JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

BAMBERGER, SIMON (1846–1926), U.S. mining industrialist,
railroad builder, and governor of Utah. Born in Germany,
Bamberger immigrated to the United States when he
was 14. He worked first in the store of his elder brother, Herman,
in Wilmington, Ohio, and later the brothers became
clothing manufacturers in St. Louis, Missouri. In pursuit of
a debtor, Simon Bamberger found himself at Piedmont, Wyoming,
a Union Pacific Railroad work camp. He decided to
stay, erected shacks and tents which he rented to workers on
the new railroad, and cashed their paychecks at a discount.
He then moved on to Ogden, Utah, where he bought an interest
in a hotel, and in 1869 settled in Salt Lake City. He was
joined there by his brothers and they tended to his business
interests, leaving him free to seek his fortune in gold mining.
He found it in the lucrative Centennial Eureka Mines. Subsequently
he built a railroad to a coalfield in southern Utah,
and after a struggle lasting 17 years against competing interests
and harassing litigation, the Bamberger Railroad went
into operation between Salt Lake City and Ogden, with Simon
Bamberger as director and treasurer.
In 1898 Bamberger entered public service as a member
of Salt Lake City’s Board of Education, where he devoted himself
to improving teachers’ conditions. From 1903 to 1907 he
sat in the State Senate and then was elected governor of Utah
(1916–20), the first Democrat and non-Mormon to become
governor. During his administration Bamberger sponsored
legislation for the control and supervision of public utilities,
improved public health services, guaranteed full-year salaries
for teachers, the right of workers to voluntary association, benefits
for farmers, and other liberal measures.
Bamberger was one of the founders of Utah’s first Jewish
congregation, Bnai Israel, and was later its president. He supported
the Utah colonization fund established by the Jewish
Agricultural Society which attempted to settle 140 Jews from
New York and Philadelphia in the Clarion Colony. He was
also prominent in several Jewish philanthropic and communal
institutions.
Bibliography: AJYB, 19 (1917/18), 249f.; N.Warrum, Utah
Since Statehood (1919); L.L. Watters, Pioneer Jews of Utah (1952), 9f.,
30f., 163–9; B. Postal and L. Koppman, A Jewish Tourist’s Guide to the
U.S. (1954), 608ff.
[Morton Mayer Berman]
BAMBUS, WILLY (1863–1904), one of the first German
Jews to join *Ḥibbat Zion. He propagated the organization’s
ideas in the periodical Serubabel, edited by him in Berlin
(1887–88). Bambus became a leading member of *Esra, a society
founded in 1883 for the advancement of Jewish agricultural
settlement in Palestine and Syria. Later, together with Hirsch
*Hildesheimer, Emile *Meyerson, and Isaac Turoff, he established
the central committee of Ḥovevei Zion in Paris, with
branches in many countries. His intention was to transform
the movement into a world organization. Herzl’s creation of
the Zionist Organization led him to abandon his idea and for
a time he became a political Zionist. However, disagreeing
banai
with Herzl’s rejection of the so-called “infiltration”, i.e., smallscale
settlement in Palestine without prior international agreement,
he became strongly opposed to political Zionism. He
expressed this primarily in the periodical Zion which he edited
from 1895. In 1901 he was instrumental in the creation of the
*Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden of which he became the first
general secretary. After the Kishinev pogrom (1903) he worked
in the defense organization against antisemitism (Komitee zur
Abwehr Anti-semitischer Angriffe) in Berlin, and endeavored,
unsuccessfully, to establish a bank for Jewish emigrants. His
works included Palaestina, Land und Leute (1898), articles for
Die Welt and the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, as well as
several works on Jewish settlement in Ereẓ Irsael.
Bibliography: A. Bein, Theodor Herzl (19622), 215–8, 227,
241; R. Lichtheim, Geschichte des deutschen Zionismus (1954), index;
G. Herlitz, in: Davar (Nov. 8, 1954); J. Turoff, in: AZJ, no. 48 (Nov. 25,
1904), 567–68, no. 47 (1904), 3–4; H. Loewe, Juedische Rundschau.,
no. 459 (1904), 6–8, 379–80. Add. Bibliography: R. Heuer (ed.),
Lexikon deutsch-juedischer Autoren, 1 (1992), 344–45 (incl. bibl.).
[Oskar K. Rabinowicz / Marcus Pyka (2nd ed.)]
BA-MEH MADLIKIN (Heb. ןיקי ִ ִלדְ ַמ הֶּ מַ ּב; “with what may
one kindle?”), opening words of the second chapter of the
Mishnah tractate Shabbat which deals with the oils and wicks
proper to be used for the Sabbath lights, and with what must
be done on Fridays before the commencement of the Sabbath.
This chapter, which consists of seven paragraphs, is recited,
according to traditional practice, during the Friday evening
service either before the start of the Arvit prayer (Sephardi and
Ashkenazi ritual in Ereẓ Israel) or at the end of it (Ashkenazi
ritual). Some ḥasidic rites do not recite it at all. The reading
of the chapter of the Mishnah was instituted in the geonic period
as a reminder of the duty of kindling the Sabbath lights,
as a precaution against any unintentional desecration of the
Sabbath caused by adjusting the lamp, and as a safeguard for
latecomers to the synagogue (the recital of this chapter by the
congregation made it possible for latecomers to finish their
prayers with the other congregants and to leave for home together
without fear of injury in the dark). Ba-Meh Madlikin is
not recited on a Sabbath falling on or immediately following a
holiday because latecomers to the service would be few.
Bibliography: Eisenstein, Yisrael, 3 (1909), 95; Eisenstein,
Dinim, 46ff.; Baer, Seder, 192; Elbogen, Gottesdienst, 11ff.
BANAI, family of Israeli actors and pop-rock singer-songwriters.
For over half a century the Banais provided the country
with leading theater and film actors, directors and pop and
rock stars.
Foremost among the clan was YOSSI BANAI (1932–2006),
one of Israel’s leading actors and comedians, who also released
a number of big-selling albums based on the French chanson
singing style, and published several books. Banai followed in
the footsteps of his older actor brother Ya’akov, joining the
Nahal entertainment troupe at the start of his military service
in 1951. On his return to civilian life Banai enrolled at
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 105