JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

altimore, david
in 1982. Academy Award-winning film director Barry Levinson
made significant contributions to American cinema with
his three-part chronicle of Baltimore Jewish life, Diner (1982),
Avalon (1990), and Liberty Heights (1999).
Jewish–Gentile Relations
Relations between Baltimore Jews and non-Jews have been
generally amicable, though ethnic and religious prejudice,
social snobbery, and discrimination occasionally vexed the
Jewish community. In the 19th century, the city’s large German
population of Jews and non-Jews shared German-speaking
clubs and many Jewish children attended Zion Lutheran
Church’s well-respected school, where instruction was in German.
However, the local Catholic press, German and English,
specialized in antisemitic articles until the appointment of
Archbishop James Gibbons in 1877. Local antisemitism increased
with the rise of Nazism in the 1930s, spurring the 1939
formation of the Baltimore Jewish Council, a community relations
organization that continues to fight antisemitism, promote
dialogue between Jewish and other local communities,
and address broader urban issues.
The relationship of Jews to Baltimore’s African American
community has been complex. Jews participated in the
civil rights movement, but the movement also targeted Jewish
storeowners who maintained discriminatory policies. In
one historian’s words, a state of “intimate antagonism” existed
between the two groups for much of the 20th century, as economic
relations and geographic proximity promoted considerable
interaction between Jews and blacks.
The close-knit nature of Baltimore’s Jewish community
arose from a combination of gentile prejudice and Jewish ties
of kinship and culture. Residential discrimination kept Jews
out of some areas until the mid-20th century, contributing to
the emergence of intensely concentrated Jewish neighborhoods.
Upper-class social and educational discrimination
encouraged Jews to create separate clubs and “ecumenical”
(largely Jewish) private schools. Such discrimination dissipated
in the post-World War II era. By the dawn of the 21st
century Baltimore Jewry emerged as a confident and assertive
community determined to maintain its own distinct
identity, neighborhoods, and institutions, while its members
pursued ever-expanding ways to involve themselves in the
broader society.
Bibliography: I. Blum, History of the Jews of Baltimore
(1910); Cornerstones of Community: The Historic Synagogues of Maryland,
1845–1945 (Jewish Museum of Maryland, 1999); I.M. Fein,
Making of an American Jewish Community: The History of Baltimore
Jewry from 1773 to 1920 (1971); Jewish Community Study of Greater
Baltimore (The Association, 2001); G. Sandler, Jewish Baltimore, A
Family Album (2000).
[Deborah Weiner (2nd ed.)]
BALTIMORE, DAVID (1938– ), U.S. molecular virologist
and Nobel laureate. Born in New York City, Baltimore received
his B.A. with high honors in chemistry from Swarthmore Col-
lege in 1960 and his Ph.D. from Rockefeller University, N.Y.
He started his postgraduate work in 1963 at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in biophysics, decided to work
on animal viruses, moved to the Albert Einstein College of
Medicine, Bronx, New York, and later to the Rockefeller Institute.
After finishing his postdoctoral fellowships in 1965,
he became a research associate at Salk Institute for Biological
Studies, La Jolla, California (1965–68), and associate professor
of microbiology at MIT (1968–72). From 1972 to 1997 he was an
institute professor of biology at MIT and from 1973 he was an
American Cancer Society professor of microbiology. He was
founding director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical
Research at MIT and served from the institute’s creation in
1982 to 1990, when he became president of Rockefeller University.
In 1997 Baltimore became president of the California
Institute of Technology. His career has been distinguished by
his dual contribution to biological research and to national
science policy. Baltimore helped pioneer the molecular study
of animal viruses, and his research in this field had profound
implications for understanding cancer and, later, AIDS. As one
of the nation’s most distinguished biologists, he was awarded
the 1975 Nobel Prize for his work in virology.
Baltimore has been a major figure in Washington as head
of the National Institutes of Health AIDS Vaccine Research
Committee from 1996 to 2002, and also in 1986 as co-chair of
the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine’s
Committee on a National Strategy for AIDS. In 1999 he was
awarded the National Medal of Science. He was a co-recipient
of the 2000 Warren Alpert Foundation Prize and was awarded
the 2002 AMA Scientific Achievement Award.
[Bracher Rager (2nd ed.)]
BALTIMORE HEBREW UNIVERSITY. The Baltimore
Hebrew College and Teachers Training School was founded
in 1919 by the noted Hebrew poet and scholar Israel *Efros.
According to its charter, the purpose of the college was “to
establish a College for Higher Hebrew and Semitic learning;
to study the Hebrew and cognate languages and literature; to
train and qualify teachers for Jewish religious schools; and
for such cognate purposes as may from time to time be determined
by the Board of Directors of this corporation, with
power to confer degrees.” The first class met on November 2,
1919, in the Chizuk Amuno synagogue and the first graduation
took place in June 1923. Dr. Efros resigned in 1928, and in 1930
he was succeeded by Dr. Louis L. *Kaplan, who served as president
until 1970. The college was housed at 1201 Eutaw Place
from the mid-1920s until 1959, when it moved to Park Heights
Avenue. The college became a constituent of the Associated
Jewish Charities and Welfare Fund (now the Associated: Jewish
Community Federation of Baltimore) in 1930. The college
received accreditation from the state of Maryland in 1963 and
from the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools
in 1974. It was renamed Baltimore Hebrew University in 1987
when Middle States conferred university status on it.
100 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3