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feodosiya
Mélykút, was secretary of the Union of Industrialists for 40
years until he left Hungary for New York in 1948. Fenyő was
a founder and an editor of the periodical Nyugat. He sought
to raise the standards of Hungarian literature and education
to those of Western Europe, and his scholarly researches and
essays did much to contribute to such an improvement. Fenyő
became a convert to Christianity. However, in his memoirs,
he includes an important description of contemporary Jewish
society. He did the same in the diary Az elsodort ország
(“The Destroyed Country,” 1964), written secretly during the
Holocaust while hiding among “Aryans” in Hungary. His main
works are Casanova (1912); Bethlen István (“Count István
Bethlen,” 1937); and his recollections of Nyugat, Följegyzések
a “Nyugat” folyóiratról és környékéről (1960).
Bibliography: A. Szerb, Magyar Irodalmtörténet (1943),
447–8; Irodalmi Lexikon (1927), 310; Magyar Zsidó Lexikon (1929),
275; Magyar Irodalmi Lexikon, 1 (1963), 347.
[Baruch Yaron]
FEODOSIYA (Theodosia; Black Sea port in Crimea, Ukraine;
one of the most ancient towns). Founded during the Hellenistic
period as the Greek colony of Theodosia, it was called
Kaffa (Caffa) until the Russian conquest (1783). The Jewish
settlement was also one of the oldest on Russian territory, its
beginnings dating from the Hellenistic period. The old synagogue
of Feodosiya, thought to be the most ancient in Russia,
had an inscription which testified to its construction in 909.
Under the rule of the Republic of Genoa from 1266, Feodosiya
became the center of the Genoese colonies on the Black Sea. In
order to attract merchants from all nations there, freedom of
religion was granted for all Christian sects, Muslims, and Jews.
The traveler Schiltberg, who visited Feodosiya at the beginning
of the 15th century, relates of the existence of two communities
in the town – a *Rabbanite and a *Karaite one. The Jews
engaged in commerce and maintained relations with the Near
East and Poland. The constitution of the town, proclaimed in
Genoa in 1449, called on the consul and city elders to protect
the Jews as all members of other religions, “from any robbery,
from scheming against their property when one of them died
intestate, and from other molestations of the bishop.”
The situation of the Jews remained unchanged when the
government of the town was transferred to the Bank of San
Giorgio, a powerful financial company that administered the
eastern colonies of Genoa (1453–75). The community continued
to develop under Turkish rule also (1475–1783). At the beginning
of the 16th century *Moses b. Jacob of Kiev, of Lithuanian
origin, held rabbinical office in Feodosiya. He composed
a uniform siddur for all the Jews of Crimea (the Kaffa rite) and
instituted 18 takkanot for the community.
After annexation by Russia, Feodosiya was incorporated
in the *Pale of Settlement. In 1897 there were 3,109 Jews in
the town (12.9% of the total population), mainly Ashkenazim
who had emigrated from Lithuania and Ukraine. On Oct. 17,
1905, pogroms accompanied by murder and looting broke out.
The Jewish population of Feodosiya numbered 3,248 (11.3% of
the total) in 1926 and 2,922 (6.5%) in 1939. After the February
Revolution (1917) three Jews (Zionists) served on the local
council. Between the wars there was a Yiddish school and
a Jewish section in the local Teachers College. Feodosiya was
occupied by the Germans on November 2, 1941. A ghetto was
organized, and on December 4, 1941 Einsatzkommando 10b
murdered 1,700 Jews (according to another document, 2,500).
In February-May 1942 the last 200 Jews were killed. In 1970
the Jewish population of Feodosiya consisted of Crimean and
Russian Jews and Karaites. There was no synagogue. Many left
during the mass emigration of the 1990s.
Bibliography: I. Markon, in: Zikkaron le-Avraham Eliyahu
Harkavy (1908), 449–69; E. Farfel, Beit Keneset ha-Attik ha-Nimẓa
be-Ir Feodosiya (1912).
[Yehuda Slutsky / Shmuel Spector (2nd ed.)]
FERARU, LEON (originally Otto Enselberg; 1887–1961), Romanian
poet. Born in Braila, Feraru took his penname from
his father’s occupation as a blacksmith (Rom. fierar). As a
schoolboy he was a Jewish socialist. Upon completing high
school he began to study medicine in Bucharest, but had to
leave because of antisemitic persecution. In 1907 he emigrated
to France, where he studied literature in Montpellier, receiving
a degree in 1913, when he emigrated to the United States.
Before emigrating, Feraru published poems on social themes
(among them the fate of the working woman) and articles in
Romanian literary periodicals, among them Viata Romaneasca
(Romanian Life) and the Jewish periodicals Lumea Israelita
and Egalitatea. After emigrating to the U.S. he continued to
compose Romanian verse on social themes, on the landscape
of his native country, and on his Jewish family. He published
two volumes of poems in Romanian, both in Bucharest, Maghernita
veche si alte versuri din anii tineri (“The Old Hovel
and Other Poems of My Youth,” 1926) and Arabescuri (“Arabesques,”
1937), being considered a universalist poet. Feraru
taught Romanian language and literature at Canadian and
American universities: Toronto; Columbia (1917–26); Long
Island (1927–47). He also published scholarly studies in English,
among them The Development of Romanian Poetry (1929)
and edited the periodicals Romanian Literary News and The
Romanian Review.
Bibliography: D. Safran, Completare la judaismul roman
(1981), 74–9; A.B. Joffe, Bi-Sedot Zarim (1996), 160–2, 459; A. Mirodan,
Dictionar neconventional, 2 (1997), 268–72.
[Lucian-Zeev Herscovici (2nd ed.)]
FERBER, EDNA (1887–1968), U.S. novelist and playwright.
She was born into a middle-class family in Kalamazoo, Michigan,
and at the age of 17 became a newspaper reporter in
Appleton, Wisconsin. Later she went to the Milwaukee Journal
and the Chicago Tribune. Her first novel, Dawn O’Hara,
appeared in 1911, but it was a series of short stories collected
under the title Emma Mc-Chesney and Co. (1915) that established
her as a professional writer. Edna Ferber wrote more
than a score of novels, some superficial, some serious, but all
758 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6