JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

Dunkelman, Benjamin
ated from 1898 to 1909 and later founded the Australian Jewish
Chronicle, and A. Astor (1926–30). Although a small community,
it produced four notable members of the legislature – Sir
Julius *Vogel, Samuel Shrimski, Bendix Hallenstein, and Mark
Cohen. In the present century it dwindled and numbered only
100 in 1968 and about the same number in 2004.
Bibliography: L.M. Goldman, History of the Jews in New
Zealand (1958), index; Journal and Proceedings of the Australian Jewish
Historical Society, 1 (1943), 154–60; 2 (1948), 202–12, 269–80, 394–400;
New Zealand Jewish Review and Communal Directory (1931), 19, 47,
69. Add. Bibliography: S. Levine, The New Zealand Jewish Community
(1999), index; JYB 2004.
[Maurice S. Pitt]
DUNKELMAN, BENJAMIN (1913–1997), Canadian manufacturer
and volunteer soldier in World War II and Israel’s
War of Independence. Dunkelman was born in Toronto. His
father, David, was a wealthy Toronto clothing manufacturer
and retailer and his mother, Rose Miller (see *Dunkelman,
Rose), was a leading figure in Canadian Hadassah. After finishing
at Toronto’s elite Upper Canada College, he visited Palestine
in 1932 as a teenager and worked for several months at
Tel Asher, with the intention of joining a kibbutz. He returned
again in 1935 hoping to stay on and establish a new settlement
but returned to Canada and in 1939 – believing that he had
a personal score to settle with the Nazis – tried to join the
Royal Canadian Navy. Rejected, he enlisted in the Canadian
Army and served in combat with great distinction, earning the
prestigious Distinguished Service Order as a company commander
in the Queen’s Own Rifles for, among other achievements,
leading his men under fire through the heavily mined
Hochwald forest. He was recognized as an expert in mortars.
Arriving back in Palestine in April 1948, Dunkelman joined
Haganah forces battling on the roads to keep Jerusalem supplied
and commanded one of the units in the fight for control
of Galilee. Troops under his command captured Nazareth. He
also organized and trained a heavy mortar support brigade.
He returned to Canada after Israel’s War of Independence and
took over the family clothing manufacturing business. In Toronto
he was active also in many Jewish and non-Jewish organizations
and later wrote a revealing autobiography, Dual Allegiance:
An Autobiography (1976), which reflects the tension he
felt between his commitment both to Israel and Canada.
[Gerald Tulchinsky (2nd ed.)]
DUNKELMAN, ROSE (1889–1949), Canadian Jewish communal
leader and philanthropist. Rose Dunkelman (Miller)
was born in Philadelphia and moved to Toronto at age 13. She
married David Dunkelman, a major Toronto clothing manufacturer,
in 1910. They had six children. Rose Dunkelman
was a formidable force in a number of Jewish causes, including
the Toronto Talmud Torah and Hebrew Free Schools, the
Toronto YMHA and YWHA, and the Jewish Federated Charities.
A passionate Zionist, however, her prime organizational
focus was in support of Canadian Hadassah and in her forth-
right manner she was partly responsible for making the organization
an independent and powerful Canadian Zionist
force during the interwar and immediate postwar years. At
her Toronto home and summer estate, “Sunnybrook Farm,”
she often entertained visiting Zionist leaders who kept her
informed of unfolding events in Palestine. Outraged by the
exclusion of Jews from nearby vacation resorts, she founded
Balfour Beach on Lake Simcoe north of Toronto, where she
had 30 cottages built which welcomed Jewish vacationers. A
veritable whirlwind of energy and activity, she also worked for
the Canadian Red Cross and was awarded the King’s Coronation
Medal in 1937. Miffed by the anti-Zionist editorials in the
Toronto-based Canadian Jewish Review, in 1931, together with
her husband, she founded the Canadian Jewish Standard, and
recruited the talented Meyer *Weisgal, who briefly served as
editor. This monthly magazine reflected her deep commitment
to the Zionist cause. When she died in 1949 Rose Dunkelman
was buried in Israel at *Deganyah Alef. Her son, Benjamin
*Dunkelman, fought in Israel’s War of Independence.
[Gerald Tulchinsky (2nd ed.)]
°DUNS SCOTUS, JOHN (1265–1308), Catholic theologian
and philosopher. Scotus opposed many of the views of Thomas
*Aquinas. Against Aquinas he affirmed the limitations of philosophy,
and argued that the will is superior to the intellect,
because the will is free while the intellect is bound by necessity,
insofar as one is constrained to believe what the intellect
recognizes to be true. He objected to Aquinas’ contention that
attributes are applied analogically to man and God, holding
that if man is to know anything at all about God, the attributes
applied to God and man must, in some sense, be univocal.
He affirmed the existence of individualized forms, maintaining
that every object has its own unique form, its “thisness”
(haecceitas), which differentiates it from other objects. Scotus
is known for his support of the forcible baptism of Jewish
children, and his contention that a sovereign has the right to
have Jewish children educated in the Christian faith without
parental consent. In this he opposed Aquinas who had argued
against forcible baptism on the ground that it violates the right
of parenthood which is a principle of natural law. Scotus held
that conversion supersedes natural law, for nothing should
stand in the way of enabling man to achieve eternal salvation.
In the case of conflict between the right of parenthood and
the will of God, the right of parenthood ceases to be binding.
He did maintain that forcible baptism, when carried out
by a private individual, violates natural law; however, when
carried out by a sovereign it is legitimate (L. Wadding (ed.),
Opera Omnia, 8 (1639), 275).
In a polemical passage directed against infidels Scotus
characterized the Jews in exactly the same terms as had
Aquinas: the laws of the Old Testament have become “tasteless”
(insipidi) with the appearance of Christ (Opus Oxoniense
Prolog., pt. 2, in Opera, 1 (1951), 71ff.). His negative attitude
toward Judaism did not prevent Scotus from utilizing the
views of Solomon ibn *Gabirol, author of Fons Vitae (Mekor
50 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6