JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

of political science at Temple University in Philadelphia, where
he founded and directed the Center for the Study of Federalism.
A leading authority on the subject, he was a founding
president of the International Association for Federal Studies.
Elazar divided his time between the U.S. and Israel, where he
was professor of intergovernmental relations at Bar-Ilan University.
And, as founder and president of the Jerusalem Center
for Public Affairs, he headed the major independent Jewish
think tank concerned with seeking solutions to the pivotal
problems facing Israel and world Jewry.
In 1986 he was appointed by President Reagan to be a
member of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental
Relations and was reappointed in 1991 by President
Bush. He was secretary of the American Political Science Association
and served as consultant to many federal, state, and
local agencies, including the U.S. Departments of Education,
Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development,
the National Governors’ Association, the Education
Commission of the States, and the Pennsylvania Science and
Technology Commission, as well as to the governments of
Israel, Canada, Cyprus, Italy, South Africa, and Spain.
Elazar was recognized as an expert on Jewish community
organization worldwide, on the Jewish political tradition, and
on Israel’s government and politics. He was a consultant to
the Israeli government, the Jewish Agency, the World Zionist
Organization, the City of Jerusalem, and to most major Jewish
organizations in the U.S. and Canada, Europe, South Africa,
and Australia. Taking a leadership role in numerous local
and national Jewish organizations, he was chairman of
the Israel Political Science Association, a member of various
consultative bodies of the Israeli government, active in the
World Sephardi Federation, president of the American Sephardi
Federation, and served on the International Council
of Yad Vashem.
Elazar wrote or edited more than 60 books and many
other publications, including Community and Polity: The
Organizational Dynamics of American Jewry (1976), an indepth
study of the American Jewish community and its institutions;
People and Polity, The Organizational Dynamics of
World Jewry (1989), a study of the communities and institutions
of World Jewry; Israel: Building a New Society (1986);
A Double Bond: The Constitutional Documents of American
Jewry (1992); Israel at the Polls, 1992 (1994); The Conservative
Movement in Judaism: Dilemmas and Opportunities (with
R.M. Geffen, 2000); and Israel at the Polls, 1999 (2001). Some
of his books have sought a solution to the Israel-Palestinian
problem based on federal principles. He was the founder and
editor of Publius, the journal of Federalism, and the editor of
the Jewish Political Studies Review. Together with his brother,
David H. Elazar, he published A Classification System for Libraries
of Judaica.
[Yitzhak Kerem / Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)]
ELAZAR, DAVID (“Dado”; 1925–1976), Israeli soldier. Elazar
was born in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, and came to Israel in
Elazar, Ya’akov
1940, joining kibbutz Sha’ar ha-Amakim. In 1946 he became a
member of the *Palmaḥ and during the War of Independence
carried out reconnaissance in Syria. In 1948 he was appointed
company commander of the Harel Brigade and led the forces
which broke through to the Old City of Jerusalem via the Zion
Gate in May of that year.
He studied economics and Middle Eastern studies at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After the Sinai Campaign, in
which he commanded the infantry brigade which fought in
Gaza, he was transferred to the Armored Corps, and in 1961
succeeded General Ḥaim Bar-Lev as its commander, being
promoted to the rank of major-general in 1962. In November
1964 Elazar was appointed O.C. Northern Command and was
responsible for the capture of the Golan Heights in the Six-
Day War. In 1969 he was appointed chief of the General Staff
Branch, and in November 1971, chief of staff and promoted to
the rank of lieutenant-general.
Following the publication of the interim report of the
Agranat Commission on the *Yom Kippur War, which was
published early in 1974 and recommended that his term of office
be terminated, Elazar submitted his resignation. Many
felt he had been made a scapegoat for Israel’s failures in the
war. He was subsequently appointed head of the Zim Shipping
Company.
A biography of Elazar, Dado, by Hanoch *Bartov, appeared
in 1978.
ELAZAR, YA’AKOV (1912–2002), last of a generation of
Sephardi historians and personalities who lived through the
course of the 20th century in the Ottoman, British, and Israeli
periods and were active in the Sephardi life of Jerusalem. He
was the last authority on active Sephardi life in Jerusalem, his
death at the age of 90 symbolizing the end of an era.
A descendant of the Salonikan Elazar rabbinic family
which moved to Jerusalem in 1878 and the Abulafia family of
Tiberias on his mother’s side, he lived and breathed the Sephardi
life of Jerusalem. He was one of the younger members
of the He-Ḥalutz ha-Mizrachi movement. From 1931 to 1936,
he taught Hebrew in the revived Sephardi Jewish community
of Hebron. He was elected to Va’ad ha-Kehillah in Jerusalem
(1937), and the Asefat ha-Nivḥarim of the yishuv (1944). On
“Black Saturday” (June 29, 1946), after 700 leaders of the Jewish
yishuv were arrested, he gathered some 3,000 people in
Jerusalem within hours for prayer and public protest against
the British authorities.
He spoke the Jerusalemite Judeo-Spanish dialect, was an
active researcher and authority on the Sephardim of the Old
City of Jerusalem and the Sephardi courtyards, and was active
in the Sephardi community of Jerusalem. His books include
Diyyur ve-Klitah be-Yishuv ha-Yashan 1842–1919, Ḥaẓerot
Bi-Yrushalayim ha-Atikah, and Yamei Avra: Ha-Shevitah ha-
Aravit April–Oktober 1936. He wrote about the Ereẓ Israel Sephardi
chief rabbis, the Rishonei le-Ẓiyyon, and advocated that
the younger generation know and follow their teachings. He
received semikhah for sheḥitah from Chief Rabbi Jacob *Meir
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 289