JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

Beccari, Arrigo
brew cursus in Jerusalem (Hebrew Union College) and earned
a degree from the Institut des Langues Orientales in Paris. Her
first rabbinical appointments, while a student rabbi, were in
Southport and Cardiff. Her academic interests were the attitude
of Judaism towards proselytism and conversion and the
ethics of language, both themes providing her with the background
of a strongly liberal and passionate exploration of the
dynamics of Jewish tradition.
Back in France, she became the country’s first female
rabbi in 1990, serving the MJLF (Mouvement Juif Liberal de
France, the most liberal of the two branches of the Reform
movement in France at the time), which she left in 1995 to start
her own movement, the Communauté Juive Liberale, now embraced
by more than 200 families. Her first book, Le judaisme
libéral (“Liberal Judaism”), was published in Paris in 1993, followed
in 2001 by an ambitious dictionary of women and Judaism
(Isha: un dictionnaire des femmes et du judaisme).
[Dror Franck Sullaper (2nd ed.)]
°BECCARI, ARRIGO (1909– ), priest and teacher at the
Catholic seminary in Nonantola, near Bologna, Italy; Righteous
Among the Nations. In July 1942, a group of 50 Jewish
children arrived at the seminary, having fled from the war
zone in Dalmatia, Yugoslavia, between Italian troops and
local partisans. With the help of Delasem, the officially recognized
Jewish emigration and welfare agency, the children
were housed in the Villa Emma home. There, Josef Itai, the
group’s leader, became friendly with Father Arrigo Beccari.
Nonantola seemed a safe place to sit out the war, but when
Italy surrendered to the Allies on September 8, 1943, and the
Germans overran the parts of the country not yet in Allied
hands, a reign of terror began for the Jews. In order to keep the
children at the Villa Emma from falling into German hands,
Beccari, without necessarily consulting his superiors, took as
many children as possible into the seminary for hiding and
arranged for others to be housed with friendly villagers. Food
for all of them was provided by the seminary’s kitchen. As the
Nazis and their local collaborators stepped up the search for
Jews, it became urgent for the children and their adult leaders,
a total of 120 persons, to be moved somewhere else. It was
decided to take the whole group north and across the Swiss
border. With the help of Dr. Giuseppe Moreali, Nonantola’s
physician, all 120 persons were provided with forged documents
identifying them as Italians. Then they boarded a train
for the Swiss frontier, a ride fraught with terrible but unavoidable
risks, for most of them could hardly speak Italian and the
forged papers may not have saved them during a police check.
Luckily, no mishaps occurred during the long train ride, and
on Yom Kippur eve of 1943 the group passed safely into Switzerland.
The Gestapo, discovering the loss of the children,
seized Beccari and imprisoned him in Bologna. Despite the
tortures inflicted on him over the next few months, he refused
to disclose the names of the persons who had helped him or
to reveal the whereabouts of others Jews in hiding. His reli-
gious superiors interceded on his behalf and he was released.
Years later he wrote: “It would be difficult for me to erase the
memory of the terror and suffering of those days or of my joy
at doing the small good which was my duty and which had to
be done.” In 1964, Don Beccari was awarded the title of Righteous
Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.
Bibliography: Yad Vashem Archives M31–35; M. Paldiel,
The Path of the Righteous (1993), 356–57.
[Mordecai Paldiel (2nd ed.)]
BECHER, SIEGFRIED (1806–1873), Austrian economist.
Becher was born in Plany (Bohemia) and educated in Prague
and Vienna. After his conversion to Catholicism, he became
professor of geography and history at the Vienna Polytechnic
and was frequently consulted by the Austrian authorities
on statistical and tariff questions, and represented his
country in several international negotiations. In 1848 he was
made a counselor at the Ministry of Commerce, and later
was granted the title of “Hofrat” (court counselor). After a
denunciation because of democratic inclinations he was dismissed
in 1852 and died eventually in poverty. In addition to
statistical investigations Becher’s interests centered on labor
and population economics. His publications include Handelsgeographie
(2 vols., 1836–37); Oesterreichisches Muenzwesen
1524–1838 (2 vols., 1838); Die Bevoelkerungsverhaeltnisse der
oesterreichischen Monarchie (1846); Organisation des Gewerbewesens
(1849); and Die Volkswirtschaft (1853).
Add. Bibliography: F. von Sommaruga, in: ADB, 2 (1875),
204; J. Baxa, in: NDB, 1 (1953), 691.
[Joachim O. Ronall / Marcus Pyka (2nd ed.)]
BECHHOLD, JACOB HEINRICH (1866–1937), German
colloid chemist, born in Frankfurt. Bechhold was the director
of the Institute of Colloid Research, Frankfurt, and took
out several patents on filtration and on adhesives. He was the
author of: Die Kolloide in Biologie und Medizin (1912; 19195);
Handlexikon der Naturwissenschaften und Medizin (1920);
Ultrafiltration (1923); and Einfuehrung in die Lehre von den
Kolloiden (1934).
BECHYNE (Get. Bechin), town in Bohemia, Czech Republic.
Legends are connected with R. Ḥayyim, living in Bechyne
in the 16th century, who apparently forbade the building of a
burial hall at the cemetery. Five Jewish taxpayers are mentioned
in 1570. In 1685 the representatives of Bohemian Jewry
complained that the community of Bechyne had failed to
comply with its ordinances. In 1695 the Jews there were prohibited
from residing in the same building as Christians. The
community numbered 81 persons (14 families living in six
houses) in 1715, and 56 persons in 1725. In 1898 the community’s
German-language school was closed down. The community
numbered 145 persons in 1902 and 32 in 1930. It was
liquidated by the Nazis in 1942. Several of the Jewish houses
in the Jewish street, and the cemetery with remarkable tomb-
242 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3