JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

followers of Belz Ḥasidism throughout the world. His grave is
a place of pilgrimage where many gather on the anniversary of
his death. He was succeeded by his nephew, ISSACHAR DOV
(1948– ), who established a bet midrash in Jerusalem and an
independent kashrut system. Large numbers of Belz ḥasidim
also inhabit the Boro Park section of Brooklyn, New York.
Bibliography: L.I. Newman, Hasidic Anthology (1934), index;
M.I. Guttman, Rabbi Shalom mi-Belẓ (1935); A.Y. Bromberg, Mi-
Gedolei ha-Ḥasidut, 10 (1955); M. Prager, Haẓẓalat ha-Rabbi mi-Belẓ
mi-Gei ha-Haregah be-Polin (1960); Y. Taub, Lev Same’aḥ Ḥadash
(1963); N. Urtner, Devar Ḥen (1963); B. Landau and N. Urtner, Ha-
Rav ha-Kadosh mi-Belza (1967); M. Rabinowicz, Guide to Ḥassidism
(1960), 93–96.
[Itzhak Alfassi]
BELZBERG, SAMUEL (1928– ), Canadian financier and
philanthropist. Belzberg was born in Calgary to Abraham
and Hilda, who immigrated to Canada from Poland in
1919. His father was clearly imbued with an entrepreneurial
spirit. He moved from working on the floor of an abattoir to
owning a secondhand furniture store and then successfully
shifted into real estate. Samuel was clearly his father’s son.
Together with his brothers Hyman and William, he embarked
on a remarkable and sometimes controversial career in business
and finance. Basing himself in Edmonton, Belzberg first
made money on oil leasing, and investing the proceeds in
real estate, set up what would grow into First City Financial
Corporation to finance the acquisitions. In 1968 he moved
to Vancouver, where he expanded his finance and real estate
holdings. In the rough-and-tumble world of corporate takeovers
in the United States of the 1980s, Samuel and his brothers
(elder brother Hyman remained in Calgary, while his
brother William moved to the United States) scored a number
of successes. First City Financial Corporation was, at its
height in the 1980s, a powerhouse in the Canadian financial
world valued at more than $5 billion. First City and Samuel
Belzberg suffered reversals in the early 1990s. In a bitter and
much publicized dispute with his two brothers, Samuel was
forced out of the financially slumping business. Under the
weight of enormous debt, the firm crashed as dramatically
as it had soared. Samuel’s subsequent business activities were
relatively modest.
Paralleling his business rise, Belzberg was heavily involved
in philanthropic and community activities in both
Edmonton and Vancouver, with much emphasis on support
for Jewish causes. In Vancouver, he made substantial donations
of time and expertise to both Simon Fraser University
(where he was honored with an honorary doctorate) and the
University of British Columbia. He and his wife, Frances,
established the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation in
1976, after their daughter Cheri was diagnosed with the genetic
disease that disproportionately affects Ashkenazi Jews.
The Belzbergs became friendly with Rabbi Marvin Hier when
he served in Vancouver as rabbi in the Orthodox synagogue
Schara Tzedeck. In 1977 Belzberg supported Hier in his establishment
of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles and
belzec
the Center’s Museum of Tolerance, which opened in 1993. In
1988 Belzberg was appointed a member of the Order of Canada
and in 2001 was promoted to officer in the Order. He married
Frances Cooper, who was also a member of the Order of
Canada for her efforts on behalf of dystonia research and an
HIV Care Unit in Vancouver and for her active support of the
Simon Wiesenthal Center.
[Richard Menkis (2nd ed.)]
BELZEC (Pol. Bełżec), one of the six Nazi death *camps in
German-occupied Poland, situated in the southwest corner
of the country on the Lublin–Lvov railway line. Between February
and December 1942, close to half a million Jews were
killed in its gas chambers by the German SS and their collaborators.
During the ten months of its operation, Belzec was the
most lethal of all Nazi camps established in occupied Poland.
The overwhelming number of those murdered there came
from *Lublin and surrounding areas as well as from the provinces
of *Cracow, *Lvov, *Stanislav (Stanislawow), and *Tarnopol
– the heart of Galician Jewry. Victims also included
Jews from Austria, Germany, and Czechoslovakia. Once the
Nazis concluded that all the Jewish communities of *Galicia
had been destroyed, they dismantled the death camp and tried
to remove all traces of their crime.
Virtually no one brought to Belzec survived, and only
two of its victims bore witness to the horrors that took place
there. Rudolph Reder of Lublin was the lone survivor to give
extended testimony; a second survivor, Chaim Hirszman, was
murdered after his first day of testimony.
Unlike some other death camps, the Nazis situated Belzec
in a relatively populated area, close to the heavily traveled
railway line. Poles and Ukrainians in the area witnessed the
systematic murder of Jews; they saw ghetto liquidations and
trains arriving at the killing center. Poles lived in terror that
the fate of the Jews could soon be theirs. With the scarcity of
Jewish eyewitnesses local Poles became a valuable source for
learning what occurred.
Belzec, together with *Treblinka and *Sobibor, were the
three death camps that operated under the German codename
Aktion Reinhard, devoted to murdering the Jews in General
Gouvernement territory.
Belzec was first established as a forced labor camp for the
Jewish and gypsy prisoners who worked on antitank ditches
along the German-Soviet border in 1940. This was more than
a year before Belzec assumed any role in the killing process.
Later, when the killing center at Belzec became operational,
these antitank ditches were used as mass graves.
During a conference held in Lublin on October 17, 1941,
SS-Brigadefuehrer (Brigadier-General) Obidio Globocnik, who
was assigned by Heinrich *Himmler to organize Ak tion Reinhard,
informed gathered Nazi officials about the decision to
murder the Jews of the General Gouvernement. Within two
weeks the first three SS men of the future camp crew arrived
to Belzec and requested 20 workers from the local mayor. By
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