorities—the judges of the Jewish question. In 1862 he was one of the delegates that were elected by the Jewish communities to congratulate Emperor Alexander II. at the one thousandth anniversary of the foundation of the

Russian empire.

In 1871,

when Governor- General