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641 641 upon returning

to his country continued with great success his studies at Strasburg and Val-de-Grficc, receiving the highest rewards. In 1821 Begin was appointed instructor of physiology as applied to gymnastics at the military gymnasium of Metz; obtained his doctorate at Strasburg in 1823 and in 1832 was made lecturer to the School of Strasburg, on anatomy, physiology, and surgery. His educa;

tional

Upon

Begging Behalah

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

and

literary activity soon attracted attention. arriving at Paris in 1835 he rapidly gained the

highest degree in the civil and in the military medical service. Begin was a member of the French Medical Academy since its foundation in 1823, and its president in 1847 surgeon-in-chief and first professor at the Hopital de Perfectionnement of Valde-Gr&ce member in 1842, and subsequently president from 1850 to 1857, of the Sanitary Council of the French armies commander of the Order of the





Legion of Honor in 1851; and member of many learned societies French and foreign. An ardent adherent of Broussais, he defended his theories with remarkable talent. Begin's friend, Dupuytren, confided to him and Sauson the publication of the new edition of Sabatier's " Medecine Operatoire " and in his will charged him with the publication of his unfinished " Traite de la Taille." In 1857 Begin retired from the public offices he held. Besides contributions to sanitary and medical periodicals, Begin published the following works: "Principes Generaux de Physiologie Pathologique d'Apres la Doctrine de M. Broussais," Paris, 1821 "Considerations Pathologiques et Therapeutiques

—



sur les Maladies Chirurgicales Aigues," doctorate thesis, Strasburg, 1823; "Application de la Doctrine Physiologique & la Chirurgie," Paris, 1823; "Nouveaux Elements de Chirurgie et de Medecine Operatoire," Paris, 1824, in 2 vols. the 2d ed. in 3 vols, in 1835; "Traite Therapeutique Redige Suivant les Principes de la Nouvelle Doctrine Medicale," 2 vols., Paris, 1825; "Memoire sur la Deviation du Rachis," Paris, 1826; "Traite de Physiologie Pathologique," 2 vols., Paris, 1828; "Memoire sur l'ffisophagotomie," Paris, 1833; "Etudes sur le Service de Sante Militaire en France," Paris, 1849; "Memoire sur la Gymnastique Medicale," Paris, 1823; "Supplement au Traite Historique et Dogmatique de la Taille, de J. Deschamps," 1826; " Memoire sur l'Hemorragie st la Suite de l'Operation de la Taille par la Methode Perineale," etc.,

—

1842; " Quels Sont les Moyens de Rendre, en Temps de Paix, les Loisirs du Soldat Francais Plus Utile a Lui M§me, a l'Etat, et a 1' Armee ? " 1843 " Des Plaies d'Armes a Feu," 1849; "Principales Maladies des Yeux, de Scarpa," 1821.

Bibliography



Julius Fiirst, BiMiotheca Judaica,

i.,

Leipsic,

Dictkmnavre Bioqraphique, Pans, La Grande Encyclopedic; G. Vapereau, Dictwnnaire Universel des Contemporains, Paris, 1858, 18M.

18491875;

Alfred Dantes,

B B

s.

-

-

BEHAIM, MARTIN. See Zacuto, Abraham. BEHAK, JTJDAH Russo-Hebrew writer born



Aug. 5, 1820; died at Kherson Nov. 14, was the last of the champions of progRusso-Hebrew literature, known under the

at Wilna 1900. He ress in

of " Maskilim. " Owing partly to the influence of Elijah of Wilna, and partly to the progressive

name

II.— 41

epoch of Moses Mendelssohn, a circle of pioneers of Jewish culture was formed in Wilna, the leading spirits of which were Behak, M. A. Guenzburg, A. B. Lebensohn, Benjacob, S. I. Fuenn, and others. Its object was the revival of Biblical Hebrew and the diffusion of secular knowledge among the Jewish masses by the cultivation of the Hebrew spirit of the

language and

literature.

Behak entered the literary field at the age of twenty, and engaged mainly in philological research, studying the Aramaic translation of the Bible

and rational exegesis.

tion

by

He

soon attracted atten-

his scholarly articles in the

Hebrew

period-

Pirhe-Zafon " and "Ha-Karmel." When the Rabbinical School was established at Wilna in 1848, icals "

Behak was

invited to occupy the position of instructor in the Talmud of the ad vanced classes. This post he continued to hold until 1856, when he removed to Kherson, where he retired into private life. In commemoration of his eightieth birthday (Aug. 5, 1900), some of the prominent members of the Jewish congregation of Kherson founded, under the name of "Bet-Yehudah," a school in which all subjects

were

to

be taught in Hebrew.

Behak corresponded extensively with most of the Hebrew scholars of the second half of the nineteenth century. Two of his letters (to A. Dobsevage and Palei) 5,

appeared in "Ha-Modia' la-Hadashim, " No. York, 1901.

New

Besides numerous articles in various Hebrew periBehak published notes on the "Biurim Hadashim " to the Pentateuch, to be found in the first volume of the Bible edition published by Lebensohn and Benjacob, Wilna, 1848-53; " 'EzYehudah" (Judah's Tree), a treatise on the prophet Samuel and on the twenty -four places in the Bible where the priests are also called Levites, Wilna, 1848; notes to Ben-Ze'eb's "Talmud Leshon Ibri," Wilna, 1848 and 1857; notes to Solomon Loewisohn's "Mehkere Lashon," Wilna, 1849; "Tosephet Milluim " (Additional Notes), a commentary on the Aramaic translation of the Pentateuch, Wilna, 1898.

odicals,

Bibliography: Voskhod,

1900,

No. 87;

Ha-McUz,

1900, No.

254.

H. R.

BEHALAH (" terror " or " panic ") A name commonly bestowed on several periods of great excitement in Lithuania and Poland, when, for various

reasons,

Jewish parents thought

it

prudent to have

their children married at the earliest possible age. Early marriages were customary in those times, and

therefore those which occurred in the behalahs, being exceptionally early, were contracted for children of very tender age, sometimes not more than seven or eight years, in order to save them from some supposedly impending danger. There is reason to believe that there was a Behalah as early as 1754

(Ephraim Solomon Margoliot, " Bet Ephraim, " part "Ebenha-'Ezer," No. 41, Lemberg, 1818); but the first about which there is positive information ocIt is described by Ezekiel Feivel of Dretschin, in his "Toledot Adam" (1st ed., Dyhernfurth, 1801, 11a), in the name of R. Hayyim of Volozhin, who describeshow.in that year, terror was spread among the Jews of Lithuania by a report that Jewish girls were to be prohibited from marrying before

curred in 1764.