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With kavod (honor) to “all whose hearts were stirred to share” (kol asher nasa libam, cf. Exodus 36:2-3), this is a searchable index of all liturgists, translators, transcribers, etc. whose work on Jewish prayer, on prayer books, and on public readings is being shared through the Open Siddur Project. After ten years, the total number of project contributors is nearly 800. A little over half have shared their work either directly with the project with an Open Content license, or indirectly by contributing their work into the Public Domain as a contributor to a government publication. Nearly fifty are institutional copyright stewards (operating or defunct for-profit and non-profit entities). The remaining contributors have had their works transcribed from material that has passed into the Public Domain after their deaths. Some transcribed works shared through the Open Siddur project remain unattributed due to unknown authorship. If you find an uncredited or improperly attributed work, please contact us.
To join this community of contributors, please share your work. Making prayers and related religious works available for creative reuse and republication through Open Content licenses is crucial for keeping Jewish culture cross-pollinating, vital, and relevant under the current climate of denominationally identified silos and proprietary-by-default copyright strictures. Prospective contributors should read our Mission Statement, Terms of Use, and Copyleft Policy. The Open Siddur is a non-prescriptive, non-denominational project and invites participation without prejudice towards ethnic heritage, skin color, nationality, belief or non-belief, sex, gender, sexuality or any other consideration.
Ḳalonymus b. Ḳalonymus ben Meir (Hebrew: קלונימוס ב׳ קלונימוס בן מאיר, also romanized as Kalonymous or Qalonymos) (1286 – after 1328), born in Arles, was a Provençal Jewish philosopher, poet, and translator from a prominent and distinguished Provençal Jewish family. (The father of Kalonymus and Kalonymus himself each bore the title Nasi/Prince.) They studied philosophy and rabbinical literature at Salonica, under the direction of Senior Astruc de Noves and Moses ben Solomon of Beaucaire. Ḳalonymus also studied medicine, although they seem never to have practiced it.
Rabbi Stephen Baars is a Jewish educator, motivational speaker, and marriage counselor. Born and educated in London, Rabbi Baars did nine years of post-graduate studies at the Aish HaTorah Rabbinical College in Jerusalem and studied improvisational comedy at UCLA.
Rabbi Dr. Leo Baeck (23 May 1873 – 2 November 1956) was a 20th-century German rabbi, scholar, and theologian. He served as leader of Reform Judaism in his native country and internationally, and later represented all German Jews during the Nazi era. After the Second World War, he settled in London, in the United Kingdom, where he served as the chairman of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. In 1955, the Leo Baeck Institute for the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry was established, and Baeck was its first international president. The Leo Baeck Medal has been awarded since 1978 to those who have helped preserve the spirit of German-speaking Jewry in culture, academia, politics, and philanthropy.
Seligman (Isaac) Baer was a masoretic scholar, and an editor of the Hebrew Bible and of Jewish liturgy. He was born in Mosbach, the northern district of Biebrich, Sept. 18, 1825 and died at Biebrich-on-the-Rhine, March, 1897. He belonged to the school of Wolf Heidenheim, and had in his possession some of Heidenheim's original manuscripts and personal copies of his published works with handwritten marginal notes. Baer's monumental edition of the Jewish prayerbook according to the Ashkenazic rite, Seder Avodat Yisrael (Rödelheim, 1868), accompanied by a critical commentary, became the authoritative model for numerous editions published subsequently in the 20th century. His editions of the Jewish liturgy also include Kinnot for the fast of the ninth of Av. He never occupied an academic position, but was content with the office of Hebrew teacher to the Jewish community of Biebrich. In recognition of his services to the Commission for the History of the Jews in Germany, the honorary degree of doctor of philosophy was conferred upon him by the University of Leipzig.
Zvi Eli Baker (born Henry E. Baker; 1908-1994) was a Scottish-born Israeli jurist, Deputy Attorney General and Supreme Court Judge. He helped draft the Israeli Declaration of Independence .
Milton Yehoshua Balkany (born 1946) is an American Orthodox Jewish rabbi, past director of the Jewish girls′ school Bais Yaakov of Midwood, conservative political activist and fundraiser from Brooklyn, New York, dubbed "the Brooklyn Bundler." In September 1960, Balkany founded Bais Yaakov of Brooklyn, now Bais Yaakov of Midwood, a strictly orthodox girls′ school in Borough Park, and served as its dean. A conservative Republican, he has been active in political fundraising since the early 1980s, mainly for Republican politicians, and has also often acted as a lobbyist for various Jewish causes. Dubbed "the Brooklyn Bundler," he had a reputation as someone who had access not only to elected officials but to several government agencies as well. For several years, he gave the invocation at an annual dinner honoring President Ronald Reagan, and was offered to become the rabbi chaplain of the Senate, an offer he declined. In 1994, Balkany tried to have David Luchins, an Orthodox Jew, official of the Orthodox Union, self-described liberal, and then aide to Senator Daniel Moynihan excommunicated by a Jewish religious court, blaming him for having "caused yeshivas in the land of Israel to lose money." He became widely known for giving public religious benedictions (brakhot) to senior politicians at city council, state legislature, and Congress, where he served as guest chaplain in June 2003, opening the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives with the prayer "I stand here today among the jewels of our nation, men and women who are precious, who radiate dedication, and they have been selected as the leaders of our land." He is the son-in-law of Aaron Rubashkin.
Rabbi Dr. Moses Loeb Bamberger (1869-1924), also known as the Schönlanker Rav, was rabbi for the Schönlanke (Trzcianka) community (now located in northwestern Poland).
Rabbi Ehud Bandel is the former President of the Masorti Movement in Israel.
Shmuel of Nehardea or Shmuel bar Abba (Hebrew: שמואל or שמואל ירחינאה) was a Jewish Talmudist who lived in Babylonia, known as an Amora of the first generation; son of Abba bar Abba and head of the Yeshiva at Nehardea. He was a teacher of halakha, judge, physician, and astronomer. He was born about 165 CE at Nehardea, in Babylonia and died there in 254 CE. As in the case of many other great men, a number of legendary stories are connected with his birth (comp. Halakhot Gedolot, Giṭṭin, end; Tosefta Ḳiddushin 73a s.v. Mai Ikka). In Talmudic texts, Shmuel is frequently associated with Abba Arikha, with whom he debated on many major issues. He was the teacher of Rabbi Yehudah ben Yeḥezkel. From the little biographical information gleaned from the Talmud, we know that Shmuel was never ordained as a Tanna, that he was very precise with his words (Kiddushin 70a), and that he had a special affinity for astronomy: one of his best known sayings was that "The paths of heaven are as clear to me as the pathways of Nehardea."
Abba Arikha (175–247) (Talmudic Aramaic: אבא אריכא; born: Abba bar Aybo, Hebrew: רב אבא בר איבו) was a sage who was born and lived in Kafri, Sassanid Babylonia, known as an amora (commentator on the Oral Law) of the 3rd century who established at Sura the systematic study of the rabbinic traditions, which, using the Mishnah as text, led to the compilation of the Talmud. With him began the long period of ascendancy of the great academies of Babylonia, around the year 220. He is commonly known simply as Rav (or Raḅ, Hebrew: רב).
Shimon bar Isaac (fl. circa 950) born in Mainz, Germany, was a scholar of his time. As a paytan he composed yotserot, qerovot, seliḥot, hymns, and rashuyyot le-ḥatanim. It is probable that he sang his piyutim himself. His piyutim bare traces of the language found in early piyutim, and they are marked by the pain of the persecutions of the Jews in bar Isaac's lifetime.
Avraham bar Menaḥem was a paytan of the 13th century. If you know more about him, please contact us.
Rabbi Shimon bar Nissim Shimon (also ben Nissim, fl. 19th-20th c.) was a teacher at the Rebecca Nouriel school in Baghdad and later the director of the Rachel Shahmon school. He was one of a group of poet teachers (Shmuel Shami, Ezra and Meir Zachary and Shlomo Nissim) who together composed several piyyutim. He served as a ḥazzan for decades in several synagogues in Baghdad, including the Albert Sasson synagogue, and was well versed in the maqams. He started his path in the world of education as a boy who would collect the children from their homes to the room that his father ran and then return them home. His experience as an Iraqi emigre to Israel in the early 1950s was difficult and he passed soon after his arrival. If you know more, please contact us.
Daniel Bar Sadeh-Weise, from Jerusalem, was born in 1984 in Gemany, grew up in Greece, and made Aliyah to Israel to study in Yeshivah. He is of a mixed Ashkenazi and Sefaradi background and speaks seven languages.
Rabbi Lior Bar-Ami is a Reform/Liberal movement rabbi in Europe. He was ordained at Abraham-Geiger-College in Berlin, Germany in 2016. Rabbi Bar-Ami has served as rabbi for The Liberal Synagogue in Toulouse, France and Or Chadash Synagogue in Vienna, Austria.
Sarah Barasch-Hagans is a rabbinical student at RRC.
Isabel Bard (she/hers) lives in London. Within the walls of a yeshiva, she has studied at the Drisha High School Programme, Yeshivat Hadar, and the Conservative Yeshiva; without them, she has a punctuality-challenged twitter parsha practice and a half-dozen amazing phone chevrutot. She enjoys midrash, wearing tsitsit, and vegan babka.
Rabbi Rachel Barenblat (a/k/a the Velveteen Rabbi) serves Congregation Beth Israel of the Berkshires. She holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and is author of six volumes of poetry, among them 70 faces: Torah poems (Phoenicia, 2011) and Texts to the Holy (Ben Yehuda, 2018). A founding builder at Bayit: Building Jewish, she resides in western Massachusetts. She has blogged as the Velveteen Rabbi since 2003.
Joseph L. Baron (1894-1960) was born in Vilna. Immigrating to the U.S. in 1907, Baron studied rabbinics at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and the Hebrew Union College (HUC), where he was ordained in 1920. After serving as a congregational rabbi in Davenport, Iowa for six years, Rabbi Baron moved to Temple Emanu-El in Milwaukee in 1926. While there, Baron helped establish Reform congregations in many Wisconsin towns and taught at the Milwaukee State Teachers College. Rabbi Baron was a prolific scholar, publishing many volumes, including, In Quest of Integrity, Death in Jewish Folk Religion, and compiled A Treasury of Jewish Quotations. Among his many communal activities, Rabbi Baron served on the Board of Governors of HUC. Joseph L. Baron died in 1960.
Artur Carlos de Barros Basto (אברהם ישראל בן־ראש; Abraham Israel Ben-Rosh; 18 December 1887 – 8 March 1961) was a Portuguese military officer and writer, who published dozens of works contributing to Jewish life and Judaism in Portugal. A pioneering Jewish leader, he helped to re-establish the Jewish Community in Porto and assisted in the construction of the Kadoorie Synagogue, the largest Synagogue in the Iberian Peninsula. During World War Ⅱ, Barros Basto helped Jewish refugees escape the Holocaust. A descendant of Portuguese crypto-Jews, he converted to Judaism in 1920 and sought to help other crypto-Jews return to rabbinic Judaism. Opposition among some families of Marranos led to personal attacks on his character which damaged his name and military career.
Rabbi Samuel Barth is Senior Lecturer of Liturgy and Worship at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He was ordained at Leo Baeck College in London, following undergraduate studies in Mathematical Physics and Philosophy at the University of Sussex and the Open University (UK). He is completing doctoral work at New York Theological Seminary, exploring the use of Psalms in the interfaith context. Recently, Rabbi Barth served as a congregational rabbi in Austin, Texas, and Gloucester, Massachusetts. In the past, he served as dean and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at the Academy for Jewish Religion, a pluralistic seminary in Riverdale, New York, where he was instrumental in establishing the cantorial program and a second campus in Los Angeles.
Having spent his childhood in science museums, Aryeh Baruch (אריה ברוך) finds a deep connection to the Divine through science and mathematics. He composes (often math or science related) poetry in Hebrew and English. Aryeh has a Masters (and one day a PhD) in theoretical mathematics.
Rokhl Esther bat Aviḥayil is identified as a Jewish woman living in Jerusalem, the compiler or contributor to two collections of teḥinot published in Vilna, in the early 20th century. Little else so far is known of her.
Gele, daughter of Moshe and Freyde, was a typesetter employed by her father along with her older sister, Ele, in his printing shop in Halle, Germany (then part of Brandenburg, Prussia). Her father, a convert to Judaism, worked in Amsterdam, Berlin, and Frankfurt am Oder, before settling in Halle in 1706 at "the press established by J.H. Michaelis," according to Marvin Heller. Not much more is known of Gele outside of the difficulty we imagine that she and her family must have experienced after her father was imprisoned and his press destroyed following the 1710 publication of a siddur containing the prayer, "Aleinu," recently forbidden by royal decree. (source: K. Hellerstein, A Question of Tradition: Women Poets in Yiddish, 1586-1987 (2014, Stanford University Press), p. 66)
Sarah bat Tovim (alt. Sore bas Toyvim, fl. late 17th/early 18th century), daughter of Mordecai (or daughter of Isaac or Jacob, as sometimes listed on the title pages of various editions of her works), of Satanov in Podolia, in present-day Ukraine, great-granddaughter of Rabbi Mordecai of Brisk (on this, all editions agree), became the emblematic tkhine [q.v.] author, and one of her works, Shloyshe sheorim, perhaps the most beloved of all tkhines. An elusive figure, in the course of time she took on legendary proportions; indeed, some have insisted that she never existed. The fact that the name of her father (although not her great-grandfather) changes from edition to edition of her work, and the unusual circumstance that no edition mentions a husband, make it difficult to document her life. In fact, the skepticism about Sarah’s existence is rooted in the older scholarly view that no tkhines were written by women authors, and that all of them were maskilic fabrications. Since a number of women authors have now been historically authenticated, there seems no reason to doubt that there was a woman, probably known as Sore bas Toyvim who composed most or all of the two eighteenth-century texts attributed to her. Rather unusually for the genre of tkhines, her works contain a strong autobiographical element: She refers to herself as “I, the renowned woman Sore bas toyvim, of distinguished ancestry” and tells the story of her fall from a wealthy youth to an old age of poverty and wandering, a fall she attributes to the sin of talking in synagogue. (from the article at the Jewish Woman's Archive by Dr. Chava Weissler)
Glikl bat Yehudah Leib (Yiddish: גליקל בת ר' יהודה לייב האַמיל; also spelled Glückel or Glüeckel of Hameln; c. 1646 – September 19, 1724), born in Hamburg, was a German Jewish businesswoman and diarist. Written in her native tongue of Western (Old) Yiddish over the course of thirty years, her memoirs were originally intended to be an ethical will for her children and future descendants. Glikl's diaries are the only known pre-modern Yiddish memoirs written by a woman. Her memoirs provide an intimate portrait of German-Jewish life between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and have become an important source for historians, philologists, sociologists, literary critics, and linguists. She is often identified with the city of her husband's origin, Hameln (also Hamelin or Hamlyn).
Katharine Lee Bates (August 12, 1859 – March 28, 1929) was a prolific American writer, college professor, scholar, and social activist. Although she published volumes of poetry, travel books, essays, children's books, books for young adults, and editions of many earlier writers' works, today Bates is primarily remembered as the author of "America the Beautiful". While on the Wellesley College faculty, Bates mentored many young poets (including some, like Robert Frost, not enrolled at Wellesley) and helped establish American literature as a field for college study by creating an early course on the genre and writing a textbook for the field (the first woman to do the latter).
Rabbi Albert Gustavus Baum (1903-1996) was a Reform Jewish rabbi and organizer of new congregations for the New York Federation of Reform Synagogues. After graduating from City College in New York in 1923, he continued with graduate work at Columbia. At the Rabbi Stephen S. Wise Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, he was awarded the Philip Waldheim Prize in Social Service in 1927 and was the Free Synagogue Social Service Fellow in 1927-28. While a rabbinical student, he served as principal of the Park Avenue Synagogue Hebrew School and Temple Israel in Amsterdam, New York. After being ordained as a rabbi in 1930. he was appointed to Congregation Gemiluth Chassodim (a/k/a, The Temple) in Alexandria, Louisiana. He was the chosen delegate to the Rotary International Convention at Nice, France in 1937 and represented B'nai B'rith, District №7 as a delegate to their conventions. He also served as the Jewish Welfare Board representative for Central Louisiana, former vice-president of the Louisiana State Conference on Social Welfare, and as a member of the National Council of United Palestine Appeal. In 1942, he became a rabbi chaplain for the US Navy over the course of World War II. After workinf for the New York Federation of Reform Synagogues he joined the faculty of HUC in New York.
Rabbi Avi Baumol is serving the Jewish community of Krakow as it undergoes a revitalization as part of a resurgence of Jewish awareness in Poland. He graduated Yeshiva University and Bernard Revel Graduate School with an MA in Medieval Jewish History. He is a musmach of RIETS and studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion in Alon Shevut. He served as a rabbi in Vancouver British Columbia for five years. Rabbi Baumol is the author of The Poetry of Prayer by Gefen Publishing, 2010. He also co-authored a book on Torah with his daughter, Techelet, called Torat Bitecha. In addition, he is the Editor of the book of Psalms for The Israel Bible. In summer 2019 Rabbi Baumol published In My Grandfather’s Footsteps: A Rabbi’s Notes from the Frontlines of Poland’s Jewish Revival. His latest book is called Moadim Le’Simcha: Laws, Customs and Meaning of the Jewish Festivals.
Bayit: Building Jewish (formerly, Bayit: Your Jewish Home) was founded in December 2017 by a group of rabbis and lay leaders seeking to become a collaboration engine for building "a radically inclusive and enlivening Judaism for all ages and stages. We aim to give you tools for building the Judaism that you yearn for, renewing Judaism so that your Judaism can renew you."
Rabbi Michael Beals serves Congregation Beth Shalom in Wilmington, Delaware. He is a 1997 graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Rabbi Beals is also a graduate of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles (MA Hebrew Letters), The American University in Washington DC (MA International Relations), and University of California at Berkeley (BA Political Science). He received the Raoul Wallenberg Fellowship at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Beyond his accomplished education, Rabbi Beals has also worked in a variety of roles from serving as a management analyst developing multi-cultural training programs to working with young and old in programs of music therapy, Shabbat programming, and providing pastoral counseling and support to the sick and elderly and to the families that support them.
Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe (/stoʊ/; June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an American abolitionist and author. She came from the Beecher family, a famous religious family, and is best known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), which depicts the harsh conditions for enslaved African Americans. The book reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and Great Britain, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. Stowe wrote 30 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential for both her writings and her public stances and debates on social issues of the day.
Pereẓ (Peter) Beer (פרץ בעער 1758-1838) born in Neubydžow, Bohemia, was a Jewish educator and maskil. Beer was the author of several pedagogical works which were used in Jewish schools for many years. After having received his early training in Bible and Talmud, and—what was unusual in those days—in German and Latin, he entered, at the age of fourteen, the yeshivah at Prague, and four years later that of Presburg. At the age of twenty-one he began his career as a teacher in a Hungarian village; but the desire for study soon brought him to Vienna, where for a time he attended the university. As a teacher in his native town, and from 1811 at the Jewish school at Prague, Beer displayed great activity in reforming the methods of instruction. By a well-arranged system of teaching Hebrew, Bible, and religion, he, like his contemporary Herz Homberg, fostered the spirit of progress which during the reign of Emperor Joseph II., and through the impulse given by Moses Mendelssohn, had been kindled among the Jews of Austria. As an advocate of radical reform in religious matters Beer was considerably in advance of his time.
Mordechai Beham (1915-1987) born in Ukraine was a lawyer based in Jerusalem. He studied law in London. Later, in 1948, he composed a first draft of the Israeli declaration of independence.
Rabbi Manny Behar is former executive director of the Queens Jewish Community Council.
Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin, May 23 [O.S. May 11] 1888 – September 22, 1989) was an American composer and lyricist, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history. His music forms a great part of the Great American Songbook. Born in Imperial Russia, Berlin arrived in the United States at the age of five. He published his first song, "Marie from Sunny Italy", in 1907, receiving 33 cents for the publishing rights,[4] and had his first major international hit, "Alexander's Ragtime Band" in 1911. Composer Douglas Moore sets Berlin apart from all other contemporary songwriters, and includes him instead with Stephen Foster, Walt Whitman, and Carl Sandburg, as a "great American minstrel"—someone who has "caught and immortalized in his songs what we say, what we think about, and what we believe." Composer George Gershwin called him "the greatest songwriter that has ever lived", and composer Jerome Kern concluded that "Irving Berlin has no place in American music—he is American music."
Founded in 1789 by Spanish and Portuguese Jews as Ḳahal Ḳadosh Beth Shalome (Hebrew: Holy Congregation, House of Peace,) it is one of the oldest synagogues in the United States. (via wikipedia)
Dr. Malachi Beit-Arié (b. 1931) is a professor of paleography at Hebrew University.
Alan Belsky is a graduate of Yeshiva of Flatbush, an Everett Fellow at the NHC Summer Institute (2007), an alumnus of Moishe House Silver Spring, MD, and a past fellow of Yeshivat Hadar (2011).
A native of Brooklyn, New York, Stephen Belsky is a graduate of the Yeshiva of Flatbush, the State University of New York at Binghamton, and the Educators Program of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. He received semikha at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, and while studying there held internships at Beth David Synagogue in West Hartford, Connecticut, and the International Rabbinic Fellowship. Before starting semikha, Stephen taught at the Schechter high school in Teaneck, New Jersey, and after ordination, he returned to education, teaching Jewish Studies in the middle and high school divisions of Yeshivat Akiva in Southfield, Michigan. In addition to classroom teaching, Stephen has taught and lectured both in his local community and in synagogues across the eastern United States.
Rabbi Arnold Mark Belzer is the Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Mickve Israel in Savannah, Georgia. He studied at Hunter College and Iona College, where he received his BA in History. He was ordained rabbi and received BHL, MAHL, and DD degrees from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. A co-founder and now president of the Sino-Judaic Institute, he has traveled extensively in China. In 1985 he conducted the first Jewish worship service in Kaifeng, China, since the 1860s. Rabbi Belzer has lectured widely on the subject of Jews in China as well as studies of other exotic Jewish communities and comparative religion. He is a co-founder of the Mastery Foundation (an international, interfaith organization promoting transformation and reconciliation). Committed to interfaith cooperation and understanding, Rabbi Belzer is an ardent student of comparative religion and religious syncretism. He lectures regularly on a variety of subjects at the Savannah Learning Center and synagogues and churches around the United States.
Menaḥem ben Aharon (fl. 12th century) is a paytan of whom very little is known. If you know more, please contact us.
Matthew (Mattai), the son of Alphaeus, a Levi, was a Jewish man born in the Galilee in the first century C.E. He worked as a tax collector for the Roman Empire and was literate in Aramaic and Greek. While sitting at the "receipt of custom" in Capernaum, he was called to follow Yeshu (Jesus) and became famous as one of his disciples.
Yeshayahu or Isaiah (Hebrew: יְשַׁעְיָהוּ, Greek: Ἠσαΐας, Ēsaïās; Latin: Isaias; "Yah is salvation") was the 8th century BCE Jewish prophet for whom the Book of Isaiah is named. According to the rabbinic literature, Isaiah was a descendant of the royal house of Judah and Tamar (Sotah 10b). He was the son of Amōts (not to be confused with Prophet Amos), who was the brother of King Amaziah of Judah. (Talmud tractate Megillah 15a). Within the text of the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah himself is referred to as "the prophet", but the exact relationship between the Book of Isaiah and any such historical Isaiah is complicated. The traditional view is that all 66 chapters of the book of Isaiah were written by one man, Isaiah, possibly in two periods between 740 BCE and c. 686 BCE, separated by approximately 15 years, and includes dramatic prophetic declarations of Cyrus the Great in the Bible, acting to restore the nation of Israel from Babylonian captivity. Another widely-held view is that parts of the first half of the book (chapters 1–39) originated with the historical prophet, interspersed with prose commentaries written in the time of King Yoshiyahu (Josiah) a hundred years later, and that the remainder of the book dates from immediately before and immediately after the end of the exile in Babylon, almost two centuries after the time of the historic prophet.(from the article "Isaiah" on wikipedia)
Marqeh ben Amram (also: Marqe, fl. 4th century CE) is considered in the Israelite-Samaritan tradition, to be their greatest sage.
Mosheh ben Amram (affectionately, Mosheh Rabbeinu -- our teacher, Mosheh; fl. 13th century BCE) is the pre-eminent prophet in all forms of Judaism and one of the most important prophets in Christianity, Islam, the Druze faith, the Baháʼí Faith and other so-called Abrahamic religions. According to both the Torah and the Quran, Mosheh was the leader of the Israelites and the recipient of the Divine Instruction/Teaching (Torah), and the first five books of the Torah are traditionally attributed to him. A handful of psalms are also traditionally attributed to him (Psalms 90-95). In the Rabbinic Jewish tradition, besides the name "Mosheh" given to him by Pharaoh's daughter Bityah, he was also known by other names: Yared, Avi Gedor, Ḥever, Avi Sokho, Yequtiel, Avi Zano'aḥ, Shemayah, and "Heiman" (span class="hebrew">הֵימָן).
Yosef ben Asher of Chartres was born in the second half of the 12th century and a paytan active in France. Joseph was a disciple of Rabbeinu Tam and of Rashbam. He is cited in the "Semag" of Moses of Coucy (Prohibition 113) in connection with the ordinance forbidding the descendants of Ammon and of Moab to enter the Jewish community. He composed an elegy commencing with the words , on the massacre of the Jews of York, England, in 1191. He is doubtless identical with the Bible commentator Joseph me-Karṭesh. He was the brother-in-law of Joseph b. Nathan of Etampes, and great-uncle of the author of "Joseph le Zélateur." The latter reports in that work (No. 24) a discussion which Joseph had with an ecclesiastic. "A monk asked R. Joseph of Chartres why God had manifested Himself in a bush rather than in a tree. Joseph answered: 'Because it is impossible to make an image [crucifix] thereof.'"
Ephraim ben Avraham ben Isaac (of Regensburg ; 1110–1175), tosafist, member of the bet din of Regensburg, and the greatest of the paytanim (liturgical poets) of Germany. Among his teachers were Isaac b. Asher ha-Levi and Isaac b. Mordecai of Regensburg. He was held in great esteem by his contemporaries, being referred to as "the great Rabbi Ephraim" and as "Ben Yakir" (an allusion to Jer. 31:20). His youth was spent in France, where he was among the first pupils of Jacob b. Meir Tam (Rabbenu Tam). As a liturgical poet he excels all his German and many of his French contemporaries. Thirty-two of his piyyutim have been preserved. They reflect the severe hardships which the Jews of Germany suffered in the Regensburg massacre of 1137 and the Second Crusade (1146–47). Zunz regarded Ephraim's poems as superior to all other contemporary Hebrew poetry written in Germany. They are distinctive in form and content, and powerful in expression. Ephraim also employed the metric forms of Sephardi poetry and one of his seliḥot is in the Sephardi festival liturgy.
Rabbi Yaakov ben Avraham Shlomo Sinna (יעקב בן אברהם שלמה שיננא, before 1615) of Prague, was the author or compiler of the earliest edition of the Ma'ana Loshen, a popular anthology of teḥinot for those visiting the graves of loved ones. Unfortunately, we know very little else concerning Rabbi Yaakov, this one detail having been brought by the Bibliography of the Hebrew Book. If you have any further details, please let us know.
Yoel Fievel ben Avram is an attorney from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
Meir of Rothenburg (c. 1215 – 2 May 1293) was a German Rabbi and poet, as well as a major contributing author of the tosafot on Rashi's commentary on the Talmud. He is also known as Meir ben Baruch (Hebrew: מאיר ב"ר ברוך), and by the Hebrew language acronym Maharam of Rothenburg ("Our Teacher, Rabbi Meir", Hebrew: מהר"ם מרוטנבורג). He was referred to by Rabbi Menachem Meiri as the "greatest Jewish leader of Tsarfat (Medieval Hebrew for France, a reference to Charlemagne's rule of Germany)" alive at the time.
Asaph is identified with twelve psalms (no. 50 and 73-82). He is said to be the son of Berechiah, and an ancestor of the Asaphim. The Asaphim were one of the guilds of musicians in the Jerusalem temple. This information is clarified in the books 1 and 2 of Chronicles. In Chronicles, it is said that Asaph was a descendant of Gershom the son of Levi and he is identified as a member of the Levi'im. He is also known as one of the three Levi'im commissioned by King David to be in charge of singing in the Temple. In 1 Chronicles 6:39 David appoints a man named Heman as the main musician or singer and Asaph as Heman’s right hand assistant and the Merari at his left hand. Asaph is also credited with performing at the dedication of Solomon’s temple in 2 Chronicles 5:12.
Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, alt. Loewe, Löwe, or Levai, (c. 1520 – 17 September 1609) widely known to scholars of Judaism as the Maharal of Prague, or simply The MaHaRaL, the Hebrew acronym of "Moreinu Ha-Rav Loew," ("Our Teacher, Rabbi Loew") was an important Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic, and philosopher who, for most of his life, served as a leading rabbi in the cities of Mikulov in Moravia and Prague in Bohemia. Within the world of Torah and Talmudic scholarship, he is known for his works on Jewish philosophy and Jewish mysticism and his work Gur Aryeh al HaTorah, a supercommentary on Rashi's Torah commentary. The Maharal is the subject of a nineteenth-century legend that he created a golem, an artificial anthropoid fashioned from clay, to defend the Jewish community of Prague against their persecutors. (via wikipedia)
Yeḥezqel ben Būzi haKohen (born circa 622 BCE; a/k/a Ezekiel) was a Judaean prophet to whom the book of Ezekiel is attributed.
Rebbi Yishmael ben Elisha (Hebrew: רבי ישמעאל בן אלישע), often known as Rebbi Yishmael and sometimes given the title "Ba'al HaBaraita" (Hebrew: בעל הברייתא), was a rabbi of the 1st and 2nd centuries (third generation of tannaim).
Rabbi Shimon ben Eliyahu Hakham (Hebrew: שמעון חכם; 1843-1910) was a Bukharian rabbi residing in Jerusalem who promoted literacy by translating Hebrew religious books into Bukhori. Born in Bukhara, he was the great-grandson of Rabbi Yosef Maimon, who led a religious revival among Bukharian Jews. Taking a great interest in literature, Hakham spoke his native Bukhori, Persian, Hebrew, and Arabic. In 1870, he opened the "Talmid Hakham' yeshiva in Bukhara. During his life Shimon Hakham wrote and translated into Bukharian more than 50 books.
Shlomo ben Eliyahu Sharvit haZahav (born circa 1420 and died after 1502) was a payyetan who flourished in 15th century Greece and Turkey. Several of his poems were included in the Maḥzor Romania. He also translated several astronomical works from Greek into Hebrew, composed a Hebrew grammar entitled Ḥesek Shlomoh, wrote a commentary to the Torah and, in response to the request of several prominent representatives of the community in Ephesus, a commentary to Abraham ibn Ezra's Sefer ha-Shem.
David Ben-Gurion (דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first Prime Minister of Israel. He was the preeminent leader of the Jewish community in British Mandate Palestine from 1935 until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, which he led until 1963 with a short break in 1954–55.
Abraham ben Ḥalfon was a Yemenite paytan whom we know almost nothing apart from their name and works. The research of Yosef Tobi indicates that he lived in the city of Aden in the second half of the twelfth century. Tobi writes, "To our best knowledge, Abraham ben Ḥalfon was the first Yemenite poet who contributed to the specific formulation of Yemenite poetry, thus beginning a poetic trend which in the course of time led to the uniqueness of Yemenite Hebrew poetry."
Yirmiyah (or Jeremiah, Hebrew: יִרְמְיָהוּ, Yirmĭyāhū; Greek: Ἰερεμίας; Arabic: إرميا Irmiyā meaning "Yah Exalts", circa late 7th century through early 6th century), also called the "Weeping prophet", is one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition, Yirmiyah authored Sefer Yirmiyahu (the book of Jeremiah), Melakhim (the books of Kings), and Megillat Eikhah (the Scroll/Book of Lamentations), together with the assistance and under the editorship of Barukh ben Neriyah, his scribe and disciple.
Yehudah ben Hillel haLevi (also Yehudah haLevi ben Rabbi Hillel, fl. 11th c.), a medieval paytan of the Kalir school, some of whose work was discovered in the Cairo Genizah. His piyyutim are based on customs prevailing in Erets Yisrael, indicating that he lived there or in Egypt. He is the only paytan known to have composed piyyutim for Tu biShvat. Two of his ḳerovot for the Shemoneh Esreh are preserved; one, published by Menachem Zulay (Leket Shirim u-Fiyyutim (1936)) contains names of trees growing in the Land of Israel.
Shmuel haShlishi ben Hoshana (also, Shemuel or Samuel the Third; fl. 10th century) was a paytan and the head of the Bet Din in Damascus. He served in a Sanhedrin then centered in Jerusalem where he rose to the rank of Gaon (thus "Hashlishi"). His works are primarily known from the Cairo Geniza.
Manoel Dias Soeiro (1604 – November 20, 1657), better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh (ben Yosef) ben Israel (מנשה בן ישראל), was a Portuguese rabbi, kabbalist, writer, diplomat, printer and publisher, founder of the first Hebrew printing press (named Emeth Meerets Titsma'h) in Amsterdam in 1626. (via his article on wikipedia)
Meshulam ben Ḳalonymus (10th–11th century), born into a rabbinical family from Lucca, was a rabbi and paytan, His grandfather was R. Moses the Elder who was taught by Abu Aaron the secrets of the Kabbalah. Meshullam's father was a well-known talmudic scholar and paytan. His teacher was Solomon b. Judah ha-Bavli. Meshullam himself was a famous talmudist and liturgical poet, often called "the Great." His works include a commentary on Ethics of the Fathers, of which only one extract is extant; responsa, dealing with explanations of talmudic passages and with matrimonial, legal, and ritual matters and including a responsum against the Karaites; and liturgical poems, of which the best known are a composition for the morning service of the Day of Atonement and "Ammiẓ Ko'aḥ," the version of the Avodah adopted in the Ashkenazi rite. His responsa, apart from their intrinsic value, are important sources of information for the social and economic history of the Jewish communities of pre-Crusade Europe. He is the first author in Europe to mention the commercial law of Ma'arufya. His answers are usually brief and concise, and devoid of argumentation. His decisions are based mainly on the Babylonian Talmud but also refer to the writings of the geonim. Both Gershom Me'or ha-Golah and Rashi held Meshullam in high regard. The center of Meshullam's activity is uncertain. Responsa by Sherira and Hai Gaon point to Italy as does the title "of Rome" sometimes given him. Later he settled in Mainz where his tombstone was discovered. His works helped to establish Rhineland scholarship and stimulated the development in France and Germany of a powerful poetical tradition.
Oft-quoted in the Babylonian Talmud, Abayyé (also, Abaye, Hebrew: אַבַּיֵי) was an Amoraic rabbi born about the close of the 3rd century CE and who died 339 CE. His father, Kaylil, was the brother of Rabbah bar Naḥmani, a teacher at the Yeshiva (Rabbinic Academy) of Pumbedita. Abayyé's real name was Naḥmani, after his grandfather. Left an orphan at an early age, he was adopted by his uncle, Rabbah bar Naḥmani, who nicknamed him Abayyé ("Little Father"), to avoid confusion (perhaps out of respect for his father) with his grandfather of the same name; thenceforth he was known as Abayyé, without any other title. It is a curious fact that he perpetuated the memory of his foster-mother by mentioning her name in many popular recipes and dietetic precepts. He introduced each recipe with the phrase, "My mother told me." Abayyé's teachers were his uncle Rabbah and Yosef bar Ḥama, both of whom successively became presidents of the Pumbedita Academy. When Yosef died (324 CE), this honor was conferred upon Abayyé, who retained it until his death some five years later. Rabbah trained him in the application of the dialectic method to halakhic problems, and Yosef, with his stores of traditional lore, taught him to appreciate the value of positive knowledge. (adapted from wikipedia)
Eleazar ben Killir, also known as Eleazar Kalir, Eleazar Qalir or El'azar HaKalir (c. 570 – c. 640) was a Hebrew poet whose classical liturgical verses, known as piyut, have continued to be sung through the centuries during significant religious services, including those on Tisha b'Av and on the sabbath after a wedding. He was one of Judaism's earliest and most prolific of the paytanim, Hebrew liturgical poets. He wrote piyutim for all the main Jewish festivals, for special Sabbaths, for weekdays of festive character, and for the fasts. Many of his hymns have found their way into festive prayers of the Ashkenazi Jews' nusaḥ. (via wikipedia).
Dunash ha-Levi ben Labrat (דוֹנָש הלוי בֵּן לָבְרָט; Arabic: دناش بن لبراط, b. 920,925 - d. after 985) was a medieval Jewish commentator, poet, and grammarian of the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain.
Sholomo ben Levy (b. Queens, New York, 1964) is the spiritual leader of Beth Elohim Hebrew Congregation in Saint Albans, New York, and president of the International Israelite Board of Rabbis (IIBR). He is the son of Rabbi Levy ben Levy (1935-1999), former chief rabbi of the IIBR. In 1985 he was ordained by the Israelite Rabbinical Academy and graduated from Yale University with a masters degree in African-American Studies in 1988. Levy received his masters degree in American History from Columbia University in 2005. He teaches History at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Mosheh ben Maimon (משה בן מימון), called Moses Maimonides (/maɪˈmɒnɪdiːz/ my-mon-i-deez) and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn (Arabic: موسى بن ميمون), or RaMBaM (רמב"ם – Hebrew acronym for "Rabbeinu Mosheh Ben Maimon" – English translation: "Our Rabbi/Teacher Moses Son [of] Maimon"), was a preeminent medieval Spanish, Sephardic Jewish philosopher, astronomer and one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages. He was born in Córdoba (present-day Spain), Almoravid Empire on Passover Eve, 1138, and died in Egypt on December 12, 1204.Although his writings on Jewish law and ethics were met with acclaim and gratitude from most Jews, even as far off as Iraq and Yemen, and he rose to be the revered head of the Jewish community in Egypt, there were also vociferous critics of some of his writings, particularly in Spain. Nevertheless, he was posthumously acknowledged to be one of the foremost rabbinical arbiters and philosophers in Jewish history, his copious work comprising a cornerstone of Jewish scholarship. His fourteen-volume Mishneh Torah still carries significant canonical authority as a codification of Talmudic law. In the Yeshiva world he is called sometimes "haNesher haGadol" (the great eagle) in recognition of his outstanding status as a bona fide exponent of the Oral Torah.(from "Maimonides" on wikipedia)
Menaḥem ben Makhir (fl. 11th c.) was German liturgist and a native of Ratisbon. His grandfather, also called Menahem b. Machir, was a nephew of Gershom b. Judah, and he himself was a cousin of Isaac b. Judah, Rashi's teacher. He is quoted in Rashi's "Pardes" (21d, 33c) and in the "Liḳḳuṭe Pardes" (19b; comp. "Pisḳe Reḳanaṭi," No. 589). Menaḥem witnessed the Jewish massacres of 1096 in Germany and commemorated them in a number of seliḥot. His piyyuṭim include: "Adam be-ḳum," for the Esther fast (quoted in Tos. to Ḥag. 11a); "Aḥalleh et pene Adonai," for Yom Kippur minḥah; "Amarer ba-beki," for the 17th of Tammuz; "Lammah Adonai ta'amod" (in ten strophes); a "ḳinah" for the 9th of Ab, beginning "Ebel a'orer"; five "yotserot," including one for the "Naḥamu" Sabbath and one for the "Shuvah" Sabbath; three "ofanim"; three "zulatot"; "Kehosha'ta elim," a "hosha'na" for the Sabbath of Tabernacles; "Ma'ariv," for the Feast of Tabernacles; "Nishmat, to be recited on Simḥat Torah; and a reshut for Ḥatan Torah, to be recited on the same day. Most of his piyyuṭim are alphabetically arranged, but all of them bear the author's signature.
Titus Flavius Josephus (Greek: Φλάβιος Ἰώσηπος; 37 – c. 100), born Yosef ben Matityahu (Hebrew: יוסף בן מתתיהו, Greek: Ἰώσηπος Ματθίου παῖς), was a first-century Romano-Jewish scholar, historian and hagiographer, who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly descent and a mother who claimed royal ancestry.
Yaaqov ben Meir (1100 in Ramerupt – 9 June 1171 (4 Tammuz) in Troyes), best known as Rabbeinu Tam (Hebrew: רבינו תם), was one of the most renowned Ashkenazi Jewish rabbis and leading French Tosafists, a leading halakhic authority in his generation, and a grandson of Rashi. Known as "Rabbeinu" (our teacher), he acquired the Hebrew suffix "Tam" meaning straightforward; it was originally used in the Book of Genesis to describe his biblical namesake, Yaaqov (Jacob).
Yeruḥam ben Meshullam (Hebrew: ירוחם בן משולם, 1290–1350), often called Rabbenu Yeruḥam (Hebrew: רבנו ירוחם), was a prominent rabbi and poseḳ during the period of the Rishonim.
Rabbi Isaac ben Moses Magriso of Turkey was the foremost compiler and contributor to the Me'am Loez (the important Ladino anthology of Torah commentary and related midrash aggadah in Ladino) after it's initial author, Rabbi Yaakov Cuti, died in 1732.
Salomone Rossi (b.1570? - d.1628-30?) was a rabbi and composer who lived in Mantua.
Rabbi Shmuel ben Moshe Ha-Dayan of Aram Ṣoba (c. 1150-1200) was an Aleppine payṭan whose works were almost completely lost before being rediscovered in the Maḥzor Aram Ṣoba. (If you know any more, please contact us.)
Rabbi Aharon Berekhiah ben Mosheh ben Neḥemiah of Modena was an Italian Kabbalist who died in 1639. He was a pupil of Rabbi Hillel of Modena and of Rabbi Menahem Azariah of Fano.
Zeraḥ ben Natan (Troki, Lithuania, 1586–1640) was a Karaite scholar with profound interest in Jewish philosophy, Kabbalah, and Karaite philosophy. He lived most of his life in Troki, although his family was originally from Birże (Lith.: Biržai) in northern Lithuania. As a young boy, he was tutored by the famed Karaite scholar Yitṣḥaḳ ben Abraham: decades later Zeraḥ would write to the famous Jewish printer Menasheh ben Yisra’el (1604–1657) in Amsterdam requesting him to print Yitṣḥaḳ ben Abraham’s polemic against Christianity, Ḥizzuḳ Emuna. In the headings of his poems, Zeraḥ is referred to as a ḥakham; he probably conducted some administrative and religious duties in the Karaite community of Troki. Most of his life, however, he was dedicated to an endless quest for knowledge. He collected an impressive library with both printed works and manuscripts. In 1618, he travelled to Istanbul, where he studied Kabbalah and secular sciences with the Turkish Karaites for two years. Back in Troki by the early 1620s, he began to correspond with the rabbinic scholar and polymath, Yosef Shelomo Delmedigo (Crete, 1591‒1655), who at the time was employed by the Prince Krzysztof Radziwiłł II (1585–1640) in Vilna. Zeraḥ poses intricate questions on mathematics, astronomy, medicine, Kabbalah, and theology in his letters, and these questions are published in Delmedigo’s highly influential scientific opus Sefer Elim (“The Book of Elim”, Amsterdam, 1629). Thus, Zeraḥ has become part of the early modern history of science among the European Jews. In addition to many extant poems both in Hebrew and in the Karaim language, he wrote a treatise on the medieval philosophical classic, Guide for the Perplexed by Moses Maimonides (1135–1204), and a Kabbalistic commentary on the Song of Songs. Zeraḥ died in 1657/8 at the age of seventy-nine.
Barukh ben Neriyah (Hebrew: ברוך בן נריה - 'My Flame is Yah' (Nêrîyāh)"; circa early 6th century BCE) was the scribe, disciple, secretary, and devoted friend of the prophet Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah). He is traditionally credited with authoring the deuterocanonical Book of Barukh.
Amram Gaon (Hebrew: עמרם גאון, or Amram bar Sheshna, Hebrew: עמרם בר רב ששנא, or sometimes: Amram ben Sheshna or Amram b. Sheshna; died 875) was a famous Gaon or head of the Jewish Talmud Academy of Sura in the 9th century. He was the author of many Responsa, but his chief work was liturgical. He was the first to arrange a complete liturgy for the synagogue. His Prayer-Book (Siddur Rab Amram or Seder Rav Amram), which took the form of a long responsum to the Jews of Spain, is still extant and was an important influence on most of the current rites in use among the Jews. He was a pupil of Natronai II, Gaon of Sura, and was exceptionally honored with the title of Gaon within the lifetime of his teacher. Upon Natronai's death, about 857, the full title and dignities of the gaonate were conferred upon Amram, and he held them until his death. It is characteristic of Amram's method to avoid extreme rigor; thus he decides that a slave who has embraced Judaism, but desires to postpone the necessary circumcision until he feels strong enough for it, is not to be hurried (ib. iv. 6, 11). He placed himself almost in opposition to the Talmud, when he protested that there is no sense in fasting on account of bad dreams, since the true nature of dreams cannot be known. (via wikipedia)
Joseph ben Samuel Bonfils (fl. middle of the 11th c.) was a French rabbi, Talmudist, Bible commentator, and payyeṭan. He is also known by the Hebrew name Tov Elem, a Hebrew translation from the French name "Bonfils." Of his life nothing is known but that he came from Narbonne, and was rabbi of Limoges in the province of Anjou. The ability and activity of Bonfils are best judged from his contributions to the poetry of the synagogue, no less than sixty-two of his piyyuṭim occupying prominent places in the French, German, and Polish liturgies. (Joseph Bonfils must not be confused, as he is by Azulai, with another scholar of the same name, who lived in 1200 and corresponded with Simḥah of Speyer (Responsa of Meïr ben Baruch of Rothenburg. ed. Cremona, No. 148).)
Isaac ben Shem Tov Cavallero (fl. 16th c.) was the author of Orden de Oraciones segundo el uso ebrèo en lengua ebraica y vulgar espanol (Venice 1552), the first siddur prepared for use by Sepharadim in Ladino throughout the Spanish-Portuguese diaspora. Members of the Cavallero family were active in Venice, Ferrara and Ancona mostly. Besides his work in publishing, Isaac Cavallero was a merchant with dealings in the Levant.
Hai ben Sherira (or Hai b. Sherira (Gaon), Hebrew: האי בר שרירא; better known as Hai Gaon, Hebrew: האיי גאון, b. 939, d. March 28, 1038), was a medieval Jewish theologian, rabbi and scholar who served as Gaon of the Talmudic academy of Pumbedita during the early 11th century. He received his Talmudic education from his father, Sherira ben Hanina, and in early life acted as his assistant in teaching. In his forty-fourth year he became associated with his father as "ab bet din," and with him delivered many joint decisions.
Yeraḥmiel ben Shlomo (also Jerahmeel ben Solomon, fl. ca. 1150), chronicler, lived in Italy. He wrote Megillat Yeraḥmi'el (or Meliẓ at Yeraḥmi'el or Sefer ha-Yeraḥmi'eli), a compilation of writings on history and other subjects such as grammar, music, astronomy, liturgy and more.
Elijah ben Solomon Abraham ha-Kohen (1650-1729) was a dayyan, distributor of alms, preacher, and rabbi in Ottoman Smyrna (Izmir, Turkey) from a distinguished rabbinic Jewish family.
Yehudah haLevi (also Judah ha-Levi; Hebrew: יהודה הלוי and Judah ben Shmuel Halevi יהודה בן שמואל הלוי; Arabic: يهوذا اللاوي; c. 1075 – 1141) was a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher. He was born in Spain, either in Toledo or Tudela, in 1075 or 1086, and died shortly after arriving in the Holy Land in 1141, at that point the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Yehudah haLevi is considered one of the greatest Hebrew poets, celebrated both for his religious and secular poems, many of which appear in present-day liturgy. His greatest philosophical work was The Kuzari.
Rabbi Yehuda ben Shmuel ibn Abbas (fl. 12th c.) was born in Fez, Morocco and moved east . Most of his years he worked in Babylon and lived in his last years in Aram Tsoba. We know from him about twenty essays and piyyutim, some of which were absorbed into the Aram Tsoba.
Baruch ben Samuel (died April 25, 1221), also called Baruch of Mainz, was a Talmudist and prolific payyeṭan, who flourished in Mainz at the beginning of the thirteenth century.
Yehudah ben Shmuel of Regensburg (Judah b. Samuel, 1150 – 22 February 1217), also called Yehudah heḤasid in Hebrew, was a leader of the Ḥassidei Ashkenaz. Judah was born in the small town of Speyer in the modern day Rhineland-Palatinate state in Germany in 1150 but later settled in Regensburg in the modern day state of Bavaria in 1195. He wrote much of Sefer Hasidim (Book of the Pious), as well as a work about Gematria, and Sefer Hakavod (the latter mainly lost). Yehudah was descended from an old family of kabbalists from Northern Italy that had settled in Germany. His grandfather Kalonymus was a scholar and parnas in Speyer (died 1126). His father Shmuel, also called heḤasid, haKadosh, and haNavi, was president of a bet ha-midrash in Speyer, and from him Yehudah, together with his brother Abraham, received his early instruction. He founded a yeshiva in Regensburg and secured many pupils. Among those who became famous were Eleazar of Worms, author of the Roḳeaḥ; Isaac ben Moses of Vienna, author of Or Zarua; and Baruch ben Samuel of Mainz, author of Sefer ha-Ḥokmah. Eleazar applies to his teacher in several passages terms expressive of the highest esteem, such as "father of wisdom". He was also a student, of one of the authors of Tosafot, and was the teacher of the Maharam of Rothenburg. He composed liturgical songs, but the authenticity of those attributed to him is uncertain. As regards his Shir Hayichud (seven parts; the eighth is called Shir HaKavod), printed in Tiengen, 1560, there is very great divergence of opinion, and the question of its authorship is still undecided. According to Zunz, it seems to be genuine, as do also his prayer Yechabeh Dim`ati and his selicha Gadol Yichudcha Elohim Beyisrael. More probably, according to the sources, his father, or a certain Samuel Ḥazzan, who died as a martyr at Erfurt in 1121, composed the Shir ha-Yiḥud, and Judah himself wrote a commentary on it. Several prayers are erroneously attributed to Judah; e.g., Zunz wrongly ascribes to him the alphabetical teḥinnah Ezkera Yom Moti. He wrote also commentaries on several parts of the daily prayers and on the Maḥzor.
Simhah ben Samuel of Vitry (שמחה בן שמואל מויטרי; d. 1105) was a French Talmudist of the 11th and 12th centuries, pupil of Rashi, and the compiler of Maḥzor Vitry. He lived in Vitry-le-François.
Rebbe Naḥman of Bratslav (Hebrew: נחמן מברסלב, April 4, 1772 – October 16, 1810), was the founder of the Bratslav (Breslov) Ḥasidic movement. Rebbe Naḥman , a great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, revived the Ḥasidic movement by combining the esoteric secrets of Judaism (the Kabbalah) with in-depth Torah scholarship. He attracted thousands of followers during his lifetime, and his influence continues today through many Hasidic movements such as Breslov Ḥasidism. Rebbe Naḥman's religious philosophy revolved around closeness to God and speaking to God in normal conversation "as you would with a best friend." The concept of hitbodedut is central to his thinking.
Ben Sira, or Ben Sirach (Hebrew: בן סירא), also known as Shimon ben Yeshua ben Eliezer ben Sira (fl. 2nd century BCE) was a Hellenistic Jewish scribe, sage, and allegorist from Jerusalem. He is the author of the Book of Sirach, also known as the Book of Ecclesiasticus. He wrote his work in Hebrew, possibly in Alexandria, Egypt ca. 180–175 BCE, where he is thought to have established a school.
Yaakov Koppel ben Tsvi Margoliyot (d. 1673(?)) was Polish preacher and moralist of the 17th century. He came from Vladimir, Volhyṇia, where he was an eye-witness of the massacres of 1648-49, from which he escaped to Germany. He was the author of Mar'ot Ya'aḳob, tables of ethical rules (Venice, 1662); Mizbaḥ Ya'aḳob, a sermon on penitence and some haggadic novellæ (ib. 1662); and Ḳol Ya'aḳob, on the Pentateuch and the Talmud, to which is appended an elegy on the victims of the above-mentioned massacres (Amsterdam, 1708). (via this article in the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia)
Yonatan ben Uziel (יונתן בן עוזיאל, also Jonathan ben Uzziel) was one of the 80 tannaim who studied under Hillel the Elder during the time of Roman-ruled Judea. He is the author of Targum Yonatan. (A book of kabbalah, Sefer Migdanim, is popularly attributed to him.)
Aharon ben Yaakov Perlov of Karlin (1736-1772) known among Ḥasidim as Rabbi Aharon the Great, or simply as the "Preacher" or "Censor" was one of the early great rabbis of the sect who helped the rapid spread of Ḥasidism in Eastern Europe, and was distinguished for the fiery eloquence of his exhortations. He died one year before his master, the great Rabbi Baer of Mezrich, and was succeeded by his disciple, Rabbi Shlomo of Karlin.
Hillel ben Yaaqov of Bonn (also Hillel ben Jacob, fl. 12th century), rabbi and paytan from an illustrious family of scholars. Together with his brother Ephraim, he witnesses the Auto-da-fé of the Jews of Blois [France].
Meïr Leibush ben Yehiel Michel Wisser (March 7, 1809 – September 18, 1879), better known by the acronym Malbim (Hebrew: מלבי"ם), was a rabbi, master of Hebrew grammar, and Bible commentator.
Eleazar of Worms (אלעזר מוורמייזא) (c. 1176–1238), or Eleazar ben Yehudah ben Ḳalonymus, also sometimes known today as Eleazar Rokeach ("Eleazar the Perfumer" אלעזר רקח) from the title of his Book of the Perfumer (Sefer ha rokeah ספר הרקח)—where the numerical value of "Perfumer" (in Hebrew) is equal to Eleazar—was a leading Talmudist and Ḳabbalist, and the last major member of the Ḥasidei Ashkenaz.
Daniel ben Yehudah Dayyan was a Jewish liturgical poet, who lived at Rome in the middle of the fourteenth century CE. He was the grandfather of Daniel ben Samuel ha-Rofe, rabbi at Tivoli. According to Samuel David Luzzatto, Daniel ben Yehudah was the author of the well-known piyyut "Yigdal" containing a doxology based upon the thirteen articles of belief of Maimonides. This piyyut, which forms part of the morning prayer among the Ashkenazim, and is sung by the Sephardim on the eve of Sabbaths and holy days, is included in the Romaniote ritual for Saturday evening. (adapted from wikipedia)
Jacob ben Judah Hazzan was a 13th-century Jewish legal codifier based in London, England. His grandfather was one Jacob he-Aruk (possibly Jacob le Long). In 1287 Jacob wrote Etz Chaim a ritual code in two parts, containing 646 sections respectively, dealing with the whole sphere of Halakah, and following in large measure Maimonides in the Mishneh Torah, though Jacob utilized also the Halakot Gedolot, the Siddur of Amram Gaon, and the works of Moses of Coucy, Alfasi and the tosafists. He quotes, furthermore, Isaac ben Abraham, Moses of London and Berechiah de Nicole (Lincoln). Some verses by him are also extant.
Binyamin Benisch ben Yehudah Loeb ha-Kohen (fl. late 17th, early 18th century) is primarily known as the compiler of the Sefer Shem Tov Qatan. If you know more, please contact us.
Mosheh ben Yeshayah Menaḥem Bachrach (also known as Moses Mendels; 1574–1641), was a talmudic scholar and av bet din in Szydlow, Wlodzimierz, Krakow, Frankfurt, Prague, and ultimately, Posen. He participated in the sessions of the Council of the Four Lands in Yaroslav (1614) and in Lublin (1639). Jacob Reischer in his Shevut Ya'akov refers to him as an outstanding talmudic scholar.
David ben Yishai was the second king of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah, reigning ca. 1010–970 BCE. While almost half of the Psalms are headed "l'David" and tradition identifies several with specific events in David’s life (e.g., Psalms № 3, 7, 18, 34, 51, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 63 and 142), most scholars consider these headings to be late additions and that no psalm can be attributed to David with certainty. 1 Samuel 16:15-18 describes David as a skillful harp (lyre) player and "the sweet psalmist of Israel."
Rabbi Yaaqov ben Yitsḥaq Ashkenazi (1550–1625), of Janów (near Lublin, Poland), was the author of the Tsenah uR'enah, a Yiddish-language prose work written around the 1590s whose structure parallels the weekly portions of the Pentateuch and Haftorahs used in Shabbat services.
Mordechai Ben Yitsḥak haLevy was a 13th century rabbi and liturgical poet who emigrated from Iraq to Mainz in Germany. There, hiding in the Jewish quarter with the rest of the Jewish community of Mainz, he witnessed the terrible massacres of the Crusaders. Authorship of the popular piyyut for Ḥanukkah, Maoz Tsur, is often attributed to him on the basis of the acrostic, מרדכי found in it.
Yequtiel ben Yosef was a paytan of piyyutim in Aramaic. Aside from this detail we know little else. If you know more, please contact us.
Sa'adiah ben Yosef Gaon (רבי סעדיה בן יוסף אלפיומי גאון; Arabic: سعيد بن يوسف الفيومي / Saʻīd bin Yūsuf al-Fayyūmi, Sa'id ibn Yusuf al-Dilasi, Saadia ben Yosef aluf, Sa'id ben Yusuf ra's al-Kull; alternative English Names: Rabbeinu Sa'adiah Gaon ("our Rabbi [the] Saadia Gaon"), often abbreviated RSG (RaSaG), Saadia b. Joseph, Saadia ben Joseph or Saadia ben Joseph of Faym or Saadia ben Joseph Al-Fayyumi; (882/892 – 942) was a prominent rabbi, Gaon, Jewish philosopher, and exegete of the Geonic period who was active in the Abbasid Caliphate.The first important rabbinic figure to write extensively in Arabic, he is considered the founder of Judeo-Arabic literature. Known for his works on Hebrew linguistics, Halakhah, and Jewish philosophy, he was one of the more sophisticated practitioners of the philosophical school known as the "Jewish Kalam" (Stroumsa 2003). In this capacity, his philosophical work The Book of Beliefs and Opinions represents the first systematic attempt to integrate Jewish theology with components of Greek philosophy. Saadia was also very active in opposition to Karaism, in defense of rabbinic Judaism.
Aharon ben Yosef of Constantinople (c. 1260 – c. 1320) was an eminent teacher, philosopher, physician, and liturgical poet in Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Born in Sulchat, Crimea, he took a prominent part in the regeneration of Karaite Judaism by the help of philosophical elements borrowed from Rabbanite literature. When only nineteen years of age he had mastered the theological knowledge of his time to such a degree that he was elected the spiritual head of the Karaite community of his native town, and in that capacity he engaged the Rabbanite teachers in a public dispute to determine the correct time for the new moon. He then journeyed through many lands and diligently studied the works of Abraham ibn Ezra, Maimonides, Naḥmanides and Rashi. Being, as he said, eager to arrive at "the truth without bias and prejudice, and free from partisan spirit," he determined to accept the results of his investigation, even if they conflicted with Karaite teachings and traditions. In this spirit of fairness he wrote, in 1294, while following the profession of a physician in Constantinople, the work which established his fame and influence despite his Rabbanite proclivities. This work was the "Mibhar" (The Choice), a commentary on the Pentateuch, written in the terse, concise, and often obscure style and after the critical method of Ibn Ezra, and this became to the later generation of Karaite teachers a source of instruction in religious philosophy, in exegesis, and in practical theology, that is, the observance of the Torah. (adapted from his wikipedia article)
Rabbi Nahum Moshe Ben-Natan (1935-2001) was an Orthodox rabbi in the United States. His career began as chaplain of the Hudson River State Hospital (Poughkeepsie, New York), rabbi of the Knesseth Israel Congregation (Birmingham, Alabama), and Young Israel (Ottawa, Canada). He served Beth Jacob Congregation (Baltimore, Maryland) beginning in 1972. We know little more about Rabbi Ben-Natan. If you can add more details, please contact us.
ben-Uriyah (בן־אוריה) is given by the Star Hebrew Publishing Company as the name of the translator for the Rosh haShanah and Yom Kippur maḥzorim published with "modern Yiddish" translations in 1927/8. Sadly, we have no more information about this translator. If you know more, please contact us.
Founded in 1999, the Ben Yehuda Project digitally transcribes Hebrew works in the Public Domain.
Stephen Vincent Benét (July 22, 1898 – March 13, 1943) was an American poet, short story writer, and novelist. He is best known for his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, John Brown's Body (1928), for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and for the short stories "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1936) and "By the Waters of Babylon" (1937). In 2009, The Library of America selected his story "The King of the Cats" (1929) for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American Fantastic Tales edited by Peter Straub.
Zvi Berenson (צבי ברנזון, February 26, 1907 - January 30, 2001) was an Israeli jurist who served as a judge on the Supreme Court of Israel. He was one of the writers of the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948.
Rabbi Peter Berg, originally from Ocean Township, New Jersey, is the senior rabbi of The Temple, in Atlanta, Georgia. Prior to coming to The Temple, he served as rabbi of Temple Beth Or in Washington Township, New Jersey and as the Associate Rabbi of Temple Emanuel-El in Dallas, Texas. Additionally, he served Congregation Kol Ami in White Plains, New York as a rabbinic intern and at Beth El Hebrew Congregation in Alexandria, Virginia, as its Youth Director. He holds a degree in Education and Human Development, with a focus in human services, counseling, and Judaic Studies, from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He earned his M.A. in Hebrew Literature and his rabbinic ordination from Hebrew Union College- Jewish Institute of Religion in New York and Jerusalem, where he was a Steinhardt Fellow. Rabbi Berg also holds a certificate in Chemical Dependency and Spiritual Counseling and is a trained Disaster, Fire, and Police Chaplain. He serves as a Chaplain for The Georgia State Patrol. In 2009, Rabbi Berg was inducted into the College of Preachers at Morehouse College. Rabbi Berg was a member of the 2012 Leadership Atlanta class and is an active member of the Downtown Atlanta Rotary Club. He was recently re-appointed to the Georgia Holocaust Commission by the Lt. Governor. In 2013, Rabbi Berg was named by Newsweek and The Daily Beast as one of the top 50 most influential rabbis in the United States of America. From 2016-2022, he was named annually by Georgia Trend as one of the Most Influential Georgians and from 2019-2023 as one of Atlanta's Most Powerful Leaders. In 2023 he received Atlanta's highest honor from Mayor Dickens, the Phoenix Award, as well as the Distinguished Advocate Award from The American Jewish Committee. He has served on numerous communal and advisory boards, including: The American Jewish Congress, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Mental Health Association, Dallas for Children, the Westwood Area Clergy Association, The New York Service for the Handicapped, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) National Council, The Faith Alliance of Metro Atlanta (FAMA), The American Jewish Committee, and The Jewish Family and Career Services (JFCS) He served as national Program Chair for the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) also served on the editorial committee for the CCAR High Holy Day prayer book, Mishkan haNefesh. Rabbi Berg currently serves on the Board of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the Anti-Defamation League, Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students (GEEARS), Faith In Public Life, OUTCRY: Faith Voices Against Gun Violence, Three Star, Home First, Georgia Interfaith Public Policy Center, The Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta, and the Commission On Social Action for Reform Judaism. He is Past President of the Atlanta Rabbinical Association. Rabbi Berg serves on the advisory Boards of: The American Jewish Archives (Vice-Chair), The Jewish Fertility Foundation, JumpSpark Teen Initiative, The Islamic Speakers Bureau, and the Grady Hospital Foundation.
Zackary Sholem Berger is a poet in English, Yiddish, and Hebrew living in Baltimore, where he is a member of Beth Am and Hinenu.
Zackary Sholem Berger is a poet in English, Yiddish, and Hebrew living in Baltimore, where he is a member of Beth Am and Hinenu.
Rabbi Bernard Bergman (September 2, 1911 – June 16, 1984), born in Romania, was an Orthodox rabbi and businessman in the United States. In the 1920s, after his family emigrated to Brooklyn. Bergman went to Mandatory Palestine, where he attended the Hebron Yeshiva in order to pursue his religious studies. He received his semikhah from Moshe Mordechai Epstein in 1933. Back in New York City, he took a position as a rabbi at the Home of the Sons and Daughters of Israel, a nursing home on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He also served as editor and publisher of the Yiddish-language daily The Jewish Morning Journal and served as the head of Hapoel HaMizrachi. As a businessman, Bergman turned an inheritance of $25,000 into an empire of nursing homes valued at $24 million. Rabbi Bergman is best known for his operation of this network of nursing homes and his conviction for Medicaid fraud in 1976.
Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, [b] 17 December 1936) is the 266th and current Pope of the Catholic Church, a title he holds ex officio as Bishop of Rome, and Sovereign of the Vatican City. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bergoglio worked briefly as a chemical technician and nightclub bouncer before beginning seminary studies. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969 and from 1973 to 1979 was Argentina's provincial superior of the Society of Jesus. He became the Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was created a cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II. Following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI on 28 February 2013, a papal conclave elected Bergoglio as his successor on 13 March. He chose Francis as his papal name in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi. Francis is the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere and the first non-European pope since the Syrian Gregory III in 741. (via wikipedia)
Laszlo Berkowits (February 29, 1928 – December 13, 2020) was a Hungarian-born American Reform rabbi. From 1944 to 1945, he was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. After his release in 1945, he studied briefly in Sweden before he moved to the United States, where he began studying to be a rabbi. He was ordained in 1963. In 1963, he was hired by Temple Rodef Shalom as its first senior rabbi. He held this title for 35 years, prior to his retirement in July, 1998. In 1988, he received his Doctor of Divinity from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He served as Rabbi Emeritus at Temple Rodef Shalom until his death.
Rabbi Alvin Berkun is the rabbi emeritus at Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He served as Jewish chaplain for the Veterans' Administration in Pittsburgh, and as a U.S. Navy chaplain during the Vietnam era.
Rabbi Lauren Berkun is a Vice President of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, where she directs Rabbinic Initiatives and is a member of the senior executive team. She also oversees staff education, training and curriculum development for Hartman’s iEngage project. She is a summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, graduate of Princeton University with a BA in Religion and was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary. A Wexner Graduate Fellow, a CLAL Rabbinic Intern, and a Rabbinic Fellow in the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Rabbinic Leadership Initiative, Rabbi Berkun also served as the JTS Midwest KOLLOT Rabbinic Scholar, Director of Lifelong Learning at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, Michigan, and frequent scholar-in-residence for leadership seminars at Jewish Federations across North America. She has written and taught extensively on the topics of mikveh, sexual ethics, and body image.
Jessica Berlin is a Jewish farmer.
Ari Berman (born February 18, 1970), from Queens, New York, is an American-Israeli Modern Orthodox and Religious Zionist rabbi and academic administrator, serving as the fifth president of Yeshiva University.
Rabbi Morton Mayer Berman (1899-1986), born in Baltimore, Maryland, was a prominent Reform movement rabbi in the United States and the State of Israel. A graduate of Yale, he was ordained at the Jewish Institute of Religion (JIR) in New York. In 1927-27, he studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem under a Guggenheimer Fellowship, and at the Hochshule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums at Berlin in 1927. He served as an assistant rabbi to Dr. Stephen S. Wise at the Free Synagogue in New York and as JIR's director of field activities. In 1937, he came to Chicago's Isaiah Israel synagogue, where he quickly reinstated traditions and ceremonies eliminated by earlier generations of Reform movement rabbis. During WWII he served as a Navy chaplain in the Pacific, landing with Marines at Okinawa. In 1946, he was awared an honorary Doctor of Divinity from JIR. Following his retirement and aliyah to Israel in 1957, he helped raise money for the United Jewish Appeal.
Rabbi Phyllis O. Berman has, since the early 1980s, been a leading Jewish-renewal liturgist, prayer leader, story-writer, and story-teller. From 1994 to 2005, Berman was Director of the Summer Program of the Elat Chayyim Center for Healing and Renewal. She is the co-author of Tales of Tikkun: New Jewish Stories to Heal the Wounded World (1996); A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven: The Jewish Life-Spiral as a Spiritual Journey (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2002); The Tent of Abraham: Stories of Peace and Hope for Jews, Christians, and Muslims (2006), and Freedom Journeys: Tales of Exodus & Wilderness across Millennia (2013).
Rabbi Stuart L. Berman is the Police-Clergy Liaison for the New York City Police Department and chaplain for the Sanitation Department. In 1985, Rabbi Berman became the first rabbi to ever be appointed a prison chaplain in the State of Florida. He served on President Obama's Presidential Inaugural Committee, the Presidential Transition Committee, the White House Conference on Children and Youth Drug Abuse Panel, as well as the White House Conference on Aging. He also served as rabbi for the Woodside Jewish Center.
Tim Daniel Bernard is Director of Digital Learning and Engagement at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Previously, he was the Community Manager at Seeking Alpha and Grants and Communications Manager at PELIE, having taught Humash and Rabbinics at the Hannah Senesh Community Day School in Brooklyn for two years. He was also Kollel Fellow for a year at Yeshivat Hadar. Tim was ordained at JTS in 2009, where he also graduated from the Graduate School with an MA in Talmud & Rabbinics. He grew up in London and earned an undergraduate degree in Philosophy from the University of Bristol, which he followed with a year of learning at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem. While in Britain, he was involved for many years in the annual Limmud Conference, as both participant and organizer. Tim is an active member of Kehilat Hadar, where he gives regular divrei Torah (many of which can be found on this site), and co-chaired the Shavuot Retreat in 2011. He is married to Rabbi Ashira Konigsburg, with whom he enjoys traveling, hiking and visiting modern art galleries.
Rabbi Leila Gal Berner was ordained at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and holds a second ordination from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (of blessed memory). She received her doctorate in medieval Jewish history from UCLA. She is Dean of Students of the ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal Ordination where she teaches biblical and medieval history, feminist thought, and midrash. Dr. Berner has taught in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at American University and George Washington and Emory universities, and Swarthmore and Reed colleges.
Rabbi Ellen Bernhardt is the JCRC Director for the Jewish Federation of Delaware.
Aryeh Bernstein is a fifth generation Chicago native, an editor of Jewschool.com, the coordinator of the Back to Basics Beginners Judaism Program at Mishkan Chicago, and an educational consultant for Jewish Council on Urban Affairs. While living in Jerusalem, he helped translate the Koren-Steinsaltz English Talmud edition. He has studied at Columbia, JTS, YU, YCT, and Yeshivat Maale Gilboa, and taught at Yeshivat Hadar, Drisha, Yeshivat Talpiot, the Hartman High School, Camp Ramah in WI, and elsewhere. He has led High Holiday services at Kehilat Hadar for 11 years. And he released a hip-hop album, called A Roomful of Ottomans.
Rabbi Ellen Bernstein (1953-2024), born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, was a Jewish environmental activist, rabbi, and educator. In 1988, she founded Shomrei Adamah (Keepers of the Earth), the first national Jewish environmental organization. Shomrei Adamah grew organically out of an ecologically-centered arts and music seder for Tu Bishvat that she organized in Philadelphia along the banks of the Schuylkill River. Around then, she also sponsored Rabbi Miles Krassen in making the first English translation of the original Tu Bishvat seder haggadah, the Pri Ets Hadar. In 2012, she was ordained at the Academy for Jewish Religion. Besides authoring her own Tu Bishvat haggadah, she wrote Ecology & the Jewish Spirit: Where Nature & the Sacred Meet (2000), The Splendor of Creation: A Biblical Ecology (2005), and The Promise of the Land (2020).
Leonard Bernstein (August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was a Jewish-American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first American conductor to receive international acclaim. Bernstein was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history" according to music critic Donal Henahan. Bernstein received numerous honors and accolades including seven Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, and 16 Grammy Awards (including the Lifetime Achievement Award) as well as an Academy Award nomination. He received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981.
Philip Sidney Bernstein (June 29, 1901 – December 3, 1985) was a Reform rabbi who served as the advisor to the U.S. Army during World War II. After the war he helped find homes for over 200,000 displaced Jews. Born in Rochester, New York he went on to study at Syracuse University and the Jewish Institute of Religion. At the age of 25, in 1926, Bernstein returned to Rochester to serve as assistant rabbi of Temple B'rith Kodesh. Within the year he was made rabbi and continued there until the late 1960s. As rabbi, Bernstein began fighting antisemitism; exemplified by his correspondence with his acquaintance Cardinal Edward Mooney. Bernstein requested the Cardinal join him in combating Father Charles Coughlin and his antisemitic National Union for Social Justice. During World War II Bernstein, acted as the official advisor on Jewish affairs to United States Army commanders in Europe, relating the stories of the Holocaust to the United States beginning in 1943. After the war, Bernstein assisted in resettling over 200,000 displaced European Jews. At the petition of Orthodox Jews living in displaced persons' camps, he adopted their proposition that copies of the Talmud should be printed to help support Jewish education in the refugee camps. In the 1950s and 60s, Bernstein served as the president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and chairman of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Isaiah Beer Bing (Hebrew: ישי בער בינג, French: Isaïe Berr Bing; 1759 – 21 July 1805) was a French writer, translator, and Hebraist. He was one of the first members from France of the Haskalah movement.
Rabbi Dr. Albert (Aaron) Siegfried Bettelheim (1830-1890), born in Galgoc, Hungary, was a scholar, writer, educator, and rabbi in Europe and the United States. He began his education at the yeshivah of Presburg, and afterward studied in the Talmudical schools at Leipnik, Moravia, and Prague; enjoying the tutelage of S. L. Rapoport, from whom, at the age of eighteen, he received his semikhah. Rabbi Bettelheim officiated for a short time as rabbi and religious teacher at Münchengrätz, and then returned to Prague to enter the university, whence he graduated with the degree of Ph.D. In 1850, and for several years thereafter, Bettelheim was the Austrian correspondent of a number of London journals, and acted as private tutor ("Hofmeister") to Count Forgács, then governor of Bohemia, and afterward Hungarian court-chancellor. In the early fifties Bettelheim came to Temesvár, Hungary, where he was director of the Jewish schools and editor of a political weekly called Elöre (Forward). In 1856 he became the "official translator of Oriental languages and censor of Hebrew books" at Czernowitz, where, in 1858, he married Henrietta Weintraub, the first female Jewish public-school teacher in Hungary. In 1860 he became rabbi at Komorn, Hungary, where he was appointed superintendent of all the schools—the first Jew to gain such a distinction. Thence he went to Kaschau [Slowakei], where he officiated as rabbi until 1862. While at Kaschau he edited a Jewish weekly, Der Jude, to combat the views of the Jewish Congress, then holding animated conventions at Budapest. There, too, he edited a political weekly, whose progressive ideas were discountenanced by his congregation and held to be prejudicial to Judaism. The fanaticism of his people became so pronounced that, being threatened with excommunication by one of the colleagues of his former domicile in Komorn, he decided to emigrate to America with his family. In 1867 Bettelheim was elected rabbi of the Crown street congregation (now Beth Israel) of Philadelphia, and became a professor at the Maimonides College. In 1869 he became rabbi of congregation Beth Ahabah, of Richmond, Virginia, where he established and edited a German weekly, Der Patriot (afterward changed into a daily, with the title The State Gazette). While in Richmond he entered the Medical College, and was graduated with the degree of M.D. He intended to write a work on Jewish medicine, and has left behind a number of monographs and other documentary material not yet published. In 1875 he was elected rabbi of the Ohabai Shalom congregation of San Francisco, California, where he became chairman of the Society for the Study of Hebrew, composed entirely of Christian clergymen, and director of the Society for the Suppression of Vice. He held other public offices, and delivered the baccalaureate sermon at various high schools and colleges. He occupied the pulpits of the Unitarian and Baptist churches in San Francisco, and afterward in Baltimore, where, in 1887, he became rabbi of the First Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, an office he held till his death. In Baltimore he became identified with a number of public institutions and charitable organizations, and instructed some non-Jews in the elements of the Hebrew language. While on the homeward voyage from a visit to Europe, he died on board ship, and was buried Aug. 21, 1900. Two Catholic priests, whose acquaintance Bettelheim had made on the voyage, read the Jewish burial service and recited the "Kaddish" as the body was lowered into the sea. He was the art critic of a prominent San Francisco journal; coeditor of the Jewish Times of San Francisco, from 1880 to 1886; a regular contributor to the Argonaut of that city; a frequent contributor to the Jewish Exponent of Philadelphia, and the Menorah Monthly in New York. He was the author of Jewish stories, two of which—"Yentil the Milk-Carrier" and "The Baal-Milhamah-Rabbi"—were translated into German, Hungarian, and Hebrew. He was at work for over twenty years on a Revised English Bible, about three-fourths of which he had completed in manuscript at the time of his death. Many of his suggestions and scholarly notes are incorporated in the last two volumes of Kohut's Aruch Completum.
Born in New York in 1917, Morrison David Bial studied at Princeton Theological Seminary, served as a chaplain at Mitchell Field during World War II, and was ordained from the Jewish Institute of Religion in 1945. Rabbi Bial spoke from pulpits in the United States as well as in Dublin, Glasgow, and London. He led a number of tours to Israel, and published thirteen books, including The Rabbi’s Bible: Torah and The Rabbi’s Bible: Prophets (began in 1966, co-authored with Solomon Simon), Liberal Judaism at Home: the Practices of Modern Reform Judaism (1971), and Your Jewish Child (1978). Rabbi Bial spent over thirty years serving Temple Sinai in Summit, New Jersey, from 1953 until he became Rabbi Emeritus in 1985. From 1985–1995, Rabbi Bial joined Temple Beth Shalom in Ocala, Florida, revitalizing its interfaith movement, and served as Rabbi Emeritus until his death in 2004.
Hayim Nahman Bialik (Hebrew: חיים נחמן ביאליק; January 9, 1873 – July 4, 1934), was a Jewish poet who wrote primarily in Hebrew but also in Yiddish. Bialik was one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew poetry. (via wikipedia)
Rabbi Dov Bidnick (1941-2021), born in Brooklyn, New York, was an Orthodox rabbi and educator in the United States. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, he received his semikhah from Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore in 1963, and a masters degree in education from the Ferkauf Graduate School of Yeshiva University in 1974. He went on to serve Sky Lake Synagogue in North Miami Beach, Florida. Rabbi Bidnick was one of the founders of the Torah Academy of South Florida and serves on the Human Resources Committee of the city of North Miami Beach. He hosted a radio program, “Judaism Speaks,” and served on the boards of the Mesivta High School, the Hebrew Academy, and the National Conference of Synagogue Youth. A lecturer and educator for the Central Agency for Jewish Education's Judaica High School Rabbi Bidnick taught for the Hebrew Academy and served as principal of the Hillel Community Day School of North Miami Beach and educational director of Hineni of Florida's Leadership Training Seminar.
Rabbi David Bigman (b. 1953) is a Modern Orthodox Rabbi. Bigman is the head of Yeshivat Ma'ale Gilboa along with Rabbis Yehuda Gilad and Shmuel Reiner. He helped found the Ein Hanatziv Midrasha for girls and used to head the Ein Tzurim Yeshiva. Bigman developed the Revadim (“layers “) technique for the study of Talmud, combining traditional learning methods with academic research tools.
Paltiel Philip Birnbaum (1904–1988) was an American religious author and translator, best known for his translation and annotation of the prayerbook Ha-Siddur Ha-Shalem ([Complete] Daily Prayer Book), first published in 1949, and widely used in Orthodox and Conservative synagogues until the late 1980s. Birnbaum was born in Kielce, Poland and emigrated to the United States in 1923. He attended Howard College and received his Ph.D. from Dropsie College. He served for several years as the principal of a Jewish day school in Wilmington, Delaware, and directed Jewish schools in Birmingham, Alabama, and Camden, New Jersey. He was a regular columnist and book reviewer for the Hebrew-language weekly, Hadoar. He also served on the board of directors of the Histadrut Ivrit b'America, an American association for the promotion of Hebrew language and culture.
Mosheh Ḥayyim ben Avraham Abba Bloch (1881-1973) was a rabbi and scholar affiliated with the Neturei Karta movement. Unfortunately, he is also remembered as a historical fabulist and forger of documents.
Rabbi Barry Block is the rabbi of Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas. A Houston native, Rabbi Block was ordained in 1991 at the New York Campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, after having been awarded the degree, Master of Arts in Hebrew Letters, at the Los Angeles Campus in 1988. Rabbi Block previously served Temple Beth-El in San Antonio, Texas, beginning in 1992 as Assistant, then Associate, Rabbi; and as Senior Rabbi from 2002 to 2013. Rabbi Block has served Reform Judaism nationally and regionally as a member of the Board of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and Chair of its Resolutions and Nominating Committees, and as President of the Southwest Association of Reform Rabbis. For 21 years, he represented his colleagues throughout Texas and Oklahoma as Rabbinic Advisor of the Union for Reform Judaism’s Greene Family Camp for Living Judaism in Bruceville, Texas. He is a member of the President’s Rabbinic Alumni Council of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Rabbi Block is the author of "Unplanned Fatherhood,” slated for 2013 publication by CCAR Press in The Sacred Encounter: Jewish Perspectives on Sexuality. Rabbi Block is Past Board Chair of the Planned Parenthood Trust of South Texas. In 2013, he completed long service to Methodist Healthcare Ministries, the largest non-governmental provider of indigent health care in south Texas, and Methodist Healthcare System, the largest hospital group and second largest private employer in San Antonio. His service there included several terms as Chair of the Healthcare System’s Ethics and Compliance Committee. In 2012, Human Rights Campaign bestowed its Equality Award upon Rabbi Block at its annual gala in San Antonio.
Rabbi Irving J. Block (1923-2002), born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, was a Reform movement rabbi in the United States. (In a draft of his memoir he wrote, “I feel as though I am an Orthodox rabbi serving a Conservative congregation, most of whose members are Reform.”) After serving in Panama in the U.S. Army during WWII, he received his B.S. from the University of Connecticut in 1947, and then he studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and served in Haganah 1947-1948. Returning to the United States, he received a Master of Hebrew Letters and was ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City in 1953. He was the founding rabbi of the Brotherhood Synagogue, Congregation Beth Achim, which he led from 1954 through his retirement in 1994. In 1978, the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion awarded him the Doctor of Divinity. He participated on the boards of the American Association for Ethiopian Jews, New York Board of Rabbis (NYBR), Joint Passover Association, New York Association for New Americans, Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, Open Congregation and Religion in American Life. Block served as chaplain for the 369th Veterans Association, the New York State Masonic Order and Jewish War Veterans, and as a prison chaplain for NYBR for one year in 1974. Block was also concerned with the issue of substance abuse in the Jewish community and served as Co-Chairman of the UJA-Federation Commission on Synagogue Relations’ Task Force on Addictions in the Jewish Community. Other organizations in which Rabbi Block was active include American Veterans of Israel, Jewish War Veterans and Life Services for the Handicapped. He lectured widely, appeared on numerous radio and television programs and received numerous awards for his work. Following his 1994 retirement, he worked on his memoir, which was published in 1999 as A Rabbi and His Dream: Building the Brotherhood Synagogue.
Sol Bloom (March 9, 1870 – March 7, 1949) was a song-writer and American politician from New York who began his career as an entertainment impresario and sheet music publisher in Chicago. He served fourteen terms in the United States House of Representatives from the West Side of Manhattan, from 1923 until his death in 1949. Bloom was the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee from 1939 to 1947 and again in 1949, during a critical period of American foreign policy. In the run-up to World War II, he took charge of high-priority foreign-policy legislation for the Roosevelt Administration, including authorization for Lend Lease in 1940. He oversaw Congressional approval of the United Nations and of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) which worked to assist millions of displaced people in Europe. He was a member of the American delegation at the creation of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945 and at the Rio Conference of 1947. Bloom was especially concerned with the fate of European Jews but was unable to overcome very strong resistance to admitting Jews or any refugees before the war. He argued vigorously after the war that the United States needed to take in larger numbers of refugees. He adopted the Zionist position that mandated Palestine should become the refuge for Jewish victims of the Holocaust. He urgently lobbied President Harry Truman in 1948 to immediately recognize the Jewish state of Israel, which Truman did. When the Republicans took control of the Foreign Affairs Committee after the 1946 election, Bloom worked closely with the new chairman, Charles Eaton. They secured approval for the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan.
The Blue Dove Foundation was created to address mental illness and addiction in the Jewish community and beyond. Our mission is to educate, equip, and ignite our Jewish community with tools to understand, support, and overcome the challenges presented by mental illness and substance abuse. As a community with a focus on tikkun olam, we work to eradicate the shame and stigma surrounding these issues. Once we achieve this goal, we can begin to improve and save lives. Mental illness, which includes substance abuse disorders, has come to the forefront over the past couple of years. The shame and stigma that have surrounded the issue for so long are starting to abate. People are talking about the problem and reaching out for help when they need it. For a small organization with big dreams, the Blue Dove Foundation has been making a significant impact. Blue Dove partners with organizations across the United States, Canada, England and Israel to provide mental health education and awareness to Jewish communities, from the unaffiliated to the ultra-Orthodox, as well as non-Jewish groups through interfaith mental health conversations. In our first few years, we have accomplished incredible things, including developing some innovative workshops and programs designed to increase awareness and decrease the stigma around mental illness and substance abuse through a Jewish lens. To continue our work, we rely upon the generosity of our community to provide the support that so many members of our community need. To donate and learn more about our organization, visit the Blue Dove Foundation website.
Born in Virbalis, Lithuania (then considered part of Russian-ruled Poland), Yehoyesh (also, Yehoash) was the pen name for Shloyme (Solomon) Blumgarten (also Bloomgarden, 1872-1927), a Yiddish-language poet, scholar and Bible translator. He emigrated to the United States in 1890 and settled in New York. For a decade he was a businessman, but wrote full-time starting in 1900 when he entered a sanitarium for tuberculosis. Yehoash "is generally recognized by those familiar with this literature [Yiddish], as its greatest living poet and one of its most skillful raconteurs", according to a New York Times book review in 1923. His output included verse, translations, poetry, short stories, essays and fables in Yiddish and some articles in English. His poetry was translated into Russian, Dutch, Polish, Finnish, German, Spanish, English and Hebrew. He was responsible for translating many works of world literature into Yiddish, including Longfellow's "Hiawatha" and a very popular translation of the Bible. His version was hailed as a contribution of national significance and perhaps the greatest masterpiece in the Yiddish language. His two volume edition became a standard work for Yiddish speaking homes throughout the world.
Rabbi Inbar Bluzer Shalem is co-founder and CEO of Rashut Ha`Rabim, an umbrella organization for the renewal of Jewish life in Jerusalem.. Previously, Inbar founded and directed Haifa Hillel and was the first Hillel shlicha to the University of Massachusetts; she holds a BA in economics and an MA in humanitarian affairs through a joint program of Israelis and Palestinians in Italy. Inbar is the alumna of six pluralistic Batei Midrash programs in Israel. She has recently been ordained as a rabbi following completion of her rabbinic studies at Hebrew Union College. She also received an MA in pluralistic Jewish education from Hebrew University. Inbar is married and lives in Jerusalem with three of the most amazing children in the city.
The Bnei Qoraḥ (sons of Ḳoraḥ a/k/a Qoraḥites) were an important branch of the singers of the Kohathite division (2 Chronicles 20:19). Eleven psalms are attributed to the Qoraḥites: Psalms 42, Psalms 44 - 49, Psalms 84, Psalms 85, Psalms 87, and Psalms 88. Some of the sons of Qoraḥ also were "porters" of the temple (1 Chronicles 9:17-19); one of them was over "things that were made in the pans" (v31), i.e., the baking in pans for the meat-offering (Leviticus 2:5). (via wikipedia)
Joshua Boettiger is the rabbi and spiritual leader of Temple Emek Shalom in Ashland, Oregon. Prior to this, he served as the rabbi of Congregation Beth El in Bennington, Vermont. He is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, and is a Rabbis Without Borders Fellow. He has served on the Boards of Rabbis for Human Rights North America, Vermont Interfaith Power and Light, and was the Vermont coordinator of the Jewish Justice Initiative. Rabbi Boettiger teaches Jewish meditation on a weekly basis and leads twice yearly silent retreats with his wife, Rabbi Vanessa Boettiger. He has taught at Williams College, Southern Vermont College, and been a scholar in residence at different locations around the country, teaching on topics ranging from modern Jewish thought to biblical Hebrew to the history of Jewish poetry. Rabbi Boettiger has an abiding interest in sacred spaces and continues to work as a builder of ritual structures – from sukkahs and chuppahs to prayer/meditation spaces. He has published articles in Parabola, Zeek and other online magazines.
Ben Zion-Bokser was born in Lubomi, Poland, and emigrated to the United States at the age of 13 in 1920. Bokser heard Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook speak in New York in 1924 and became an avid student and great proponent of his teachings. Bokser attended City College of New York (BA, 1928) and Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Theological Seminary (Yeshiva University), followed by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (ordained, 1931) and Columbia University (PhD, 1935). He taught for many years as an Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Queens College, City University of New York. His first pulpit was Congregation Beth Israel in Vancouver. He served as the rabbi of Forest Hills Jewish Center in Queens, New York starting in 1933 and remained in that position for the balance of his career, more than fifty years. He served a two-year period as a United States Army chaplain during World War Two, stationed at Camp Miles Standish in Massachusetts. During WWII, he organized aid for Jewish soldiers. Bokser was an advocate of social justice, taking a position in favor of the construction of a housing project for the poor in the middle class community of Forest Hills. He fought against the death penalty in NY state.
Michele Bolaffi (or Michaele ; 1768–1842), born in Itali, was a distinguished musician and composer active in Livorno in the early 19th century. His tenure as musical director of the Great Synagogue of Livorno can be considered a turning point in the development of choral and instrumental music for use in the Italian synagogue. Bolaffi held international prestige: he served as the musical director to the Duke of Cambridge; toured in Germany with singer Angelica Catalani; and was in the service if Louis ⅩⅧ as a church musician in France. Many of his synagogue compositions are preserved in two related manuscripts, dated 1821 and 1826, copied by the tenor Aron Croccolo, a ḥazzan of the Livornese synagogue. Bolaffi also composed secular music, including an opera Saul, a Misere for three voices and orchestra (1802), a sonetto on the death of Haydn (1809) and many other short vocal pieces. He also wrote poems, an Italian adaptation of Solomon ibn Gabirol's Keter Malkhut under the title Teodia (1809), and Italian translations of Jacques de Lille (1813) and Voltaire (1816).
Rabbi Herbert W. (Chaim Zev) Bomzer (August 16, 1927 - February 8, 2013), born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York, was a prominent Orthodox rabbi in the United States. Ordained at Yeshiva University, he received smikhah from Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Rabbi Moshe Feinstein. As Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva University, he taught Talmud to over 3,000 students for over 50 years. He held a Doctorate in Jewish Education and Administration, as well as a Master of Arts in Jewish History and Philosophy. He was the President and Chairman of the Political Action Committee of the Vaad Harabonim of Flatbush and Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies at Yeshiva University, where he taught Talmud and Judaic Law. A recognized expert in Orthodox conversion to Judaism, Rabbi Bomzer was given approval to conduct conversion administration from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rav Dvorkin, the Kaizmarker Rav, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, and Rabbi Aaron Soloveitchik. He published a book on conversion, The Chosen Road in 1996. Rabbi Bomzer also served as rabbi for Young Israel of Ocean Parkway and as a chaplain for the New York City Department of Corrections at Rikers Island. As a Rabbinical leader, he served twice as President of the Rabbinical Board of Flatbush, was Chairman and President of the Halakhic Committee of the Council of Young Israel Rabbis, was Chairman and an Officer of the Committee for Hizuk Hadat of the Rabbinical Council of America, was an Officer in the administration of the National Council of Young Israel, and a board member of various organizations including the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada (Agudath Harabonim), and the Iggud HaRabbonim and Poale Agudat Yisroel.
Rabbi Moshe E. Bomzer is an Orthodox rabbi in the United States. He has served congregations in Hollywood, Florida, Toronto, Ontario and in Albany, New York. He received his rabbinical ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University after pursuing Talmudic studies at Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim in Forest Hills, NY and Jerusalem, as well as at Yeshiva Ner Yisroel in Baltimore. Besides his congregational work, he serves as a hospital chaplain, and as mashgiaḥ, heading the Vaad HaKashruth of Albany, New York, and representing in the Capital District, OU Kosher, Star-K, Kof-K, and CRC.
George Henry Borrow (5 July 1803 – 26 July 1881) was an English writer of novels and of travel based on personal experiences in Europe. His travels gave him a close affinity with the Romani people of Europe, who figure strongly in his work. His best-known books are The Bible in Spain and the novels Lavengro and The Romany Rye, set in his time with the English Romanichal (Gypsies).
Yitsḥaḳ Yaakov (Jacob) Bosniak (also Bosnyak, 1887–1963) was an American Conservative rabbi. Bosniak was born in Russia, immigrated to the U.S. in 1903, and completed his rabbinical studies at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Yeshivah, an Orthodox seminary, in 1907. In 1917, he was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he earned a Doctor of Hebrew Letters in 1933. In 1921, after having served Congregation Shearith Israel in Dallas, Texas, he became rabbi of the Ocean Parkway Jewish Center in Brooklyn, n.y., a congregation he was to serve for 28 years. He was president of the Brooklyn Board of Rabbis (1938–40), chairman of the *Rabbinical Assembly's Rabbinic Ethics Committee (1945–48) and a judge (dayyan) and member of the Board of Directors of the Jewish Conciliation Board of America. Believing in the need for a uniform prayer book (siddur) with modern English translations, Bosniak published several prayer books that gained wide acceptance in Conservative synagogues. He edited Prayers of Israel (1925, 1937), Likutei Tefilot: Public and Pulpit Prayers (1927) and Anthology of Prayer (1958), prayer books that included English translations of Sabbath and Holiday prayers, English hymns, responsive readings, and instructions related to worship in English. In 1944, he published Interpreting Jewish Life: The Sermons and Addresses of Jacob Bosniak. Upon his retirement in 1949, Bosniak was elected rabbi emeritus and devoted his time to Jewish scholarship, publishing a critical edition of The Commentary of David Kimhi on the Fifth Book of Psalms (1954).
Jonah Sampson Boyarin is an educator, writer, and Yiddish translator, and a member of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. His preferred genres are tkhines and science fiction, go know.
Dr. Carina Brankovic is a Research Associate in Religious Studies at the Institute of Protestant Theology, the University of Oldenburg. She was trained in Religious Studies, Protestant Theology and Jewish Studies at the University of Heidelberg, the College of Jewish Studies Heidelberg and the University of Zurich. She completed her PhD. on George Tabori (1914-2007), a Hungarian born Jewish writer and theater director. Her doctoral thesis addresses ritual and religious constructions in Tabori's Holocaust play "The Cannibals" (New York City 1968) and "Die Kannibalen" (West-Berlin 1969). Her interests focus on the post-Holocaust German-Jewish theater as well as on Material Religion, especially the representation of religion(s) in museums.
Reuven Brauner is a writer in Ra’anana, Israel. He has published numerous e-books of Jewish texts which are available for download at Tzvee Zahavy's website, halakhah.com.
Rabbi Daniel S. Brenner is chief of Education and Program at Moving Traditions, a Jewish non-profit organization which runs educational program for teenagers. From 2007-2011, Brenner was the founding executive director of Birthright Israel NEXT. He directed graduate-level training programs at Auburn Theological Seminary and at CLAL- the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, both in New York City. In 2009, he was named by Newsweek Magazine as one of the fifty most influential rabbis in America.
Marcus Heinrich (also Mordecai Ḥayyim/Hyman/Heyman) Bresslau (ca. 1808-15 May 1864) was a Hebraist and newspaper editor. Born in Hamburg, he settled in England when young. For some time from 1834 he was Baal Ḳoreh (reader) at the Western Synagogue. He then taught Hebrew at the Westminster Jews’ Free School and went on to tutor privately. A maskil, he became involved with M. J. Raphall’s Hebrew Review and Magazine of Rabbinical Literature (1834-6). In October 1844 he was appointed editor of the relaunched Jewish Chronicle by proprietor Joseph Mitchell. Prickly and quarrelsome, he resigned in July 1848 but returned in around September. He remained until about October 1850. After Mitchell’s death in June 1854 he became proprietor (his middle name appearing as Heyman) and edited it until February 1855 when new proprietor Abraham Benisch succeeded him. Bresslau, who tried vainly to revive the Hebrew Review, wrote Hebrew poetry, produced a Hebrew grammar and a Hebrew dictionary, and translated various Hebrew manuscripts in the Bodleian Library. Bresslau compiled (we think) the first compilation of teḥinot in English for women. (Much of this information via Bresslau's entry in The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History)
Reverend Dr. Howard Allen Bridgman (1860-1929) was both a Congregationalist figure and educator. He studied at Amherst College, Hartford Theological Seminary, and Yale Theological Seminary. Bridgman was officially ordained in 1890. During this time, from 1883-1884, he was the principal of Massachusetts' Granby High School. In 1908, he was awarded a Doctor of Divinity from Oberlin College. In 1889, Bridgman took the job of managing editor of the Christian magazine, "The Congregationalist" and remained in the position until 1911 when he took over as the publication's editor-in-chief. He kept this tenure until 1921, at which point he accepted the role of headmaster at the Lawrence Academy. In 1925, left this position and founded his own school, Bridgman School, which he also served as the headmaster of. Bridgman authored three books in his lifetime, "Steps Christward," "Real Religion," and "New England in the Life of the World." He served on a number of missionary councils abroad and was in attendance of the 1914 peace conference in Switzerland. Bridgman was also a director at the South End Social Settlement.
Rabbi Mordecai Louis Brill (1910-1994), born in Indianapolis, Indiana, was a Conservative movement rabbi in the United States. After attending the Hebrew Theological College in Chicago, he was ordained at the rabbinical school of the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1936. Rabbi Brill's first pulpit, in 1936, was at Rodeph Sholom Congregation in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. In 1940, he moved to Brith Sholom in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania where he was also director of B'nai B'rith youth organizations at nearby schools. In 1943, Rabbi Brill left Bethlehem to serve as an army chaplain. Brill returned to civilian life in 1946, and served as rabbi of the Beth El Synagogue in Waterbury, Connecticut until 1950. He pursued a doctorate at JTS; his dissertation was entitled My Experiences and Observations as a Jewish Chaplain in World War II. Rabbi Brill later served as the spiritual leader of the Greenburgh Hebrew Center, in Dobbs Ferry, New York, and as a hospital chaplain at the Holy Cross Hospital of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Chairman of the Synagogue Council of America’s Committee on the Family, in 1967, he was chosen by the National Council of Churches to chair their Interfaith Commission on Marriage and Family Life. After this, he collaborated with William H. Genné in writing and editing two books: Marriage: An Interfaith Guide for All Couples (1970) and Write your own wedding: A personal guide for couples of all faiths (1973). He contributed a syndicated news column, "Footnotes to History: It Happened to the Jews." In 1988, he was honored as Chaplain of the Year, by the National Association of Jewish Chaplains. (If you know more about Rabbi Brill, please contact us and contribute additional details to this short bio.)
Sir Israel Brodie KBE (10 May 1895 – 13 February 1979) was the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth 1948–1965.
Yonah Bromberg Gaber writes about intersectional queerness from Washington, DC. Having grown up in the Conservative Movement, they seek to build queer space and belongingness within traditional egalitarian communities.
Isaac Brooks Fishman is a volunteer with IfNotNow.
Devorah Brous (@Dev.Brous, she|her) is an urban homesteader and herbalist, ritual facilitator, and earth/soul-care consultant, "root down to rise up." She holds two Masters degrees in conflict resolution and development studies. A community organizer with systems-impacted and underinvested communities for 25 years (indigenous, houseless, and formerly incarcerated people), she is the former founding Executive Director of two mission-driven environmental nonprofits, BUSTAN, and Netiya. Her practice, FromSoil2Soul, is dedicated to tending people in time-tested earth-based traditions as well as emergent wellness exercises. Rooted in mystical Judaism and earth-based Torah, her nature-based healing practice is also grounded in soil science and the wise-woman tradition of folk herbalism woven together with poetry and prayer.
Rabbi Sharon Brous is a Conservative movement rabbi in the United States. She is the senior rabbi of IKAR (Los Angeles, California) and the author of The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Heal Our Hearts and Mend Our Broken World (2024).
Maia Brown (she/her) is a musician, visual artist, writer, translator, dance-leader and educator on unceded Duwamish, Coast Salish land in Seattle, Washington.
Rabbi Dr. Edward Benjamin Morris Browne (1845-1929) was born in Hungary and received his early Hebrew and rabbinical training in Europe. He emigrated to the United States in the 1860s. He obtained a medical degree from the University of Cincinnati and taught at the Medical College of Evansville. He also held several rabbinical posts in the Midwest and South - Milwaukee, Evansville, Peoria, Montgomery (Alabama) and Atlanta. During this time, he was associated with Rabbi Isaac M. Wise until they had a disagreement and subsequent falling out in 1878. During the 1870s, Browne began to build a national reputation as an orator and lectured widely on Jewish topics, mainly to non-Jewish audiences. He began his involvement with Republican Party politics, both nationally and in New York, where he moved in the 1880s. In 1885, he was a pallbearer at the funeral of President Grant. In New York City, Browne was rabbi of Congregation Gates of Hope where in addition to his speaking engagements, he was also active in legal and civic work. Starting in the 1890s, Browne moved several times, living mainly in the Midwest and South. He served congregations in Toledo (Ohio), Chicago and Columbus (Georgia). In addition to his medical and rabbinical degrees, Browne also held a law degree from the University of Wisconsin. He became known as "Alphabet" Browne because of the preponderance of letters after his name. Browne led a controversial and visible public life and was involved in numerous activities including the unsuccessful attempt to establish a Jewish chaplaincy at the turn of the century.
Rabbi Arthur Buch served congregation Shaare Zedek (New York, New York). In the 1950s, he served as rabbi for Temple Emanuel in Paterson, New Jersey. A scholar and educator, he also taught at the New School for Social Research in New York City and the University of Scranton. He wrote his dissertation on the Jewish Community of Scranton, Pennsylvania. He authored The Bible on Broadway; a source book for ministers, educators, librarians, and general readers (1968). We know little more about Rabbi Buch. If you have more details to add to this bio, please contact us.
Rabbi David Bueno de Mesquita, B.A., trained by Moses Gaster, was a senior hazzan of the Bevis Marks Congregation. Unfortunately, we know little else. If you know more, please contact us.
Rabbi Amos Bunim (1929-2011), born in New York, was an Orthodox rabbi in the United States. He was a founder of Torah Academy for Girls (TAG) in Far Rockaway and Yeshiva Sh’or Yoshuv in Lawrence, New York. He is the author of A Fire in His Soul: Irving M. Bumin, 1901-1980 (1989). (We have little more information about Rabbi Bunim for this short bio. Please contribute a detail to help honor him by contacting us.
Rabbi Abraham Burstein (1893–1966) was a rabbi, author, and editor in the United States. Born in Cleveland, Burstein was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1917. After serving in graves registration for the Jewish Welfare Board in France, he held pulpits in New England and in New York (at Inwood Hebrew Congregation). He was chaplain for the New York Department of Correction from 1934 until his death, chaplain of the Jewish Theatrical Guild from 1924, and executive secretary of the Jewish Academy of Arts and Sciences. Burstein was editor of the Jewish Outlook, editor and researcher of many Jewish scholarly works, and a leading book reviewer for the Anglo-Jewish press for many years. Author of books for children, he wrote Boy of Cordova (1934) about Moses ben Maimon, Adventure on Manhattan Island (1957) about Peter Stuyvesant and the Jews, and A Jewish Child's Garden of Verses (1940). He also wrote Religious Parties in Israel (1936) and Laws Concerning Religion in the United States (1950). Among his other books are Ghetto Messenger (1928), Unpastoral Lyrics (1930), A Boy Called Rashi (1940), Judah Halevi in Granada (1941), The Boy of Wilna (1941), and West of the Nile: A Story of Saadia Gaon (1942).
Asher Hillel Burstein is a cantor, poet, singer-songwriter, and teacher. Besides his education in various yeshivot, a bachelors degree in Hebrew, an MFA in Fiction Writing, and a masters in Jewish Studies, he is working on a third masters degree in Secondary English Education while finishing up his doctorate in Creative Writing.
Bradley Burston (Hebrew: בראדלי בורסטון) is an American-born Israeli journalist. Burston is a columnist for Haaretz and senior editor of Haaretz.com. He writes a blog called "A Special Place in Hell".
Rabbi Simcha Daniel Burstyn is a rabbi, gardener, permaculturalist, teacher, singer, spiritual director, peace activist. He has been a member of Kibbutz Lotan for 22 years, the only kibbutz that is also an ecovillage. In the Kibbutz’s Center for Creative Ecology, Rabbi Simcha teaches courses in Peace and Social Justice and Jewish Approaches to the Environment.
Rabbi Shmuel Menachem Butman (born 1944) is a Chabad rabbi in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York. He is the director of Lubavitch Youth Organization. He has served for many years as the director of the L'Chaim weekly magazine. After Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson suffered a stroke, Butman emerged as one of the leading proponents of Chabad messianism.
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