JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

asis of his views in theology, history, and aesthetics, in his last
books such as Essai d’un discours cohérent sur les rapports de
Dieu et du monde (1931) and La France byzantine; ou Le triomphe
de la littérature pure… (1945). This last work was sharply
criticized. Although Benda did not convert to Christianity, he
was completely isolated from Jewish life, and considered his
Jewish origin a burden. He had to seek refuge during World
War II in southern France. However, he regarded the Jewish
problem as only a minor aspect of the war.
Bibliography: H.E. Read, Julien Benda and the New Humanism
(1930); P. Brodin, Maîtres et témoins de l’entre deux guerres
(1943); C. Mauriac, La trahison d’un clerc (1945); R.J. Niess, Julien,
Benda (Eng., 1956).
[Hiram Peri]
BEN-DAVID, JOSEPH (1920–1986), Israeli sociologist. Ben-
David was born in Gyor, Hungary, and immigrated to Israel
in 1941. He studied at the London School of Economics from
1947–1949. He received his M.A. in history and sociology in
1950 and Ph.D. in sociology in 1955, both from the Hebrew
University.
In 1951 he was appointed George Wise Professor of Sociology
at the Hebrew University, in 1968 research associate and
visiting professor of sociology at the University of Chicago,
and in 1979 the Stella M. Rowley Professor of Education and
professor of sociology at the University of Chicago.
Ben-David’s sociological research and publications reflected
his interest in the interaction between macrolevel historical
events and microlevel sociological processes in the areas
of the development of science, higher education, and the
professions and social stratification.
His publications included Fundamental Research and
the Universities: Some Comments on International Differences
(1968), The Scientist’s Role in Society: A Comparative Study
(1971); American Higher Education: Directions Old and New
(1972), and Centers of Learning: Britain, France, Germany and
the United States (1971).
[Beverly Mizrachi (2nd ed.)]
BENDAVID, LAZARUS (Eleazar; 1762–1832), German
mathematician, philosopher, and educator. He attended the
universities of Göttingen and Halle, and spent from 1792 to
1797 in Vienna where he delivered public lectures on Kantian
philosophy. In 1802 he became political editor of the newspaper
Haude- und Spenersche Zeitung. In 1806 he was appointed
honorary director of the Juedische Freischule in Berlin, which
he headed until 1825. The school attained a high reputation
and a large proportion of its students were Christian until
1819, when the government forbade the enrollment of non-
Jews. The school offered a revolutionary model of modern
Jewish education combined with a high level of German and
secular classic culture that represented the educational and
philosophic notions of the Jewish Haskalah. Bendavid began
his scientific work in 1785 with an investigation of the theory
of colors. In 1786 he published Ueber die Parallellinien, and
bendemann, eduard julius friedrich
in 1789 Versuch einer logischen Auseinandersetzung des mathematischen
Unendlichen.
In 1795 his Vorlesungen ueber die “Kritik der reinen Vernunft”
appeared. Bendavid held that philosophy had attained
the pinnacle of its development in the Kantian system. From
1796 to 1798 he wrote a series of works explaining Kant’s philosophy.
In 1799 he published Versuch einer Geschmackslehre,
containing his theory of aesthetics based on Kant. In 1801 the
Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin awarded him a prize for
his study, Ueber den Ursprung unserer Erkenntnis, and published
it in 1802.
With this work, Bendavid’s philosophical labors came to
an end. During his remaining thirty years he wrote solely on
Jewish problems. These writings reflect the struggles of the
first post-Mendelssohnian Jewish generation with the problem
of being Jewish. Bendavid regarded Reform Judaism as the
only means of stemming the tide of conversion to Christianity.
In his work Etwas zur Charackteristick der Juden (1793), he
advocated the abolition of the ritual laws and the cultural and
social assimilation of Jews. Nevertheless, he eschewed conversion
to Christianity. Kant wrongly interpreted Bendavid’s attitude
as counseling Jews to accept Christianity and advised
them, on the strength of Bendavid’s views, openly to adopt the
religion of Jesus and thus at long last attain a religious ethic
and through it a religion (cf., Kant, Der Streit der Fakultäten;
also, the pertinent remarks of Hermann *Cohen in his Kants
Begruendung der Ethik (1901), 49). Bendavid’s biblical studies
are in the spirit of extreme Haskalah rationalism. In an essay
in 1797 he attempted to show that the Ark of the Covenant was
an electrical device which helped to kindle the wood on the
altar. He published studies on the jubilee year, the prohibition
of usury, the mixture of wool and linen, the belief in the Messiah,
and the written and oral Law. In his article on the Messiah
he sought to demonstrate, by investigating the theory of
the transmigration of the Messiah’s soul, that the belief in the
coming of the Redeemer is not a dogma of Judaism and that
the bestowal of equal rights upon the Jews would signify that
the “Messiah” had come.
Add. Bibliography: D. Bourel, “Eine Generation Später –
Lazarus Bendavid (1762–1832),” in: M. Albrecht (ed.), Moses Mendelssohn
und Kreise seiner Wirksamkeit (1994), 363-80; idem, “Lazarus
Bendavids Bildungsweg und seine Tätigkeit als Direktor der jüduschen
Freischule in Belin,” in: B.L. Behm, U. Lohmann, and I. Lohmann
(eds.), Jüdische Erziehung und aufklärerische Schulreform – Analysen
zum späten 18. und frühen 19. Jaherhundert (2002), 359–67; I.
Lohmann, “Die juedische Freischule in Berlin im Spiegel ihrer Programmschriften
(1803–1826),” in: A. Herzig, H.O. Horch, and R. Jütte
(eds.), Judentum und Aufklärung (2002), 66–90.
[Samuel Hugo Bergman / Yehoyada Amir (2nd ed.)]
BENDEMANN, EDUARD JULIUS FRIEDRICH (1811–
1889), German painter. Born in Berlin as the youngest child
of Anton Bendemann and Fanny, née von Halle, a burgeois
Jewish family who later converted to Protestantism, Bendemann
revealed his talent early in a portrait he painted of his
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 325