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e’er toviyyah
center and many workers in the Dead Sea chemical works and
in the Nuclear Research Center near Dimona resided there.
By the mid-1990s the population had risen to approximately
141,400, and in 2002 it was 181,500, making Beersheba the
sixth largest city in Israel.
[George Schwab and Efraim Orni / Shaked Gilboa (2nd ed.)]
Another Beersheba was situated on the border of Upper and
Lower Galilee (Jos., Wars, 3:39). It was fortified by Josephus,
together with other places in Galilee in 66–67 C.E., for defense
against the Romans during the Jewish War (ibid., 2:573). It
is located at Ḥorvat Beer-Sheba (Khirbat Abu al-Shabʿa) between
Parod and Kafr ʿInān near the Acre-Safed highway,
where remains from the Second Temple period have been
found.
Bibliography: G. Dalman, Sacred Sites and Ways (1935), index;
S. Klein (ed.,) Sefer ha-Yishuv, 1 (1939) S.V.; Albright, in: JPOS,
4 (1924), 152; Alt, ibid., 15 (1935), 320; L. Woolley and T.E. Lawrence,
Wilderness of Zin (1915), 45ff., 107 ff.; Perrot, in: IEJ, 5 (1955), 17, 73,
167; Contenson, ibid., 6 (1956), 163, 226; Dothan, in: Atiqot, 2 (Eng.,
1959), 1ff.; EM, 2 (1965), 6–8 (incl. bibl.); Press, Ereẓ, 1 (1951), 62–63.
Website: www.negevba.co.il.
BE’ER TOVIYYAH (Heb. הָ ּיִ בֹ וט רֵ אְ ּב), moshav in the southern
Coastal Plain of Israel, affiliated with Tenu’at ha-Moshavim.
It was founded in 1887 by Jews from Bessarabia with the aid
of Baron Edmond de *Rothschild and for years it was the
southernmost Jewish settlement in the country. The village
did not prosper, due to the scarcity of water, lack of capital
and experience, distance from other Jewish centers, enmity
of neighboring Arab villagers, and, particularly, the strained
relations between the settlers and the Baron’s administrators.
It was nearly abandoned, but in 1896 the Ḥovevei Zion Association
of Odessa (see *Ḥibbat Zion) purchased the land and
new settlers came. They too endured hardships and in World
War I were forced to leave temporarily by the Turkish authorities.
The village was abandoned after it suffered losses in an
Arab attack in the 1929 riots. The land was then taken over by
the Jewish National Fund and the village was founded anew in
1930 by veteran agricultural laborers. Ground water was discovered
and mixed farming introduced. Be’er Toviyyah soon
became one of the most populous and prosperous moshavim
in the country. In 1939 a second moshav, Kefar Warburg, was
established on part of its land. After the Arabs abandoned
the entire region during the Israeli *War of Independence
(1948), Be’er Toviyyah became the center of a densely settled
farming area, to which such urban agglomerations as Kiryat
Malakhi and Ashdod were later added. Many of the settlers
of Be’er Toviyyah came from Eastern Europe and Germany,
others were Israeli-born. In 1968 the population was 645. The
economy was mainly based on citrus and intensive farming.
In 2002 the population was 763. The village was initially called
Qastīna, after a neighboring Arab village. It became Be’er Toviyyah
in 1896, the name being adapted from the Arabic name
for the site, “Bīr (Biʾr) Taʿabya.”
[Efraim Orni]
BE’ER YA’AKOV (Heb. בֹקעַי ֲ רֵ אְ ּב), town in the Coastal Plain
of Israel, W. of Ramleh, founded in 1907 by a group of 56 Jews
from Russia (most of them “Mountain Jews” from Dagestan).
Some of the settlers were peasants in their country of origin
and preserved their picturesque dress and customs throughout
the decades. Initially, almond orchards constituted Be’er
Ya’akov’s principal farming branch. In 1925, 20 families from
Turkey settled in the village, but until 1948, its population did
not exceed 400 inhabitants due to a scarcity of land. After
the Israeli *War of Independence (1948), however, new immigrants
were absorbed in local housing projects and in two
moshavim, Be’er Ya’akov Pittu’aḥ and Talmei Menasheh, which
were subsequently integrated into the municipal area. In 1949,
it received municipal council status. Citrus orchards, poultry,
and dairy cattle were originally prominent branches and constituted
an important part of Be’er Ya’akov’s economy. It was
the site of three large hospitals (Asaf ha-Rofe, Shemu’el ha-
Rofe, and a mental hospital) and industrial enterprises, among
them a crate factory employing hundreds of laborers and a division
of Israel Aircraft Industries. Be’er Ya’akov’s educational
institutions also attracted pupils from other localities, e.g.,
the Johanna Jabotinsky agricultural high school, a religious
girls’ teachers seminary, and yeshivot. The population rose to
3,950 in 1968, 6,960 in the mid-1990s, and 8,320 in 2002. The
name, “Well of Ya’akov,” commemorates the spiritual leader of
the founders, Rabbi Ya’akov Yiẓḥaki of Dagestan.
[Efraim Orni / Shaked Gilboa (2nd ed.)]
BEET. The plant referred to in rabbinic literature as tered, or
selek (Er. 29a) is the spinach beet (Beta vulgaris, var. Cicla).
The present varieties, red beet, sugar beet, and fodder beet,
were unknown to the ancients. Although the long white root
of the beet was sometimes eaten, it was the leaves which were
mainly used as food. The rabbis, in common with the Greek
and Roman naturalists, praised it highly for its nutritive and
medicinal value. Thus the Talmud states: “A dish of beets is
good for the heart and good for the bowels and especially for
the small bowels” (Bet. 44b). It was also held to account for
the absence of skin diseases and of leprosy in Babylonia (Ket.
77b). It is a winter plant, but due to its nutritive value, attempts
were made to grow it also in summer, and Solomon’s servants
were said to have been able to supply summer beets for his
table (Deut. R. 1:5).
Bibliography: Loew, Flora, 1 (1926), 346–52; J. Feliks,
Kilei Zera’im… (1967), 82–83. Add. Bibliography: Feliks, Ha-
Tzome’aḥ, 173.
[Jehuda Feliks]
BEGGING AND BEGGARS. Although the Bible is concerned
with the poor and the needy, there is hardly a reference
to begging or to beggars, and there is, in fact, no biblical
Hebrew word for it. The needs of the poor were provided by
the laws of *leket, shikhḥah, and pe’ah which were the perquisites
of the ani, the “poor man,” or the evyon, the “needy.” The
only possible references are not to actual begging and beg-
258 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3