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648 Beirut

it came again under Turkish more than twenty-five Jewish families were

Sept. 11, 1840, and rule, not

living there.

The great rabbis of the nineteenth century were Moses Yedid Levi, died about 1811; R. Alfandari, died about 1850; Aaron Moses Yedid The Last Levi, died about 1870; Jacob Buk'ai Century's Oypa), died about 1899; R. Joseph Rabbis. ben Seiior, appointed hakam bashi by an imperial firman, resigned after a year to return to Smyrna, his home. In 1889 the Jews of Beirut numbered 1,500 in a population of 20,000. In 1901, numbering 5, 000 in a population of 180,000, they had for their spiritual leader Moses

Aaron Yedid Levi, and for their official representThey have a ative Hayyim Murad Yusuf Dana. large synagogue and twelve " midrashim " (meeting-

The houses), called generally after their founders. names of the midrashim are as follows: (1) Midrash

Hakam Shem-Tob

(2) Midrash Raphael Stambuli Midrash of the Damascenes; (4) Midrash Diarne (founded by Jews from Dair-el-Kamar, in the Lebanon mountains, who had fought with the Christians against the Druses in 1860 and had been forced with them to leave the mountains. They are renowned for their physical strength and are dyers by trade) (5) Midrash Joseph Picciotto Midrashim (6) Midrash of the Society Misgab and Ladak (7) Midrash of Isaac Mann Modern (8) Midrash Ruben Idrly (HJJ) (9) MidSchools, rash Samhaji; (10) Midrash of the Ashkenazim; (11) Midrash of the Jewish Alliance (12) Midrash Menahem Yedid. The first to o'pen a Jewish school upon modern European methods was Hakam Zaki Cohen. A

(3)









was

by was taken over by the Alliance Israelite Universelle. In 1899 it had 237 pupils. In 1879 a boys' school was founded by the Alliance, school for girls

established in June, 1878,

Emma Rosenzweig, and and

643

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Bekorot

in 1899

had 290

it

training school

pupils.

In 1890 a manual-

was founded, from which a number

of good workmen have been graduated, especially carpenters and smiths. In 1899 this school had 16 pupils. But on the whole the Jews of Beirut follow commerce rather than trade. Aside from some Syrian Jews, the greater number have come from Smyrnaand Constantinople, and lately Families from Russia. Among the most prosperous families are: and the Anzarut

Societies.

m

Murad Yusuf Dana, a yyi (nntJy). Isaac Mann, the brothers Iddy, Joseph

H

Rubben, and Joseph Picciotto. There are two benevolent societies at Beirut the Bikkur-Holim, founded in 1890 for assisting the sick poor; and the Misgab-Laddak, founded in 1896 for placing youths in apprenticeship. Although not far from Damascus, where Jewish studies are still pursued, Beirut has neither a body of rabbis nor any Jewish writer of importance. Yet in the Midrash Stambuli there is a room set apart for study, the yeshibah, where old men and pious Jews meet daily to read from the Zohar, the Talmud, etc. Three young Jews of Beirut have published works in Arabic: (1) Selim Mann, author of four graded school-readers, entitled " Minhaj " (2) Selim Cohen (son of H a kam Zaki Cohen), author of twenty



plays; (3) Raphael Cohen (brother of Selim), a transAmong other works he translated from French into Arabic a novel of Richebourg, " Jeanlator.

Loup." Geographic de la Syrie et de la Palestine, ed. Cherbuliez, Geneva, 1888; Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Ency1rtai>UBuldie der Classischen Alterthumsunssenschaft, v. 321 letin de VAlliancc Israelite Universelle, 1878 (2), p. 16 et passim Bochart, Oengr. Sacra, col. 743; Hitter, Brdhunde, xvii. 55-59; B5ttger, Lexilton zu Flavius Josephus, p. 57; Badeker-Socln, PaUlstina, p. 455; W. Bacher, in Monatsschrift, xli. 604-612; S. Krauss, ibid. 554-564; idem, Lehnworter, s.v.; and private sources. G. S. g.

Bibliography







Kb.—

BEISER, MOSES

Austrian physician and philanthropist born in Lemberg April 7, 1807 died At twenty he enin the same city Oct. 12, 1880. tered the University of Vienna, and was graduated He began the practise of medicine as M.D. in 1835. as house physician to a noble family in Gwazdziec, near Kolomea, Galicia. In 1845 Beiser removed to Kolomea, where his advice was much sought. He showed his sympathy with the Liberal movement at that time by offering his house to exiles from Russo-Poland, and was himself a deputy of the Roda Narodwa, or People's League. This attracted the attention of the Austrian government, and Beiser was banished from

Kolomea





to Zolkiev.

After two years the interdict was removed and Beiser resumed the practise of medicine in Lemberg. When in 1855 the cholera broke out, he was chief physician of the military hospitals. It was in Lemberg especially that he became noted as a philanthropist; going among the poor, and giving pecuniary assistance in addition to medical advice. His services soon came to be recognized, and in 1876 he was made honorary citizen of Lemberg. In 1877 Beiser was unanimously elected to the Municipal Council (Gemeinderath), in 1878 to the Board of Education (Cultusrath), and later to the Jewish Hospital Council {lsraelitische SpitaUrath). M. M. K. s.

ALFRED:

BEIT, South African financier born of a well-known Hamburg Jewish family in 1853. Beit went to Kimberley during the early days of the

" rush" (1875), and in company with Barney Barnato, Cecil Rhodes, H. J. King (Friedlander), J. C. Wernher, J. B. Robinson, and a few others gradually obtained control of the diamond-mining claims in the Central, Dutoitspan, and De Beers mines; Beit, who had formed a partnership with Wernher, furnishing the money necessary for the exploitation of the company. In return for this service, Beit was made a life governor of the De Beers mines. This was the foundation of his ultimate fortune. Just before the consolidation of the diamond-mines, gold had been discovered on the Bezuidenhout farm in the Witwatersrand district, Transvaal, about thirty -five miles south of Pretoria. Beit and his associates, realizing the' limitations of Kimberley, sent emissaries into the new gold districts to stake out claims wherever there appeared any trace of gold. So assiduous were these representatives that the Kimberley financiers, 90 per cent of whom were Jews, soon had practical control of the Rand district. Beit was the first to see the possibilities of the

diamond