JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

stones from the last quarter of the 17th century, were preserved.
There were also Jewish communities in the vicinity in Bernartice
and Stadlec.
Bibliography: Chleborád, in: H. Gold (ed.), Juden und
Judengemeinden Boehmens (1934), 23–25. Add. Bibliography:
J. Fiedler, Jewish Sights of Bohemia and Moravia (1991), 42–43.
BECK, KARL ISIDOR (1817–1879), Hungarian-born poet,
writing in German, who gave voice to the Hungarian people’s
struggle for liberation against the Austrian Empire. His work
was filled with despair and disillusion with the state of Jewry
and the world. His first poems, Naechte, Gepanzerte Lieder
(1838), and Stille Lieder (1840), contained such glowing rhetoric,
passionate imagery, and consuming love of freedom that
he was hailed as a new Byron. When his Lieder vom armen
Mann appeared in 1846, Friedrich Engels saw in him a future
Goethe. The Lieder vom armen Mann are lyrics of great
depth of feeling and clarity of vision, ranging from savage invective
against social injustice to pathetic pictures of starvation
in working-class homes. Beck prefaced the volume with
the allegation that Rothschild had enslaved the masses with
his gold and had failed to liberate his own unredeemed people.
Beck was the first German lyric poet to write about slum
conditions; in his lyrics there broods a vague hope of better
days to come and a fear of impending social strife. Beck’s
Jewish despair found utterance in a cycle of poems entitled
Das junge Palaestina, that bewail his unreciprocated love for
Germany. His biblical drama Saul (1840) has as its climax
David’s vision of the Jewish people: he sees them as eternal
fugitives who have become mere caricatures of a people that
was once pure, simple, and glorious. His verse epic, Jankó, der
ungarische Rosshirt (1841), contains some excellent descriptions
of Hungarian life. The refrain of one of his poems, “an
der schoenen blauen Donau” inspired Johann Strauss’ famous
“Blue Danube” waltz. Although he was baptized in 1843, Beck
continued to be haunted by the fate of Jewry. He sank into a
state of pessimistic resignation, which was intensified by the
failure of the Hungarian rising of 1848. Filled with bitterness,
he made his peace with the Austrian government, renounced
his radical activities, and virtually ceased writing poetry for
the rest of his life.
Bibliography: S. Liptzin, Lyric Pioneers of Modern Germany
(1928), ch. 3; E. Thiel, Karl Becks literarische Entwicklung (1938).
[Sol Liptzin]
°BECK(IUS), MATTHIAS FRIEDRICH (1649–1701), German
Lutheran Orientalist. Born in Kaufbeuren (Swabia), Beck
studied at Augsburg and Jena (1668–70), under the renowned
philologist Johann Frischmuth. His competence in Oriental
languages was very broad, Jewish interests being reflected
in his translation into Latin of the Targum to Chronicles
(1680–83) and publication of Jewish antiquities discovered in
Augsburg (Monumenta antiqua judaica Augustae Vindelicorum
reperta,1686). His voluminous unpublished works, now
beck, willy
mostly dispersed, included translations of Benjamin of Tudela’s
and Petaḥiah of Regensburg’s travelogues.
Bibliography: J.B. Luhn, M. Fr. Beckii Memoria (Wittenberg,
1703); H. Pipping, Memoria Theologorum (Leipzig, 1705), 911f.;
ADB, 2 (1875), 218. Add. Bibliography: Steinschneider, in: ZHB,
2 (1897), 102, F. Junginger in: Kaufbeurer Geschichtsblätter, 4 (1965),
121–124.
[Raphael Loewe / Giulio Busi (2nd ed.)]
°BECK, MICHAEL (1653–1712), German Lutheran theologian
and Hebraist. Beck studied in Jena, like his namesake M.F.
*Beck, under the apostate Frischmuth. He left a tract on the
Masoretic accents as a hermeneutic device (Jena, 1678; repr.
in G. Menthen, Thesaurus theologico-philologicus, 1, 1701), as
well as Hannaḥatan ve-Ḥaliẓatan shel Tefillin or Usus Phylacteriorum
(Jena, 1675), which is a public dissertation on phylacteries
by Beck with the reply of Matthew Kreher.
Bibliography: J.G.W. Dunkel, Historisch-critische Nachrichten
von verstorbenen Gelehrten, 3 vols. (1753–57); A. Weyermann,
Nachrichten von Gelehrten… aus Ulm (1798); ADB, 2 (1875), 218; J.C.
Adelung, Allgemeines Gelehrten-lexicon, 1 (1784), 1580 (bibl.).
[Raphael Loewe]
BECK, MORITZ (Meir; 1845–1923), rabbi, educator, and
leader of Romanian Jewry. Born at Pápa in Hungary, Beck
studied at the University of Breslau and the Breslau rabbinical
seminary. He went to Romania in 1873, and was appointed
preacher (in 1900, rabbi) at the “Choir Temple” and principal
of the Loebel Jewish School for Boys in Bucharest. Beck was
considered rabbi of the progressive elements in the Bucharest
community. He promoted the expansion of Jewish education
in Romania, encouraging the formation of new schools with
adequate financial support. He also helped establish social
welfare institutions, and worked toward the renewal of the
Bucharest community organization, which had disintegrated
in the second half of the 19th century (see *Romania). Beck
took a prominent part in the fight against antisemitism and
discrimination in Romania and for the emancipation of Romanian
Jews. He contributed to the general and Jewish press,
and published the journal Revista Israelitǎ from 1886 to 1892
and from 1908 to 1910. Aside from his sermons and numerous
articles on various subjects, Beck compiled a Hebrew-Romanian
dictionary of the Torah (1881). Toward the end of his life
he was attracted by Zionism.
Bibliography: M. Beck, Cuvânt de omagiu: Viaţa şi opera
(1925); A. Stern, Insemnǎri din viaţa mea, 2 (1921), passim.
[Eliyahu Feldman]
BECK, WILLY (1844–1886), Hungarian painter and cartoonist.
He exhibited portraits and scenes from daily-life at the Budapest
salon. He later earned his living by publishing the Zeitgeist,
a humorous periodical in German, contributing all the
prose and cartoons. In 1849 he settled in Vienna and edited
the Charivari, a political and satirical journal, until the police
suspended publication. He then returned to Hungary.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 243