JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

en he he
In his pamphlet Lashon Attikah bi-Meẓi’ut Ḥadasha (“Ancient
Language in a New Reality,” 1953) he deals with problems
of the growth and development of modern Hebrew as the living
language in the State of Israel. This article was republished
along with most of his articles on modern Hebrew during the
long period of his activity at the Academy in Be-Milhamtah
shel Lashon, 1992. He was the editor of the historical dictionary
of the Hebrew language – one of the major projects of
the Academy. He also edited Hebrew dictionaries containing
modern Hebrew terms in the fields of mathematics, anatomy,
technology, etc., and contributed articles to leading linguistic
journals on problems of Hebrew grammar and on the systems
of Hebrew grammarians. Ben Ḥayyim was the Encyclopaedia
Judaica’s divisional editor for Hebrew and Semitic languages.
He received the Israel Prize in 1964. A full list of Ben Ḥayyim’s
works and scientific publications appeared in Leshonenu (vol.
32, Tishri–Tevet 1967/68), the publication of the Academy, edited
by Ben Ḥayyim from 1955 to 1965; updated in Leshonenu
65 (2003), 201–26 with an assessment of his scientific achievements,
ibid., p. 227–38.
BEN HE HE (c. first century), tanna. In Avot (5, end) appears
a maxim in the name of Ben He He: “According to the labor
is the reward.” The same maxim is quoted as a popular saying
in the name of Hillel the Elder (ARN1 12:28; ARN2 27:28),
while a similar version occurs in Samaritan literature (see S.
Liberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine (1942), 160, p. 113). The
Talmud (Ḥag. 9b), implying that he may have been a pupil of
Hillel, contains questions addressed to Hillel by Bar He He
(see Seder ha-Dorot, S.V. Ben Bag Bag; cf., however, Liberman,
loc. cit.). His name is said to have originated from his having
been “a proselyte, i.e., the son [ben] of Abraham and Sarah, to
each of whose names the letter ה [he] was added” (cf. Gen. 17:5,
15; Tos. to Hag. 9b; Maḥzor Vitry, ed. Hurwitz (1923), 563–4).
Bacher (Tann, 1 (19032), 8–9) suggests that he was converted
under the influence of Hillel. He is also identified with *Ben
Bag Bag (Tos. and Maḥzor Vitry, loc. cit.),
Bibliography: Hyman, Toledot, 285.
[Zvi Kaplan]
BEN-HORIN (Zelig Bidner), ELIAHU (1902–1966), Zionist
activist, journalist and writer. Ben-Horin was born in Balta,
Ukraine and studied at the University of Odessa where he
was chairman of the Zionist Students’ Union. He was active
in Zionist and self-defense clandestine organizations during
the early years of the Soviet regime. Immigrating to Palestine
in 1921, he joined the Histadrut and was among the founders of
the collective settlement Ha-Sharon (later to become Kibbutz
Yifat). He broke away from the Labor movement in 1928 to
join the *Revisionist party and served on the editorial boards
of the Revisionist press (Do’ar ha-Yom and Yarden). In 1931 he
left the Haganah, and joined the *Irgun Ẓeva’i Le’ummi (IZL),
in which he served as *Jabotinsky’s personal representative on
its Supervisory Board. He participated in collecting funds and
in the purchase of arms for the organization. He was a Revi-
sionist delegate to the 17th Zionist Congress (1931), and when
the New Zionist Organization (NZO) was founded in 1935, he
was elected to its presidency. During 1944–50 he cooperated
with ex-President Herbert Hoover in formulating the “Hoover
Plan” for settling Palestinian Arabs in Iraq. He also served as
advisor on Middle Eastern affairs to the American Zionist
Emergency Council. His works include The Red Army (1942)
and The Middle East: Crossroads of History (1943).
Bibliography: Tidhar, 10 (1959), 3470–71; Dinur, Haganah,
2, index.
[Joseph Nedava]
BEN-HORIN, MEIR (1918–1988), U.S. Jewish educator. Born
in Koenigsberg, East Prussia, Ben-Horin was assistant professor
of education at the Boston Hebrew Teachers College from
1951 to 1957. From 1957, he headed the department of education
of Dropsie College (now *Dropsie University) in Philadelphia,
with the rank of professor from 1962. Ben-Horin wrote Max
Nordau: Philosopher of Human Solidarity (1956) and Common
Faith – Uncommon People (1970). Together with Judah *Pilch
he coedited Judaism and the Jewish School (1966). In applying
to Jewish education the Reconstructionist view of Judaism
as a religious civilization, Ben-Horin follows the educational
and philosophical thinking of Dewey, M.M. Kaplan,
and Theodore Brameld.
[Leon H. Spotts]
BENICHOU, PAUL (1908–2001), French literary critic and
historian of literature. Born in Tlemcen to a Jewish Algerian
family, Benichou, was soon recognized as a brilliant student
and sent to study in Oran and then Paris’ prestigious Lycée
Louis-le-Grand high school. While teaching literature in Paris,
he began the research and the writing on his first major essay
on French classicism, Morales du Grand Siècle, but was barred
from teaching in 1940 as a result of the antisemitic legislation
of the Vichy regime, which stripped him, as an Algerian Jew,
of French citizenship and forced him to flee to Argentina,
where he pursued his teaching career. Morales du Grand Siècle
was eventually published by Gallimard in 1948 and Benichou
came back to France in 1949. During his Argentinean
years, Benichou, unable to access French archives, began a
critical study of the romancero, whose brilliant originality was
highly praised, and became acquainted with writer Jorge Luis
Borges, whom he would later translate into French. In five independent
but interrelated essays tracing back the origins of
French romanticism (Le Sacre de l’écrivain, 1973; Le Temps des
prophètes, 1977; Les Mages romantiques, 1988; L’École du désenchantement,
1992; Selon Mallarmé, 1995), Benichou tried to
account for the pessimism of most major 19th century French
writers, as opposed to the general euphoria of the time. This
series of essays, which Benichou began to publish only at the
age of 65, renewed the vision of French romanticism and its
link to classicism, and taken together they provide a panorama
of French literature from 1750 to 1900, as well as a milestone
in the general theory of literature. Benichou characteristically
352 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3