JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

ity – attempting to murder all Jews everywhere – and in the
central role played by race theory. It is fundamental in Bauer’s
understanding of the Holocaust that the Nazis saw in the Jews
both a threat of cosmic proportions to human existence and
the embodiment of the enlightened Western values that the
Nazis despised. The Nazi attack on the Jews was an attack on
the very foundations of Western civilization.
Bauer has published numerous books and articles. His
research topics have included American Jewish responses to
the Holocaust; the responses of the victims; the decision-making
process in Nazi Germany; the events in Hungary, Romania,
and Slovakia; Jewish attempts to rescue Jews via negotiations
with the Nazis; events and Jewish life in the small and
medium-sized towns of Eastern Europe, and more. A number
of his articles have become basic introductory reading for students
regarding a number of central subjects in the Holocaust
(e.g., Jewish responses, rescue, Jewish leadership). Among
his major books are Flight and Rescue: Brichah (1970), on the
clandestine movement by survivors to Palestine; My Brother’s
Keeper (1974), on the Joint Distribution Committee through
the 1930s; The Holocaust in Historical Perspective (1978), lectures
delivered at the University of Washington; American
Jewry and the Holocaust (1981); A History of the Holocaust
(1982), a textbook (20012); Jewish Reactions to the Holocaust
(1989); Jews for Sale?: Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933–1945
(1994); and Rethinking the Holocaust (2001), which is a collection
and reworking of some of his major essays on the Holocaust
and Holocaust historiography over the past decades.
Bibliography: “Yehuda Bauer, Historian of the Holocaust,”
in Dimensions: A Journal of Holocaust Studies, vol. 18, no. 1 (2004, online);
biography of Yehuda Bauer in Israel Prize (1998), 4–11.
[David Silberklang (2nd ed.)]
BAUM, HERBERT (1912–1942), German Communist and
anti-Nazi fighter. Baum was a member of the German communist
youth movement from 1932 and led a clandestine Jewish
communist cell in Berlin from 1936. In 1937 he and his wife
Marianne organized a political circle with communist leanings
frequented by young Jews (both party members and others),
including some Zionists. According to communist sources,
this group continued its activities even after the outbreak of
World War II by mimeographing leaflets and illegal newspapers
and establishing contacts with French and Belgian forced
laborers in Germany, mainly in the Siemens plant in Berlin
where Baum worked. On May 18, 1942, Baum and a number
of his comrades set fire to the Nazi propaganda exhibit Das
Sowjetparadies (“The Soviet Paradise”). Shortly afterward
Baum and members of his group were arrested. He died in
jail, probably by his own hand, while his comrades were tried
and sentenced to death or deported to death camps. At the
request of the group’s sole survivor, Charlotte Holzer, Baum
and his comrades were buried in the Jewish cemetery at Weissensee,
East Berlin.
Bibliography: E. Maoz, Yalkut Moreshet, 3 (1944), 79–88;
M. Pikarski, Sie Bleiben unvergessen (1968); L. Steinberg, La revolte
baum, menaḤem mendel ben aaron of kamenetz
des justes – les juifs contre Hitler (1970), 51–77; B. Mark, in: Bleter
far Geshikhte, 14 (1961), 27–64 (Eng. summary in Y. Suhl (ed.), They
Fought Back (1967), 55–68). Add. Bibliography: E. Brothers, in:
W. Loehken and W. Vathke (eds.), Juden im Widerstand (1993), 83–93;
M. Kreutzer, in: ibid., 95–158.
[Lucien Steinberg]
BAUM, MENAḤEM MENDEL BEN AARON OF KAME-
NETZ (1800?–1873), prominent member of the Ashkenazi
community of Safed and Jerusalem, author of a travel book
in Hebrew and Yiddish, and one of the first modern hoteliers
in Ereẓ Israel. Baum was born in Kamenetz-Litovsk (Lithuania),
but immigrated to Ereẓ Israel in 1833, settling in Safed,
where he witnessed the anti-Jewish riots by the peasants who
rebelled against Ibrahim Pasha (1834). He remained in Ereẓ
Israel for a short period, visiting Tiberias, Jerusalem, and
Hebron. He then traveled abroad both for personal economic
considerations and also on a mission to collect funds for the
community of Perushim (disciples of Elijah of Vilna) in Safed
and Jerusalem. In 1842–43 he returned to Jerusalem and was
active on behalf of the Grodno community (kolel). During
this period he established a guesthouse, which evolved into
the group of Kaminitz hotels of Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Hebron
in the second half of the 19th century, and which reached their
heyday in the lifetime of his son Eliezer Lipa Kaminitz. Run
by members of the family, they supplied hostelry services on
a European standard.
His travel book Korot ha-Ittim li-Yshurun be-Ereẓ Yisrael
(Hebrew, 1839; Yiddish translation, 1841) was intended
to serve both as a guide for East European immigrants and
as a chronicle of the peasant revolt of 1834, so as to arouse
concern about the fate of the Ashkenazi community of Safed
and to encourage financial contributions. The historical section
is essentially a description of the events of 1834, and is
an authentic historical document, as the author himself witnessed
many of the events described. The other two sections
of the book briefly depict the process of immigration, as experienced
by the author, and give a detailed guide to the professional,
economic, and cultural conditions of the country.
These sections are of great value for the study of the lifestyle
of the period. The style of the Hebrew edition is simple and
straightforward. The language of the Yiddish version is more
popular and the trend of prayer and lamentation in it is more
prominent. Korot ha-Ittim was reprinted in Hebrew by Meir
Anshin (1931) and with an introduction and notes by G. Kressel,
Jerusalem (1946). A new edition of the first printings in
both languages with an introduction and indexes was issued
in Jerusalem, 1975.
Bibliography: Frumkin-Rivlin, Toledot ḥakhmei Yerushalayim,
III 269; P. Grajewski, Zikkaron la-ḥovevim ha-Rishonim 19; J.
Trivaks and A. Steinmann, Sefer Me’ah Shanah (1938), 164–76; A. Yaari,
Massa’ot Ereẓ Yisrael (1946), 532–45, 777; D. Tidhar, Enẓiklopediya le-
Ḥaluẓei ha-Yishuv u-Vonav, II, 560–61, III, 1200–01, XVIII, 5391–92,
5452–53.
[Israel Bar Tal (2nd ed.)]
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