JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

e’er, rami
a contributor to the paper, and later its editor. In 1893 she
bought its rival the Sunday Times which she edited while retaining
her position on the Observer. Under her control the
Sunday Times changed its outlook from independent liberal
to non-partisan. She was also a composer and published a
piano sonata and a piano trio. The first woman ever to edit a
Fleet Street newspaper, in the 1890s she obtained one of the
great “scoops” of the age for the Observer when she obtained
proof that the documents used to convict Alfred *Dreyfus in
France had been forged. Siegfried *Sassoon (1886–1967), the
famous poet, was her nephew.
Bibliography: C. Roth, The Sassoon Dynasty (1941); B. Falk,
Bouquets for Fleet Street (1951). Add. Bibliography: D. Griffiths
(ed.), Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422–1992 (1992), 98; S. Jackson,
The Sassoons: Portrait of a Dynasty (1998); C. Bermant, The Cousinhood
(1961), index; ODNB online.
BE’ER, RAMI (1957– ), dancer, choreographer, and artistic
director of the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company.
He was born into a family of musicians in kibbutz Ga’aton in
Israel. At a very early age, he began studying cello and later
studied dance with Yehudit Arnon. Be’er joined the company
as a dancer and choreographer in 1980.
His choreographic style is influenced by Central European
expressionism and American modern dance. Generally,
his works take up a full evening’s program and are constructed
as a collage around a central theme. His themes are
connected to the reality in which we live and his choreographies
reflect the tension between abstraction and expression.
Reservist Diary (1989) reveals the ethical uncertainties of an
Israeli soldier in the reserves during the Intifada. In Real Time
(1991), Be’er deals with the kibbutz movement as the parting
of ways. In Angelos Negros (1992), he addresses the Spanish
Inquisition. In Naked City (1993), the dominant motif is the
loneliness of the individual. The theme of Aide Memoire (1994)
is strongly influenced by Be’er’s being a member of a family
of Holocaust survivors. The set and lighting designs are usually
Be’er’s own creations. In On the Edge (1999), the stage is
designed as a huge fortress, and in Screensaver (2002), rays
emitted by a television set are part of the production. He was
awarded the Contributor to Cultural and Educational Creativity
Prize in 2000.
Bibliography: H. Rottenberg, “Rami Be’er – A Political
Choreographer.” Dissertation (1997).
[Ruth Eshel (2nd ed.)]
BEER, SAMUEL FRIEDRICH (1846–1912), Czech sculptor.
Beer studied in Vienna and quickly gained some recognition
as a portraitist. His friendship with Theodor Herzl inspired
his Jewish subjects, such as the monumental group Shema
Israel. He designed the medal issued on the occasion of the
Second Zionist Congress at Basle. He later worked in Paris,
Rome, and Florence.
Bibliography: Roth, Art, 868; T. Zlocisti, in: Ost und West,
5 (1905), 78, 82, 83ff., includes reproductions.
BEER, WILHELM (1797–1850), German astronomer and
brother of Giacomo *Meyerbeer, the composer, and Michael
*Beer, the poet. Wilhelm Beer joined and later succeeded his
father in the family banking house. His leisure hours were
spent in studying astronomy in an observatory he had constructed
in his garden. Together with J.H. Maedler, he studied
the planet Mars during the 1828, 1832, 1835, and 1837 oppositions
and their findings were published. Later they made
a map of the moon; over many years they recorded every aspect
of the moon surface and published their findings in Der
Mond nach seinen kosmischen und individuellen Verhaeltnissen,
oder allgemeine vergleichende Selenographie (2 vols., 1837).
This was the standard work for many years. When Maedler
left and joined a university, Beer went into politics and in 1846
was elected to the Prussian Chamber of Deputies. A mountain
on the moon is named for him.
BEER-BING, ISAIAH (1759–1805), one of the leaders in
the struggle for the “regeneration” of the Jews of France. He
wrote a number of pamphlets including a refutation of an anti-
Jewish pamphlet by Aubert Dufayet (Lettre du Sr I.B.B…. à
l’auteur anonyme d’un écrit intitulé: Le cri du citoyen contre les
juifs, 1787, 18052). Beer-Bing was appointed to the commission
headed by Malesherbes to improve the status of the Jews in
1788. In 1799 he drew up a memorandum on the community
of his birthplace Metz. He was a member of the municipal
council of Metz from 1790 and became the administrator of
the saltworks in eastern France. He was on the editorial committee
of the Décade philosophique. Beer-Bing translated the
Phaedon of Moses *Mendelssohn from German into French
and Hebrew (Sefer Hasharat ha-Nefesh, 1786–87, republished
many times), a Song of Zion by Judah Halevi from Hebrew
into French, and a fragment from the Beḥinat Olam by *Jedaiah
ha-Penini (in Essai sur la régénération… des juifs by his
friend the abbé *Grégoire, 1789).
Bibliography: E. Carmoly in: Revue orientale, 2 (1842),
337f.
[Moshe Catane]
BEER-HOFMANN, RICHARD (1866–1945), Austrian poet
and playwright. The son of a Moravian lawyer, Beer-Hofmann
was adopted by his uncle, the Viennese industrialist
Alois Hofmann. After graduating in law at the University of
Vienna, he was drawn into the “Young Vienna” literary group,
which included many of his close friends, Arthur *Schnitzler,
Peter *Altenberg, Hermann Bahr, Theodor *Herzl, Hugo von
*Hofmannsthal, and Felix *Salten. He influenced the style of
Viennese Décadence in his Novellen (1893) and in his earliest
lyric poem, Schlaflied fuer Miriam (1898). His only novel,
Der Tod Georgs (1900), depicts a main protagonist whose fascination
with paganism and aestheticism is replaced in the
end by a return to Jewish tradition. Self-sacrifice for the glory
of God remains an enduring motif in Beer-Hofmann’s oeuvre.
His first drama, Der Graf von Charolais (1904), features a
character – the “Rote Itzig” – who contrasts the Elizabethan
254 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3