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feigenbaum, benjamin
estine and wrote and published the report and recommendations.
From 1922 to 1954 Feigenbaum was head of the ophthalmological
department of the Hadassah Hospital and in 1938
first chairman of the pre-faculty of medicine. He was a founder
and editor of the first Hebrew medical journal Harefuah (1920)
and of Acta Medica Orientalia (1942). In 1927 he wrote the first
Hebrew textbook on ophthalmology, Ha-Ayin.
Bibliography: Harefuah, 70 (1966), 473–7.
[Lucien Harris]
FEIGENBAUM, BENJAMIN (1860–1932), Yiddish journalist,
essayist, editor, and pamphleteer. Born in Warsaw, the son
of ḥasidic parents, he rejected the religious traditions in which
he had been brought up and developed into a militant atheist
and agitator for socialism. Leaving home, he proceeded in
1884 to Antwerp, in 1887 to London, where he wrote for Yiddish
and Hebrew periodicals and published pamphlets on
socialism, reaching the United States in 1891. In America, he
joined the United Hebrew Trades, writing tracts to win the
support of Jewish laborers for socialism and atheism. He also
wrote for the Forverts and Arbeter-Tsaytung, and for the literary
monthly Tsukunft, of which he was editor for a time. He
wrote his essays under several pseudonyms including Shabbes,
Shabsovitch, and Sh. Peshes. In 1900 he became general secretary
of the newly formed Arbeter Ring (*Workmen’s Circle),
which he established firmly before resigning in 1903. In 1909
he served as chairman of the mass meeting which sanctioned
the general strike of the waist and dress trade, the so-called
“uprising of 20,000.” His publications include Vi Kumt a Yid
tsu Sotsyalizmus (1889); Kosher un Treyfe un Andere Mitsves
(1909); Yidishkayt un Sotsyalizm (1942).
Bibliography: Rejzen, Leksikon, 3 (1929), 44–49; L. Kobrin,
Mayne Fuftsik Yor in Amerike (1966), 64–75. Add. Bibliography:
Bal-Makhshoves, Populere Visnshaftlekhe Literatur (1910), 76–83; M.
Shtarkman, in: YIVO Bleter, 4 (1932), 354–87; M. Osherovitch, Geshikhte
fun Forverts (1947), 43–56.
[Melvyn Dubofsky / Marc Miller (2nd ed.)]
FEIGENBAUM, ISAAC HA-KOHEN (1826–1911), Polish
rabbi and posek. Feigenbaum studied under R. Isaac Meir
Alter of Gur (*Gora Kalwaria). In 1893 he founded the first
periodical devoted to rabbinic studies, the monthly Sha’arei
Torah, to which leading contemporary rabbis contributed, and
in which he himself wrote the leading article. The journal was
continued after his death by his son, Israel Isser Feigenbaum,
and ceased publication only at the outbreak of World War II.
Among Feigenbaum’s works are a critical edition of the Urim
ve-Tummim of Jonathan *Eybeschuetz with his own commentary
(Warsaw, 1881). Feigenbaum was one of the few Polish
rabbis, particularly among the Ḥasidim (he was an adherent
of the *Kotsk dynasty), who was an ardent supporter of the
Ḥibbat Zion movement. He was a member of the Menuḥah
ve-Naḥalah Society of Warsaw which founded *Reḥovot, and
he himself purchased land under the aegis of the society.
Bibliography: J.J. Feigenbaum, Or Penei Yiẓḥak (1939, reprint
1966).
[Louis Isaac Rabinowitz]
FEIGENBERG, MEÏR (1923– ), Danish theater manager.
After academic studies in Stockholm and practical theater
work in Copenhagen, Feigenberg became director of the Riddersalen
Theater from 1947 to 1950 and of the Frederiksberg
Theatre (now Dr. Dantes Aveny) in 1950–52 with a repertoire
ranging from Ibsen and Chekhov to Kjell Abell and Tennessee
Williams. Feigenberg was director of the New Theatre in
1966–69 and the Danish Theater in 1974–91, which he led with
a sure sense of balance between the highbrow and the popular,
between the classical and the modern, sometimes in collaboration
with the Royal Theater.
[Bent Lexner (2nd ed.)]
FEIGIN, DOV (1907–2000), Israel sculptor. Feigin was born
in Lugansk, Russia, and immigrated to Palestine in 1927. He
studied in Paris between 1933 and 1937, and in 1947–48 was one
of the founders of the New Horizons Group which tried to introduce
modernism to Israel art. In 1962, he created a monumental
sculpture in stone at Miẓpeh Ramon in the Negev. Before
1950, Feigin worked in stone and concrete, and produced
massive human forms, in post-cubist style. An example is the
monument at Reḥovot In Memory of Our Warriors, a relief
characterized by its sharply defined contours. His later work
became abstract and he composed linear forms in bronze,
copper, and iron. Feigin won several prizes: in 1945–46 the
Dizengoff prize, in 1953 the Haifa Municipality prize, and in
1985 the Sandberg prize from the Israel Museum.
Bibliography: B. Tammuz and M. Wykes-Joyce, Art in
Israel (1966), 152–3; H. Gamzu, Painting and Sculpture in Israel (1951),
113–5.
[Yona Fischer]
FEIGIN, SAMUEL ISAAC (1893–1950), Orientalist and biblical
scholar. Feigin was born in Krichev. As a youth he went
to Palestine; he completed his studies at the Hebrew Teachers’
College in Jerusalem and fought in the Ottoman Army
during World War I. Feigin emigrated to the United States in
1920 and studied at Yale University until 1923. He held several
teaching posts and then in 1932 joined the staff of the Oriental
Institute of the University of Chicago. He also taught at the
College of Jewish Studies and the Hebrew Theological College
(both in Chicago). Feigin’s main interest was ancient Babylonian
civilization and its relation to biblical life and literature.
He wrote Mi-Sitrei he-ʿAvar (“From the Secrets of the Past,”
1943), a collection of scholarly studies on biblical themes, and
Anshei Sefer (1950), a collection of biographical essays. He also
contributed important articles to scholarly journals.
Bibliography: Irwin, in: JNES, 9 (1950), 121–3.
[Samuel Sandmel]
FEIGL, BEDRICH (Friedrich; 1884–1966), Czech painter
and graphic artist. In 1907, he was a founder of the Osma group
734 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6