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elasco, david
igrated in the 1989–93 period, mainly to Israel and the United
States, and the Jewish population was further reduced through
emigration to 27,798 in 1999 and 24,300 in 2002. The main
umbrella organization coordinating all Jewish activities in the
country was the Belarus Union of Jewish Organizations and
Communities, operating in 20 cities, most of them with synagogues
and Jewish schools. Minsk had a Jewish People’s University
operating as an evening school and affiliated with the
Belarus State University. In 1994 a Center for Jewish National
Culture was opened in Minsk, as was a Center for the History
of the Jews of Belarus in Vitebsk. In all, over 100 Jewish organizations
were in operation throughout the country.
One Jew was elected to the republic’s Supreme Soviet in
1990. Antisemitism within the Belorussian national movement
militated against its receiving support from Jewish organizations.
Antisemitic propaganda was rife in such publications as
Politicheskii sobesednik, Slavianskie vedomosti, Sem’dnei, My I
vremia, and Prognoz. The year 1991 saw the desecration of the
Jewish cemetery in Borisov and in 1994 cemeteries were desecrated
in Gomel, Mogilev, and Haradok, Vitebsk region. Antisemitic
incidents continued to occur sporadically throughout
the decade. Right-wing organized antisemitic activities in Belarus
came mainly from pan-Slavic organizations which advocated
a close union with Russia and were supported by their
counterparts there. Such organizations included “Slaviane”
(The Slavs), “Bratsva Slavian” (Brotherhood of Slavs), “Slavianskii
Sobor – Belaia Rus” (Slavic Council – White Russia),
On Independence Day in 1994 about 1,000 extremist nationalists
marched through Minsk bearing slogans such as ‘Belarus
only for the Belorussians.”
The monthly Jewish newspaper Aviv began to appear in
1992 and by 1993 there were five Jewish periodicals appearing
in Belarus. In 1992 Rabbi Yitzḥak Volpin came from New
York to occupy the long vacant pulpit in the Minsk synagogue.
In the spring of the same year Belarus established diplomatic
relations with Israel.
Bibliography: U. Schmelz and S. DellaPergola, in: AJYB,
1995, 478; S. DellaPergola, “World Jewish Population 2002,” ibid.
(2002), 623ff.; Supplement to the Monthly Bulletin of Statistics, 2 (1995);
Y. Florsheim, in: Jews in Eastern Europe, 1:26 (1995), 25–33; M. Beizer
and I. Klimenko, in Jews in Eastern Europe, 1 (24) 1995, 25–33; Anti-
Semitism Worldwide (1994), Tel Aviv University, 132–134. Website:
www.worldjewishcongress.org; www.fjc.ru.
[Daniel Romanowski and Michael Beizer]
BELASCO, DAVID (1859–1931), U.S. theatrical producer
and playwright. Born in San Francisco, Belasco came from a
Portuguese-Jewish family named Valasco. He was educated
in a monastery, which may have accounted for the way he
dressed later in life, a free-flowing style that earned him the
epithet “the Bishop of Broadway.” As a boy in Victoria, British
Columbia – where his father, a one-time clown, owned a
store – he joined a circus. At the age of 11 he appeared at the
Victoria Theater in Charles Kean’s production of Richard III.
Working as a stage manager on the Pacific Coast, he devised
melodramas with fires and battles and a passion play with real
sheep. In 1879 he went to New York, where his name became
associated with sensational scenic effects. He was a pioneer
in the use of electricity for stage lighting. Belasco’s first melodrama,
La Belle Russe, was produced at Wallack’s Theater in
1882. He established the Lyceum School of Acting and produced
successes such as Du Barry and Zaza. In 1902 he opened
the first of two theaters, both called the Belasco, where he
introduced innovations such as footlights sunk below stage
level. His 374 productions displayed a passion for flamboyant
realism. His greatest successes as a playwright were Madame
Butterfly (1900, based on a story by J.L. Long) and The Girl of
the Golden West (1905), both turned into operas by Puccini.
Belasco’s work was primarily in melodrama, and though the
literary worth of his plays was slight, he was able to satisfy the
contemporary demand for spectacular staging. His production
of The Merchant of Venice (1922), with David *Warfield
as Shylock, was regarded as the finest artistic achievement of
his career.
Add. Bibliography: W. Winter, The Life of David Belasco
(1918); L. Marker, David Belasco: Naturalism in the American Theatre
(1975).
[Bernard Grebanier / Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)]
BELAYA TSERKOV (Heb. ןָ בָל הֶ דָ ׂש; “White Field”), ancient
town in Kiev district, Ukraine, center of a fertile agricultural
region. A community was formed there toward the end of the
16th century; 100 houses in Jewish ownership out of a total of
800 are recorded in 1646. The community was destroyed during
the *Chmielnicki rising in 1648, and again suffered at the
beginning of the *Haidamack rising in 1703. Subsequently,
Jews again began to settle there, in 1765 numbering 1,876 polltax-payers
in the town and its vicinity. After Belaya Tserkov
had been attacked by the hordes under Cossack general Gonta
(1768), only 223 Jewish inhabitants remained. The community
increased to 1,077 in 1787; 6,665 in 1847; and 18,720 in 1897
(54% of the total population). The grain trade and sugar industry
contributed to the growth of the town during the 19th
century. In 1904, Jews owned 250 workshops and 25 factories
engaged in light industry employing 300 Jewish workers. The
Jews there suffered from pogroms in 1905. During the civil war
of 1919–20, about 850 Jews were massacred in Belaya Tserkov
by Ukrainian troops, bands of peasants, and soldiers of the
White Army. The religious and cultural life of the community,
which numbered 15,624 (36.4%) in 1926, came to an end with
the establishment of the Soviet government. Under the Soviets
in 1929, 240 artisans were organized in cooperatives and 3,628
were unemployed. Of these, 2,655 were sent to the local sugar
refinery and 847 went to work in the nearby kolkhozes. Two
Yiddish schools operated in Belaya Tserkov, one of them a vocational
school. In 1939, Jews numbered 9,284 (20% of the total
population). The town was occupied by the Germans on July
16, 1941. They confiscated all Jewish belongings in October,
and later they assembled 6,000 Jews from Belaya Tserkov and
its environs in prisoner-of-war camp No. 334, and murdered
278 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3