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the Germans, contrived to organize public kitchens, medical
services, etc. for the local Jews and for the 2,500 Jews from
the Banat region who were expelled to Belgrade. All men between
the ages of 14 and 60 and all women between the ages
of 14 and 40 were forced to work in the town, not only without
payment but also providing their own food.
With the beginning of armed resistance in Serbia, the
Germans began executing hostages, mostly Jews. The first
mass execution took place on July 29, when 122 “Communists
and Jews” were shot. The “final solution” began with the mass
arrest of some 5,000 Jewish men in July and August. After being
imprisoned in two camps in Belgrade, the men were then
taken in groups of 150 to 400 “to work in Austria” and shot
in nearby forests by regular German army units. The remaining
6,000 Jewish women and children were arrested in December
1941 and transported to the Saymishte camp, a former
commercial fairground on the left bank of the Sava. Food was
scarce, and many froze to death in the winter of 1941–42. Between
February and May 1942, the remainder were killed in
gas vans and buried in the village of Jaintsi. Patients of the Jewish
hospital in the mahala were also liquidated in 1942.
Resistance
Immediately after the German occupation Jewish youth,
mainly from Ha-Shomer ha-Ẓa’ir, joined the resistance movement,
sabotaging enemy installations, disseminating propaganda,
and collecting funds and medical supplies. In August
1941 they joined partisan units in the forests, but not before
considerable numbers of them had been arrested and shot. A
monument to fallen Jewish fighters and victims of Fascism was
set up after the war in the central cemetery of Belgrade.
Contemporary Period
Immediately after the liberation of Belgrade in October 1944
the Jewish community resumed its activities by opening a soup
kitchen, a center for returnees, and medical services. The Ashkenazi
synagogue was reconsecrated in December 1944, with
the Ashkenazi and the Sephardi communities merging. In 1947
the community had 2,271 members, half of whom emigrated to
Israel shortly after. In 1969 there were 1,602 Jews in Belgrade
and in 2000 around 1,500. The community center ran an internationally
known choir, a youth club, and a kindergarten.
It also housed the Federation of Jewish Communities of Yugoslavia.
The Yugoslav Jewish Historical Museum founded
in 1948 and officially opened in 1952, contains material on all
Jewish communities in Yugoslavia. and their artistic creativity.
The J. community remained stable demographically with
natural increase and returning émigrés offsetting those leaving
for Israel and other countries. Jewish holidays were celebrated
and J. events noted in a regularly appearing monthly publication.
In 1995 an impressive sculpture cast in brass, the work of
Nandor Glied, entitled “Menorah in Flames,” was erected near
the Danube at the site of the ancient Jewish quarter.
Bibliography: A. Hananel and E. Eškenazi, Fontes Hebraici…
1 (1958), 219, 468–71, and index; 2 (1960), 177–8, 258–60,
and index; D. Djurić-Zamolo, in: Jevrejski Almanah 1965–67, 41–76;
BELIAL
A. Alkalay, in: Jevrejski Almanah 1961–62, 82–97; Moses Kohen, Et
Sofer (Fuerth, 1691). HOLOCAUST PERIOD: Savez Jevrejskih Opština,
Zločini fašističkih okupatora… (1952), 1–9 (Eng. summary); G. Reitlinger,
Final Solution (1961), 385–92; R. Hilberg, Destruction of European
Jewry (1961), 435–42. Add. Bibliography: Z. Loker (ed.),
Pinkas ha-Kehillott Yugoslavia (1988); Ž. Lebl, Do “konačnog rešenja” –
Jevreji u Beogradu 1521–1942 (2001).
[Daniel Furman / Zvi Loker (2nd ed.)]
BELGRADO, DAVID FERNANDO (1918– ), rabbi and
ḥazzan. Born in Florence, Italy, Belgrado was appointed third
ḥazzan to the Great Synagogue of Florence at the age of 18.
He went on to become the second ḥazzan and ultimately the
chief ḥazzan of the Florentine community. He was ordained
as rabbi in Rome and was appointed chief rabbi of Florence in
1961. Belgrado studied music and singing at the municipal theater
of Florence and has sung in operas and concerts of Jewish
and general music. He has made recordings of his renditions
of cantorial chants in the Florentine style.
[Akiva Zimmerman]
BELIAL (Heb. לעַ ַּיִלְ
ּב; lit. “worthlessness”). In the Bible a common
noun characterizing persons who behave in a dissolute
manner, give false testimony, or hatch infamous plots. It is
used in apposition to such words as “son” (Deut. 13:14; I Sam.
2:12), “daughter” (I Sam. 1:16), “man” (I Sam. 30:22; Prov.
16:27), “witness” (Prov. 19:28), and “counselor” (Nah. 1:11). A
“matter of beliyyaʿal” is a base thought (Deut. 15:9), and “rivers
of Belial” (Ps. 18:5) are hellish currents of adversity. In postbiblical
literature – especially in the pseudepigrapha – Belial
(usually written Beliar) is the name of the Prince of Evil, i.e.,
*Satan – a view which no doubt underlies the practice of the
Vulgate (and of Theodotion, Judg. 9:22) to reproduce the word
by transliteration in certain passages of Scripture. Belial is the
spirit of darkness (Test. Patr., Levi 19:1; 1QM 13:12). Evil men
are dominated by him or his attendant spirits (Test. Patr.: Ash.
1:8; Levi 3:3; Joseph 7:4; Dan. 1:7; Ben. 6:1), and the world is
currently under his sway (1QS 1:18, 24; 2:5, 19; 1QM 14:9; Mart.
Isa. 2:4). His will opposes God’s (Test. Patr., Naph. 3:1), and
he wields a sword which causes bloodshed, havoc, tribulation,
exile, death (or plague?), panic, and destruction (ibid.,
Ben. 7:1–2), or catches men in the snares of lewdness, lucre,
and profanity (Zadokite Document 4:13ff.). Belial will ultimately
be chained by God’s holy spirit (Test. Patr., Levi 18:12)
or cast into the all-engulfing fire (ibid., Judah 25:3), and his
attendant spirits will be routed (ibid., Iss. 7:7; ibid., Dan 5:1),
and discomfited by the Messiah (ibid., Dan 5:10; ibid., Ben.
3:8). There will be a final war in which he and his partisans
will be defeated by God and God’s partisans, aided by heavenly
cohorts (1QM 1:5; 15:3; 18:1, 3). The latter now abide in the
second of the seven heavens (Test. Patr., Levi 3:3). The concept
of Belial as the opponent of God probably owes much to
Iranian dualism, where the eternal antagonists Asha (Right)
and Druj (Perversity) are portrayed as destined to engage in
a final “*Armageddon,” aided respectively by heavenly and
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