JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

fabri, felix
Summary
The fable in general, and Jewish fable in particular, has almost
disappeared from the oral tradition. The largest number of
Jewish fables is found in the talmudic-midrashic literature in
the Near East, and in the medieval European Jewish collections.
Foreign influences upon these fables are decisive, but it
is clear to both reader and scholar that some of the early stages
of the history of the fable, as far as it can be reconstructed at
the present, point to Ereẓ Israel.
Bibliography: B. Heller, in: J. Bolte and G. Polivka (eds.),
Anmerkung zu den Kinder-und Hausmaerchen der Brueder Grimm, 4
(1930), 315–64; J. Landsberger, Die Fabeln des Sophos (1859); D. Noy, in:
Maḥanayim, 56 (1961); 69 (1962); 79 (1963); 84, 91, and 92 (1964); 111
(1967); idem, in: Yeda-Am, 1–8 (1948–63); I. Ziegler, Die Koenigsgleichnisse
des Midrasch beleuchtet durch die roemische Kaiserzeit (1963); H.
Schwarzbaum, Talmudic-Midrashic Affinities of some Aesopic Fables
(1965), incl. bibl.; M. Buber (ed.), Tales of Hasidim, 2 vols. (1947–48);
idem (ed.), The Tales of Rabbi Nachman (1962); Zinberg, Sifrut, 5
(1959); 6 (1960); A.S. Rappaport, The Folklore of the Jews (1937); Waxman,
Literature, index; Steinschneider, Uebersetzungen, index.
[Galit Hasan-Rockem]
°FABRI, FELIX (15th century), Dominican monk in Ulm
(Germany). In 1480 he accompanied the German noble Georg
von Stein on a pilgrimage to Palestine. Landing at Jaffa, Fabri
proceeded by way of Ramleh to Jerusalem. From there he visited
Jericho and Bethlehem, and a longer journey took him
through Hebron and Gaza to Mount Sinai. He returned to Ulm
in 1483. Fabri noted many remarkable details in the countries
he visited and wrote an account of his travels that has been
translated in the Palestine Pilgrims’ Texts.
Bibliography: The Wanderings of Felix Fabri, tr. by A. Steward,
2 vols., 1893–97.
[Michael Avi-Yonah]
FABRICANT, SOLOMON (1906–1989), U.S. economist.
Fabricant, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, received
his B.A. from New York University and his M.A. (1930) and
Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University (1938). In 1930
he joined the National Bureau of Economic Research as a research
assistant. He was connected with the Bureau throughout
his career, and from 1953 to 1965 was director of research.
In 1947, after World War II service with the War Production
Board and the European regional office of the United Nations
Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA), he became an associate
professor of economics at New York University and a year
later a full professor. In 1955 he became a member of the NBER
board of directors, and a director emeritus in 1981. During his
50 years with the Bureau, he produced research on such topics
as manufacturing output and employment, business cycles,
government employment, and changes in productivity.
Regarded as the world authority on the characteristics of
business cycles and the “father” of current productivity measures,
Fabricant devoted himself to research and writing on
developmental economics, business fluctuations, and macroeconomic
theory.
His numerous publications include Output of Manufacturing
Industries, 1899–1937 (1940), Employment in Manufacturing,
1899–1939 (1942), The Trend of Government Activity in
the United States since 1900 (1952), Basic Facts on Productivity
Change (1959), Measurement of Technological Change (1965),
A Primer on Productivity (1969), Five Monographs on Business
Income (with C. Warburton, 1973), and The Economic Growth
of the United States: Perspective and Prospective (1979).
[Joachim O. Ronall / Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)]
FACING HISTORY AND OURSELVES, Holocaust education
program begun in 1976 just as consciousness of the Holocaust
was moving beyond the survivor community, when
two Brookline, Massachusetts, teachers integrated a unit on
the Holocaust and Human Behavior into their 8th grade social
studies course. Throughout the next decade, it expanded its
outreach, first in Massachusetts with support from that state’s
Department of Education, and then across the country as one
of the model programs designated by the National Diffusion
Network of the Office of Education.
In 1990, Facing History opened its first regional office
in Chicago, to be followed by offices in six other regions and
one in Europe. The organization has now evolved into a program
of teacher training, resource preparation, and ongoing
research and development that now reaches more than
21,000 educators and over 1.6 million students in 90 countries
around the world.
Faithful to its name, there are two dimensions to Facing
History and Ourselves, the historical material and the individual
student – the self. Facing History’s intellectual and pedagogic
framework was built upon a synthesis of history and
ethics for effective history education. It included a language
and a vocabulary for studying difficult and complicated history.
It conveyed an understanding that such history did not
have to happen but instead was the culmination of a series
of ongoing choices (or lack of choosing) and decisions at every
level of society. It further engaged students with a sense
of the connection of that history to their present and future
worlds. The model was interdisciplinary, and built upon the
methods of the humanities – inquiry, analysis, interpretation,
and judgment. Facing History engaged students in confronting,
as distinct from simply studying, the past. Its pedagogy
insisted on going beyond the simple answer and response to
grapple with complexity and uncertainty in order to come to
informed choice which recognized an ethical imperative while
rejecting helpless relativism.
From the beginning the core case study of Facing History
and Ourselves has been an in-depth study of the failure of democracy
in Germany and the events leading to the Holocaust.
Studying the unique and universal lessons of the Holocaust
helps students to think morally about their own behavior and
to reflect on the moral nature of the decisions they have made.
By examining the circumstances of this piece of history, students
explore fundamental issues of citizenship, responsibility,
and decision-making in a democracy.
670 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6