JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

showed in New York at the Artist’s Gallery. A 1915 El Greco
exhibition at the Knoedler Gallery made an important impact
on Benn, after which time he began to gently distort the
human figure and employ a more painterly approach. Benn
participated in the Forum Exhibition of Modern American
Painters in 1916, organized by avant-garde artists of the period,
including Alfred *Steiglitz. Although at times his palette
would darken, throughout his career Benn painted simplified
portraits, stilllifes, and landscapes, influenced by the
vibrant and colorful fauvist tendencies of Henri Matisse and
the vigorous brushstroke of Chaim *Soutine. He had several
one-man shows, notably an exhibition at the Jewish Museum
in 1965. His works can be found in the permanent collections
of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan
Museum of Art.
Bibliography: B. Benn, Ben Benn: An American Painter,
1884–1983 (1983); S. Geist, “Ben Benn,” in: Art Digest, 28 (Oct. 1953):
15, 25–28.
[Samantha Baskind (2nd ed.)]
BEN-NAPHTALI, MOSES (Or Jacob) BEN DAVID, masorete.
He is assumed to have been a contemporary of Aaron b.
Moses *Ben-Asher, who dates from the ninth or tenth century
C.E., and an inhabitant of Tiberias. Although nothing about
him is known, except his name, there survives a list of some
850 minor differences from the reading of Ben Asher in vowels
and accents in the Hebrew Bible. The list notes only eight
variants in the consonantal text. The differences in vocalization
and accents, especially as recorded by Mishael b. Uzziel
(10th–11th centuries) with considerable deviations in detail in
the different traditions (published by L. Lipschuetz), reveal no
systematic features, and may be nothing but a gathering of traditional
variants. Penkower (in bibliography) argues that the
high level of agreement proves that Ben-Naphtali and Ben-
Asher do not represent two rival schools regarding the biblical
text, but rather the contrary. Some scholars have observed
that the very name Ben-Naphtali is suspect: Naphtali in the
Bible is the son of Jacob born after Asher, and the series “Ben-
Asher, Ben-Naphtali” resembles the standard series of random
names, “Reuben, Simeon.” In Western and Central Asia
in that period it was a common feature to systematize differences
by assigning them to two “schools,” only one of which
existed. The closest parallel, as shown by Gotthold *Weil, is
the invention of a Kufan School of Arabic grammar as a foil
for the Basrian School.
There are, indeed, a number of Bible manuscripts with a
type of Tiberian vocalization rather different from that of the
Ben-Asher school (which itself is not entirely monolithic), but
the slight similarity these manuscripts share with some variant
readings ascribed to Ben-Naphtali in Mishael’s list is not
sufficient to substantiate the claim that they are representative
of the Ben-Asher School.
See also: *Masorah.
Bibliography: C.D. Ginsburg, The Massorah (1880–1905);
idem, Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew
ben-ner, yitzhak
Bible (1897), 241–86; Mann, Egypt, 2 (1922), 43–49; Edelmann, in:
P. Kahle, Masoreten des Westens, 2 (1930), 45–68; idem, The Cairo
Geniza (1947), 67–76; L. Lipschuetz, in: Textus, 2 (1962), Heb. pt. 3–58;
4 (1964), 1–29; Morag, in: JSS, 4 (1959), 216–37; idem, The Vocalization
Systems of Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic (1962), 34, 38–41; idem,
in: Leshonenu, 29 (1965), 203–9; G. Weil (ed.), Abu’l-Barakāt ibn al-
Anbāri, Die grammatischen Streitfragen der Basrer und Kufer (1913),
48–93. Add. Bibliography: J. Penkower, in: DBI I, 119–20.
[Chaim M. Rabin]
BEN-NATAN, ASHER (1921– ), Israeli diplomat. Ben-Natan
was born in Vienna and immigrated to Ereẓ Israel as an
“illegal” immigrant in 1938. He was one of the founders of
the group which established kibbutz *Dobrath (Dovrat). In
1944 Ben-Natan joined the Aliyah Department of the Jewish
Agency and was delegated to the British Department, which,
in liaison with the Allied Forces, specialized in the interrogation
of Nazi war criminals and in compiling lists of them
and their crimes. In October of that year he was transferred
to Vienna, where he was in charge of the *Beriḥah movement
in Austria, holding the position until 1947. During this period
he established a special group to search for war criminals. In
1947 Ben-Natan was a special assistant to David Ben-Gurion
and in 1948 was appointed chief of special operations in the
Political Department of the Israel Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
From 1951 to 1953 he studied at the Institute of Higher International
Studies in Geneva, and in 1956 was appointed special
delegate of the Ministry of Defense for Europe, taking up the
post in Paris in 1957. From 1960 to 1965 he served as director
general of the Ministry of Defense and from 1965 to 1969 was
first Israel ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany.
In 1970 he was appointed Israel ambassador to France. Ben-
Natan was a candidate for mayor of Tel Aviv in Nov. 1978 but
was not elected.
BEN-NER, YITZHAK (1937– ), Israeli writer. Born in Kefar
Yehoshua, Ben-Ner studied literature and drama at Tel
Aviv University before spending a couple of years in New
York. His first novel, Ha-Ish mi-Sham (1967; The Man from
There, 1970), tells of a young Israeli soldier who is trapped
in a small Egyptian border town. An Egyptian doctor protects
and hides him in his fiancée’s house. An ambiguous relationship
develops, full of tension and surprises. The novel,
which gained Ben-Ner much acclaim, was followed by prose
works – novels and collections of stories – as well as by books
for children (e.g. Kishona, 1977; Jeans,1991), film and television
scripts, and plays (e.g., the monodrama David August, 1983,
Ta’atuon, performed at the Cameri Theatre in 1990, and Uri
Muri, performed there in 1999). The collection Sheki’ah Kafrit
(1976; Rustic Sunset, 1997) comprises eight short stories, tales
of childhood and maturity, depicting urban life in Israel and
looking critically at the seemingly heroic officers of the Israeli
army. Malakhim Ba’im (“The Angels Are Coming,” 1987) is a
sophisticated parody on contemporary Israeli society through
the story of David Halperin, a hedonistic Tel Aviv bachelor.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 367