JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

Lebanese Jews immigrated to France, Italy, the U.S., Canada,
South America, and Israel.
In 1982 there were an estimated 150 Jews in the western
part of Beirut and 100 in its eastern sector. But Israel’s invasion
into Lebanon and the siege imposed by its army on the
Lebanese capital, combined with the chaos that prevailed in
the city following the Israeli withdrawal and the failed attempt
to reconstruct the Lebanese state in 1982–84, impinged on the
situation of the country’s remaining Jews, which were now
estimated at 100–200. Radical Shiʿi factions began to target
the Jewish community in Beirut in order to exert pressure
on the Israeli government and avenge attacks by the Israeli
army in South Lebanon. Thus, in the period 1984–87, the Organization
of the Oppressed on Earth, a radical Shiʿi faction
reportedly close to Hizbullah, abducted 11 prominent members
of the local Jewish community, including its head, Isaac
Sasson. The kidnappers claimed that their actions were part
of their “resistance” to the Israeli occupation in Lebanon and
demanded the release of Shiʿi prisoners held by Israel and by
its proxy, the South Lebanon Army. But Israel refused to comply.
The bodies of four Jews were later recovered and the fate
of the other seven remained unknown. These factors caused
the Jewish community in Beirut to drop to about fewer than
100 members in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
In the 1990–2001 period, the number of Jews in Lebanon,
who by then resided almost exclusively in Beirut and its vicinity,
dropped even further. Wadi Abu Jamil was almost emptied
of its Jewish residents, and the majority of the remaining Lebanese
Jews resided in the eastern part of the Lebanese capital
or in Mount Lebanon. During the 2004 municipal elections,
only one of the registered Jewish voters in Beirut showed up
at the polling booth. It was reported that most of the remaining
Jews in Lebanon were elderly women.
[Oren Barak (2nd ed.)]
Bibliography: S.D. Goitein, in: Eretz Israel, 4 (1956), 152;
G. Scholem, in: KS, 2 (1925/26), 103; I. Ben-Zvi, Masot Ereẓ Yisrael
le-Moshe Basola (1938), 38–40; A. Yaari, Masʿot Ereẓ Yisrael (1946),
135f., 525f.; index; Ashtor, Toledot, 2 (1951), 121f.; S. Landshut, Jewish
Communities in the Muslim Countries of the Middle East (1950), 54–56.
Add. Bibliography: K.E. Schulze, The Jews of Lebanon: Between
Coexistence and Conflict (2001).
BEIT, SIR ALFRED (1853–1906), South African financier
and co-founder, with Cecil Rhodes, of Rhodesia. Born in
Hamburg, Beit learned the diamond trade in Amsterdam and
went to South Africa in 1875. He became prominent in the development
of the Kimberley diamond fields and later of the
Witwatersrand gold reefs. In 1889 he formed the partnership
of Wernher, Beit, and Company, forerunner of one of the big
Rand mining groups. Beit met Rhodes, and their careers became
inseparable. His financial talents complemented those
of Rhodes, and he became identified with Rhodes’ imperial
ambitions. Beit stood with Rhodes in the rivalry with *Barnato
for the control of the diamond fields. He obtained the
assistance of the London Rothschilds, and became a life gov-
beit-hallahmi, benjamin
ernor in De Beers Consolidated Mines when it was formed
in 1888. With Rhodes he established the British South Africa
Company for the administration of the territory that became
known as Rhodesia and had a part in the development of the
country second only to that of Rhodes himself. He was implicated
in Rhodes’ plot against the Kruger regime that ended
in the Jameson Raid of 1895. He made generous donations to
South African war relief funds, founded the Beit professorship
of colonial history at Oxford, and through the Wernher-
Beit bequest stimulated university education in South Africa.
Other bequests included £1,200,000 for education and communications
in Rhodesia and thirty fellowships in medical
research. Beit left a fortune of over £8 million, probably the
largest personal fortune ever left in Britain until then. He left
his entire estate to his brother, OTTO JOHN BEIT (1865–1930),
who was associated with him in his financial and philanthropic
activities.
Bibliography: G.S. Fort, Alfred Beit… (1932); P.H. Emden,
Randlords (1935), index; G. Saron and L. Hotz (eds.), Jews in South
Africa (1955). Add. Bibliography: DBB, I, 253–55; ODNB online;
G. Wheatcroft, The Randlords (1985), index.
[Dora Leah Sowden]
BEIT-HALLAHMI, BENJAMIN (1943– ), Israeli psychologist
and leading authority on the social psychology of religion.
Born in Tel Aviv, Beit-Hallahmi served in the IDF in 1963–66.
He was educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (B.A.
1966) and at Michigan State University (M.A. 1968, Ph.D., clinical
psychology, 1970). He taught at a number of American and
Israeli universities, including the University of Michigan, the
University of Pennsylvania, and the Hebrew University, and
maintained membership in several American professional associations.
From 1973 he was senior lecturer and professor of
psychology at the University of Haifa.
The primary focus of Beit-Hallahmi’s academic work
(for which he acknowledged his debt to the work of William
James) was the study of the social psychology of religion, with
particular attention to religion and social identity; the appeal
of New Religious Movements (or NRM, popularly known as
“cults”), on which he was an acknowledged international authority;
and the relationship between Jewish ideas of religious
salvation and the Zionist project, and its social consequences.
Among his influential publications in this area were his books
The Social Psychology of Religion (1975, with Michael Argyle),
Prolegomena to the Psychological Study of Religion (1989), Despair
and Deliverance: Private Salvation in Contemporary Israel
(1992), The Psychology of Religious Behavior, Belief, and Experience
(1997, with Michael Argyle), several edited volumes and
numerous journal articles.
Beit-Hallahmi, as a secular student of culture and “progressive”
(his own word) citizen of Israel, brought his fundamental
concerns to bear on public controversies regarding
Israeli policy and Zionism, and published two important
books examining their origins and history: The Israeli Connection:
Who Israel Arms and Why (1987) and the classic Origi-
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