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gold district as the base of stock-company exploitation. With Barnato, Rhodes, King, and others, he floated company after company, each one heavily capitalized. Shares rose from no value to absurdly high prices; and by the summer of 1889 Beit, through judicious selling, had accumulated an im-

mense

fortune.

In that year, however, nature interfered with the Kimberley speculators for no rain fell for so long that the gold-mines were forced to shut down. In consequence the share market broke, and Beit was enabled to buy many of the better-class shares at comparatively low figures. In this manner he in;

creased his fortune considerably. Another phase of Beit's life was his connection with the Jameson raid, about which he testified before the Parliamentary Commission, and later with the so-called "Uitlander protest," which was the direct cause of the South African war. Beit is a director of the Rand Mines, Rhodesia Railways, Bechuanaland Railway Trust, Beira Railway Company, the Consolidated Company, the Bultfontein Mines, and a shareholder in almost every company whose interests center in South Africa. Bibliography Harper's Weekly, Jan. 20, 1900 Minneapolis Tribune, April 23, 1901; Daily Mail, London, March 20, April 26, 1901 Tile Speaker, new series, i. 390 el seq.; W. T. Stead, The Scandal of the South African Commission,





1899; British Colonial Office Report, 1S99, Correspondence Relating to the Claim of the South African Republic for Damages on Account of Dr. Jameson's Raid.

BE JA

City in Portugal that had, next to Santarem, the oldest Jewish community in Portugal. In a faro (charter) granted to the city of Beja toward the end of the twelfth century, it was enacted that every Jew passing through the town should pay a toll of one maravedi (about one-fourth of a cent). The Jews in Beja, and probably also in other towns of the country, took the oath on the Torah in the synagogue in the presence of the rabbi and of an offiChristian might pay his cial of the municipality. debt to a Jew only in presence of Christians and Jews. After the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal, Beja became the dwelling-place of a number of MaIt was the birthplace of the physician and ranos. poet Moses Duarte Lopez Rosa, and of the learned Abraham of Beja, who, by order of Juan II., trav:

A

eled to Cairo with Jos. Zapateiro. Bibliography For the foro of Beja, see der Juden in Portugal, pp. 340 et seq.

d.

BEJA,

ABRAHAM

OF.

Kayserling, Gesch.

(Hebrew JTP3,!TP3 "IM, f^pa) A town in Palestine, between Jabneh and Lydda.

BESIIN



mentioned as the seat of a Talmudical school founded by R. Joshua ben Hananiah during the reign of Gamaliel II. (Bab. Sanh. 32b; Yer. Hag. i. 75tf; It is



La

Geographic du Talmud,

G.

p. 81.

L BK

-

BEKKAYAM, MEIR. SeeBiKATiM. BEKOR SHOR, JOSEPH BEN NATHAN. See Joseph

ben Nathan Bekob Shoe,

BEKOR SHOR, SAADIA:

to strike "Saadia b. Joseph Bekor Shor" from the list of Jewish authors (compare Derenbourg, "Manuel du Lecteur," pp. 234-241).

best, therefore,

W.

l. o.

B.

(ni1133, in Biblical Hebrew " Bekorim," "the first-born"): Name of the fourth treatise —according to the order of the Mishnah of Seder

—

The law concerning

Kodashim ("Holy Things").

the first-born is repeated in the Pentateuch several times (Ex. xiii. 2, 11-15; xxxiv. 19-20; Num. xviii. 15-18 Deut. xv. 19-23). The first-born of man is redeemed by giving five shekels of silver (15s., according to London usage compare Zunz, " Z. G. pp. 535 et seq.) to a priest; the first-born of clean cattle, if a male, was given to the priest, who sacrificed it, if it was without blemish, or killed it in the ordinary way, if it had any blemish; the first-born of unclean cattle of an ass was redeemed by a lamb The treatise is divided into nine chapters, or killed. seven of which treat of the first-born. These nine chapters are divided as follows: Chap. of an ass. Chapi. on the first-born The Mishnah. ters ii.-vi. on the first-born of clean cattle namely, on cases of exemption through partnership with a non-Israelite (ii.); on cases of doubt whether an animal is first-born or not (iii.); on first-born cattle having a blemish (iv.); on cases of blemishes wilfully caused by the owner (v.) a list of blemishes (vi. ). Chapter vii. treats of the firstborn son and regulations for his redemption. Chapter viii. treats of blemishes that disqualify a priest for the sacrificial service; and chap. ix. contains the regulations concerning the tithe of the cattle ("ma'aser behemah")— a subject which has many things in common with the " first-born " (see Zeba;



—

—



M. K. See Abbaham op

Beja.

Tosef., Sotah, vii. 9). Bibliography Neubauer,

quently published poem on the number of letters in the Bible. This poem is mentioned in a Masoretic work written in the fourteenth century in southern Arabia, and is there attributed to the gaon Saadia b. Joseph (Derenbourg, "Manuel ,du Lecteur," p. Shem-Tob b. Gaon, a cabalistic writer of the 139). fourteenth century, also speaks of the gaon Saadia as its author (Munk, "Notice sur Aboulwalid," p. 42). The same assertion is made by Elias Levita in the appendix to his "Masoret ha-Masoret" (ed. Ginsburg, p. 289). In a work which appeared in 162931 ("Ta'alumot Hokmah," by Samuel Aschkenasi), Saadia b. Bekor Shor is for the first time mentioned as the author of the poem, instead of Saadia b. JoFrom this, Zunz ("Z. G." p. 75) and Dukes seph. ("Beitrage," ii. 75) concluded that Saadia, the author of the Masoretic poem, was the son of Bekor Steinschneider also Shor, the well-known cxegete. adopts this theory ("Cat. Bodl." col. 2225). In no other place, however, is there found the slightest trace of the existence of a Saadia ben Joseph Bekor Shor. On the other hand, there is no tenable argument against the tradition that the gaon Saadia b. Joseph was the author of the poem. It would be

BEKOROT

E. Ms.

j.

small

Beirut Bekorot

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Alleged son of freJoseph Bekor Shor, and reputed author of a

him

v. 8).

Besides the two chapters vii. and ix. there are a few digressions in the treatise i. 7 speaks of the option between redeeming the first-born of an ass and killing it, and recommends the former course; a few parallels are introduced of option between two ,