JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

Paul Ehrlich and William Bulloch: A Correspondence and Friendship
(1896–1914); Clio Medica, 3 (1968), 65–84.
[Aryeh Leo Olitzki]
EHRLICH, SIMḤA (1915–1983), Israeli politician, leader
of the Liberal Party, and first non-Labor minister of finance,
member of the Seventh to Tenth Knessets. Ehrlich was born in
Poland. He studied at the Hebrew Gymnasium in Lublin and
was active in the General Zionist youth movement prior to his
immigration to Israel in 1938. In Israel he worked at first as an
agricultural laborer in Nes Ẓiyyonah. Ehrlich studied optics
and in 1961 established a firm for the manufacture of lenses
and applied optical instruments. He joined the General Zionist
Party and was elected to the Tel Aviv Municipal Council in
1955, serving as deputy mayor in 1962–65. In 1965 he ran in
the municipal elections at the head of the *Gaḥal list. In 1969
he ran for the Seventh Knesset on the Gaḥal list.
In 1970, Ehrlich was appointed chairman of the Liberal
Party Executive, and after the founding of the *Likud in 1973
he became a member of its Executive. In June 1977 he was appointed
by Menaḥem *Begin as minister of finance, in which
position he introduced a policy of economic liberalization,
first of all in the field of foreign currency. However, his policy
resulted in a serious deterioration in Israel’s balance of trade
and a rapid rise in the rate of inflation. As a result he was
forced to resign in October 1979, remaining in the government
as deputy prime minister. In Begin’s second government
formed after the elections to the Tenth Knesset, Ehrlich served
as minister of agriculture and deputy prime minister.
Add. Bibliography: Y. Ben Porat, Siḥot (1981).
[Fern Lee Seckbach / Susan Hattis Rolef (2nd ed.)]
EHUD (Heb. דּוהא), ֵ son of Gera the Benjaminite, referred
to as “a left-handed man” (Judg. 3:15). Ehud delivered Israel
from *Eglon, the king of Moab, to whom they had been subject
for 18 years. According to I Chronicles 8:3, Gera was the
son of Bela, Benjamin’s firstborn. If this is the same person, it
would imply that Ehud belonged to one of the chief families of
the tribe. Apparently, this family lived in the region of Geba,
which may have been associated with the ancient Gibeonites.
Possibly, this was the reason that some of its members were
driven to the western slopes of the mountain (Manahath; see
I Chron. 8:6). In early Israel’s pre-monarchic period, some of
the adjoining kingdoms, notably Moab, attempted to extend
their dominion over the Jordan Valley and the hill country
on the western bank of the river. They encountered resistance
only in Mt. Ephraim, the territory of the Rachel tribes, who did
not suffer foreign rule until the Philistine hegemony.
Ehud headed a tribute-bearing delegation to *Eglon, king
of Moab (Judg. 3:15ff.). Being left-handed, he wore a sword under
his garments on his right thigh, where guards were not in
the habit of looking for a suspicious bulge, and no one noticed
it. Under the pretext of having a “secret word” for the king,
he succeeded in gaining a private audience with him. When
he said “I bring you a word of God, your Majesty” the heavy-
eichenbaum, boris mikhailovich
fleshed monarch rose to hear it; Ehud drew his sword, thrust
its entire length into the belly of the corpulent king, and fled.
Returning to his country, he sounded the ram’s horn for the
armies to gather, captured the fords of the Jordan, and defeated
all the Moabite garrisons on the western bank of the
river. This ended the Moabite rule over Israel for several generations.
Ehud is not actually called a judge, although he is
usually numbered among the “judges.”
Bibliography: Bright, Hist, 157; Kittel, Gesch, 1 (1922), 27;
Albright, Stone, 216; M. Noth, Geschichte Israels (1956), 144–5; Y.
Kaufmann, Sefer Shofetim (1962), 104–6; Kraeling, in: JBL, 54 (1935),
205–10; Yeivin, in. Zion Me’assef, 4 (1930), 8; idem, in: Ma’arakhot,
26–27 (1945), 65–66. Add. Bibliography: Y. Amit, Judges (1999),
71–79; See also the bibliography under *Eglon.
EIBESCHUETZ, SIMON AARON (1786–1856), Danish
philanthropist. He bequeathed the major part of his property,
which amounted to about 700,000 Danish thalers, to various
municipal institutions in Copenhagen, but especially to Jewish
institutions. Among other bequests, he donated an annual
grant to the University Library of Copenhagen in order to purchase
ancient Hebrew works and books dealing with Oriental
culture. The condition that two Jewish students be admitted
annually without payment was attached to his bequests to the
Polytechnic and the Academy of Arts of Copenhagen.
Bibliography: AZDJ, 21 (1857), 104; Dansk Biografisk Leksikon,
S.V.
EICHELBAUM, SAMUEL (1894–1967), Argentine playwright
and short-story writer. Born in a Jewish agricultural
colony in Domíguez, Entre Ríos, he lived most of his life in
Buenos Aires. Though in his psychological plays Eichelbaum
deals mostly with the Argentinian middle class and is not especially
concerned with Jewish life, Jewish themes and characters
(both urban and rural) appear in his plays El Judío Aarón
(1942), Nadie la conoció nunca (1926), and Divorcio nupcial
(1941); and in some of his short stories such as “La buena cosecha,”
“El señor Lubovitzky depositario” (1925), and “Lo que
la luna vio.” He is considered one of the principal architects of
Argentinian drama. Two of Eichelbaum’s plays were awarded
the municipal prize of Buenos Aires: Tormenta de Dios (1930)
and Señorita (1937); but his best-known plays, also adapted for
the screen, are Un guapo del 900 (1940) and Un tal Servando
Gómez (1942), which deal with the suburban cultural environment
of Buenos Aires.
Bibliography: D.W. Foster, Cultural Diversity in Latin
American Literature (1994); N. Glickman and G. Waldman, Argentine
Jewish Theatre: An Anthology (1996); D.B. Lockhart, Jewish Writers
of Latin America. A Dictionary (1997); L. Senkman, La identidad
judía en la literatura argentina (1983).
[Florinda Goldberg (2nd ed.)]
EICHENBAUM, BORIS MIKHAILOVICH (1886–1959),
Russian literary scholar. Eichenbaum was born in Krasnoye
(Smolensk district) to a Jewish father and a Russian mother,
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