JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

efrat
ers, rather than composers. According to Eerdmans, material
found particularly in Genesis belongs to various stages
of religious development of which the earliest is polytheistic
and the latest monotheistic, the earlier material referring to
God by the plural form Elohim and the later as Yahweh. He
argued for the cultural historicity of the patriarchs and for
the advanced state of ritual in the Mosaic period. He maintained
that most of the legal codes of Leviticus were Mosaic,
thus rejecting the commonly accepted J. *Wellhausen–K.H.
*Graf hypothesis. He was one of the earliest scholars who advanced
an Exilic date for sections of the book of Daniel. He
wrote Der Ursprung der Ceremonien des Hosein Festes (1894);
The Religion of Israel (1947), a new treatment of his earlier De
godsdienst van Israeel (2 vols., 1930); The Covenant at Mt. Sinai
(1939); Studies in Job (1939); and The Hebrew Book of Psalms
(in: Oudtestamentische Studieen, 1947).
Bibliography: H.F. Hahn, The Old Testament in Modern
Research (1956), 23–26, 97–98; Eissfeldt, in: ZDMG, 85 (1931), 172ff.
Add. Bibliography: S. Devries, in: DBI, 1, 318.
[Zev Garber]
EFRAT (Heb. תרפא), urban community with municipal council
status, located in the *Gush Etzyon area south of Jerusalem.
Its area is 1.5 sq. mi. (4 sq. km.). Efrat was established
in 1983 after planning by an Israeli group and an American
group led by Rabbi Shlomo *Riskin of New York, who settled
in Efrat and became the town’s rabbi. When the first families
arrived the Shevut Yisrael Yeshivah, one of the hesder yeshivot,
was functioning on the site. Efrat was unique among the
West Bank settlements in that settlers moved immediately
into permanent housing. Neighborhoods are named after
the seven species for which the Land of Israel was famous
in biblical times (Deut. 8:8). In 2002 the population of Efrat
was 6,810, mainly religious people. Many of its inhabitants
are Anglo-Saxons.
Website: www.efrata.muni.il.
[Shaked Gilboa (2nd ed.)]
EFRAT, YAACOV (1912–1977), agricultural researcher. Born
in Poland, Efrat immigrated to Israel in 1936. He specialized
in field agriculture, particularly in the various breeds of wheat
used in Israel. He developed special systems for winter agriculture.
Efrat received the Israel Prize in 1977 for services to
agriculture.
EFRON, ILYA (1847–1915), Russian publisher. Efron was born
in Vilna. In 1880 he founded a printing press in Peterburg and
in 1890 he and the well-known German encyclopedia publisher
F. Brockhaus founded the Brockhaus-Efron publishing
house in St. Petersburg. It became one of the leading publishing
houses in Russia, responsible for a number of historical
and literary reference works, including an 86-volume Russian
encyclopedia, the Library of Famous Writers, and the multivolume
Library for Self-Education and Library of Natural Sciences.
It also published, in cooperation with the Society for
Jewish-Scientific Publications, the Russian-Jewish encyclopedia
Yevreyskaya Entsiklopediya in 16 volumes (1907–13). In
the field of Jewish history it published, among other works,
Renan’s “History of the Jewish People” with commentaries by
S. Dubnow and others, and two works on the Inquisition. After
1917 it transferred its activities to Berlin, operating there
until the 1930s.
[Shmuel Spector (2nd ed.)]
EFROS, ISRAEL ISAAC (1891–1981), Hebrew educator,
poet, and scholar. Born in Ostrog, the Ukraine, he went to
the United States in 1905. He served for a time as rabbi and in
1918 founded the Baltimore Hebrew College and the Teachers
Training School. He was professor of Hebrew at Johns Hopkins
University (1917–28), rabbi of Temple Beth El in Buffalo
(1929–34), professor of Semitics at the University of Buffalo
(1935–41) and Hunter College, N.Y.C. (1941–55), where he
founded the Hebrew Division; in 1945 he was appointed professor
of Jewish philosophy and modern Hebrew literature at
Dropsie College, Philadelphia. Efros served as president of
the *Histadrut Ivrit of America (1938–39). He settled in Israel
in 1955 and served as rector of Tel Aviv University. In 1960 he
was elected honorary president of the university.
His works on Jewish philosophy include The Problem
of Space in Jewish Medieval Philosophy (1917), Philosophical
Terms in the Moreh Nebukim (1924), Judah Halevi as Poet and
Thinker (1941), Ha-Pilosofyah ha-Yehudit ha-Attikah (1959),
Ancient Jewish Philosophy: A Study in Metaphysics and Ethics
(1964), Studies in Medieval Jewish Philosophy (1974), and studies
on Saadiah Gaon and Abraham B. Ḥiyya. Among his volumes
of poetry are Shirim (1932); Vigvamim Shotekim (1932),
a poem about the American Indians with echoes of American
epic poetry; Zahav (“Gold,” 1942) about the California Gold
Rush of 1849; Anaḥnu ha-Dor (1945). A four-volume collection
of his poetry was published in 1966. His spiritual world
is rooted both in tradition and in critical philosophy; thus
tension is felt in his poetry between the antipodes of feeling
and cerebration. Efros’ diction is both poetic and precise. A
pessimistic vision dominates his post-World War II works.
Efros translated Shelley’s poetry and Shakespeare’s Hamlet
and other works into Hebrew, and some of Bialik’s poetry
into English. He also collaborated with Judah Even-Shmuel
(Kaufman) and Benjamin N. Silkiner in compiling an English-Hebrew
dictionary (1929). For translations of his poetry,
see Goell, Bibliography, p. 21.
Bibliography: A. Epstein, Soferim Ivrim ba-Amerikah, 1
(1953), 66–91; J. Kabakoff, in: Jewish Book Annual, 28 (1970), 105–109;
Kressel, Leksikon, 1 (1965), 135–6; Waxman, Literature, 4 (19602),
1065–67, 1115, 1188; J. Kabakoff, in: JBA, 28 (1970/71).
EGALITATEA (“Equality”), Romanian-language periodical
(1890–1916, 1919–40), edited, directed, and published in Bucharest
by Moses Schwarzfeld with Elias *Schwarzfeld (from
his exile in France) as chief editor in the first years. It was the
longest-running Jewish periodical in Romania, at first calling
216 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6