JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

Johnson from 1975 and 1993 and was then appointed by President
Bill Clinton to serve as deputy trade representative under
the president’s key political ally, Mickey *Kantor. She was
nominated to the office of trade representative when Kantor
was named commerce secretary. Her nomination generated
considerable controversy because as a private attorney
Barshefsky had represented foreign governments in trade
agreements. She was confirmed and was instrumental in negotiating
agreements in China and Japan regarding piracy
and movies. As the United States trade representative and
a member of the president’s cabinet, Ambassador Barshefsky
was at center stage in global economic policymaking and
international relations. As the administration’s leader in the
opening of foreign markets and the elimination of regulatory
and investment barriers around the world, and as the architect
of U.S. trade policy, she was a central figure for international
business.
Barshefsky is best known for negotiating the historic
market opening agreement with China on its entry into the
World Trade Organization, which helped lead to the voluminous
trade between the United States and China. She was an
essential actor in the opening of foreign markets at the World
Trade Organization and throughout the world, overseeing the
negotiations of hundreds of complex trade and commercial
agreements with virtually every major market, from Japan and
the European Union to the smallest states of Latin America,
Africa, and the Middle East. She negotiated agreements for
the emerging information age, concluding global agreements
covering the world’s telecommunications markets, global financial
services, information technology products, intellectual
property rights, and cyberspace.
In addition to the China agreements, she was the architect
of the negotiations to create a hemispheric free trade zone,
the Free Trade Area of the Americas. She negotiated historic
market opening agreements with Vietnam and Jordan that
transcend international economic relations and are used as a
basis for further regional integration. She also initiated free
trade negotiations with Singapore and Chile, which further
extended the broad trade agenda that she shaped.
After leaving the government, she became senior international
partner at Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering Hale and Dorr,
LLP and served on the corporate Board of Directors of the
American Express Company; The Estee Lauder Companies
Inc.; Intel, Idenix Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Starwood Hotels
& Resorts Worldwide, Inc.
[Michael Berenbaum (2nd ed.)]
BARSIMSON, JACOB, regarded as the earliest Jewish resident
of New Amsterdam (later New York). Barsimson probably
arrived there on July 8, 1654, aboard the ship Peartree,
from Holland, thus preceding the 23 Jews who arrived in September
of that year from Brazil. A man of small means, he
was taxed below the majority of other New Amsterdam residents.
In November 1655 Barsimson joined with Asser *Levy
in petitioning for the right held by other inhabitants to stand
barth, jacob
guard and thus avoid payment of a special tax. The Dutch
West India Company overruled Governor Peter Stuyvesant,
who had rejected the petition. Barsimson may have returned
to Amsterdam in 1659.
Bibliography: Oppenheim, in: A.J. Karp (ed.), The Jewish
Experience in America, 1 (1969), 37–50.
[Leo Hershkowitz]
BART, LIONEL (1930–1999), playwright and composer. Born
Lionel Begleiter in London, Bart first won success with the lyrics
and music of Fings Ain’t Wot They Used t’Be (1959), which
had a two-year run. This was followed by other shows, including
Blitz (1962) and Maggie May (1964). His greatest success,
Oliver! (1960), was made into a motion picture in 1968. Oliver!
became probably the most famous musical ever written
by an English composer. Its depiction of Fagin is notable for
its balance and humanity. Bart was unable to repeat his success
in later works.
Bibliography: ODNB online.
[William D. Rubinstein (2nd ed.)]
BARTH, JACOB (1851–1914), Semitic linguist. Barth was
born in Flehingen, Baden. Among his teachers in Talmud
was his future father-in-law, Azriel *Hildesheimer. He studied
Semitic philology at the universities of Berlin, Leipzig
(under H.L. Fleischer), and Strasbourg (under Th. Noeldeke).
From 1874 until his death he taught Hebrew, biblical exegesis,
and Jewish philosophy at the Orthodox Rabbinical Seminary
founded by Hildesheimer at Berlin. In 1876 he was appointed
lecturer in Semitic philology at the University of Berlin, and in
1880 associate professor. Being a Jew, he was not appointed full
professor, but he received the title of Geheimer Regierungsrat.
Barth was one of the most important Semitic linguists of his
time, and at least two of his works are still standard reference
books: Die Nominalbildung in den semitischen Sprachen (1894),
and Die Pronominalbildung in den semitischen Sprachen (1918).
Despite Barth’s tendency to adopt odd etymologies and to excessive
schematization, these works, as well as others, show
his genius in discerning linguistic analogies. Barth was also
one of the outstanding Arabic scholars of his time. He edited
grammatical, poetical, and historical texts as well as the
commentary of Maimonides to Mishnah Makkot (1880). His
contributions to the study of Hebrew include both linguistics
and lexicography (especially his Etymologische Studien zum
semitischen, inbesonders zum hebraeischen und aramaeischen
Lexikon (1902). Being strictly Orthodox, he avoided higher
criticism, but accepted the separate authorship of Isaiah 40ff.,
which, in his view, was supported by the Talmud. Similarly, he
usually refrained from emendation of the Bible text, although
he had a natural tendency to text corrections (as exhibited in
his Arabic studies). His commentary on almost all the books of
the Bible, which originated in his lectures at the Hildesheimer
Seminary, has not been published.
[Joshua Blau]
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 179