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aracs, károly
and cast her in A Fool There Was (1915) under the name by
which she came to be known as the foremost “vamp” of the
silent screen. Among her other films were The Devil’s Daughter
(1915), The Serpent (1916), Heart and Soul (1917), The Forbidden
Path (1918), Devil (1918), The Soul of Buddha (1918), When a
Woman Sins (1918), and Lure of Ambition (1919). However, of
the more than 40 films she made from late 1914 through 1926,
only three and a half remain.
Born in the wealthy, largely Jewish Cincinnati suburb
of Avondale, Bara was close to her immigrant parents and
siblings and had a happy childhood. Extremely intelligent
and an avid reader, she attended college for two years. But
she dropped out of school, dyed her blonde hair black, and
set out to pursue her love of theater. Although she was not
very successful on the Broadway stage, her role as the vampire
in A Fool There Was, at the age of 30, made her an overnight
success.
The first sex symbol for the masses, Bara was renowned
for her portrayal of sinful, smoky-eyed women who
lured proper husbands away from their wives, playing the relentless
vamp in such films as Sin (1915), Destruction (1915),
The Vixen (1916), and The Rose of Blood (1917). As the movie
industry’s first fabricated movie star, publicists billed Bara
as “The Serpent of the Nile,” who was born in the shadow of
the Pyramids. They claimed that her first name was an anagram
for “death” and her last name was “Arab” spelled backwards.
Constantly being photographed with snakes, skulls,
crystal balls, and opulent accouterments, Theda Bara epitomized
evil at its most lavish. Because of her fatal allure for
America’s husbands and her influence on young women,
clergymen across the country regularly denounced her from
their pulpits.
After a while, Bara began to demand better roles and
succeeded in playing such heroines as Cleopatra (1917), Salome
(1918), Carmen (1916), Juliet (1917), Madame DuBarry
(1917), and Marguerite Gautier in Camille (1918). But her two
favorite parts were the staunch Foreign Legion girl in Under
Two Flags (1916) and the innocent Irish peasant in Kathleen
Mavourneen (1919). However, her film career ended with
the latter, as Irish and Catholic groups protested not only the
way Ireland was depicted but also the fact that a Jewish actress
had been given the leading role. The film was pulled out of
circulation after several bomb threats and movie-theater riots.
Undaunted and unscathed, Bara married successful director
Charles Brabin in 1921. The wealthy couple lived well
and traveled widely; and when they were at home, Bara’s
charm as a hostess and her skill as a gourmet cook made
their Beverly Hills estate a haven for their friends in the film
community. Bara wrote a memoir of her professional experiences
entitled “What Women Never Tell,” but it was never
published.
Bibliography: E. Golden, Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda
Bara (1996).
[Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)]
BARACS, KÁROLY (1868–1929), Hungarian communal
leader and bibliophile. Baracs, the maternal grandson of Immanuel
*Loew, was born in Budapest, where he studied engineering.
On the completion of his studies he entered the
service of a railway company, eventually becoming manager,
and was regarded as an outstanding expert on public transport
in the country.
Baracs had broad humanistic interests and his home
served as a center for intellectuals and men of the spirit. Before
World War I he was one of the founders of the Radical
Party in Hungary and an intimate of Count Michael Karolyi,
who headed the republican revolution of 1918 and became
the first president of the Republic. After World War I he began
to interest himself in Jewish communal affairs, serving
as president of the Buda Community Synagogue, the oldest
in the capital, from 1921 to 1926. He was responsible for the
establishment of the Pro Palesztina Szovetsség (the Pro-Palestine
Association), the purpose of which was, according to
his definition, “to atone for the dissociation of contemporary
[Hungarian] Jews from the work of upbuilding the Land of
Israel.” Through his advocacy, his congregation, unlike others
in Budapest, contributed to the Jewish national funds. He
engaged in other pro-Zionist activity, although there was no
official government sanction for this at the time.
Baracs was also active in other spheres of communal life,
particularly higher education, and was a member of the directorate
of the Budapest Rabbinical Seminary. He was a noted
bibliophile, particularly of the works of Goethe.
Bibliography: P. Vidor, “Löw Immanuel es a budai közseg,”
in: Semitic Studies in Memory of Immanuel Löw (Budapest, 1947),
15–18; Magyar Zsidó Lexicon (1929), 85; Magyar Eletrajzi Lexikon. 1
(1967), 110.
[Baruch Yaron]
BARAITA, BARAITOT (Aram. אתְי ָ רָ ַ ּב, pl. תותְי ֹ רָ ַ ּב), Aramaic
for the Hebrew word ḥiẓonah (“external”) and an abbreviated
form of the phrase matnita baraita – “external mishnah,” i.e.,
a tannaitic tradition which is not included in the Mishnah of
Rabbi *Judah ha-Nasi (see *Mishnah). The term baraita occurs
primarily in the Babylonian Talmud, where it is usually
used in opposition to the Hebrew term mishnatenu or to the
parallel Aramaic term matnitin, both meaning “our” Mishnah.
The content of a given baraita may stand in opposition to the
content of a parallel mishnah. Alternatively, it may provide
additional information which supplements the tradition presented
in the mishnah (Ber. 2b, Er. 2b). In this use, the term
baraita is similar to the related Palestinian term tosefet (“addition”
– see below). The content of a given baraita may in fact
be unrelated to that of the mishnah under discussion, merely
presenting another tradition for consideration (Ber. 34b). The
term is sometimes used as a synonym for the general term
matnita (Shab. 19b), without being juxtaposed to any particular
mishnah at all. This more general sense is particularly
characteristic of post-talmudic usage, where the term baraita
is regularly used to designate any tannaitic source whatso-
124 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3