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err isaac berr de turique
tionnaire de biographie française, 6 (1954), 141; Szajowski, in: JJS, 14
(1963), 53–66.
[Moshe Catane]
BERR ISAAC BERR DE TURIQUE (1744–1828), leader
in the struggle for Jewish *emancipation in France, born in
Nancy. His father Isaac Berr had been appointed Jewish “syndic”
by King Stanislaus of Poland, duke of Lorraine. Berr himself,
a naturalized French citizen, was a tobacco manufacturer
and banker. In August 1789 he was chosen as one of six members
of a Jewish delegation sent to Paris from Alsace and Lorraine
to put the case for granting Jewish civic equality, acting
as their spokesman at the bar of the National Assembly. He
was a member of the Nancy municipal council from 1792, and
in 1806 was a leading delegate in the *Assembly of Jewish Notables,
sitting on its “Committee of Twelve.” He later became a
member of the Napoleonic *Sanhedrin. In 1816 he purchased
an estate in Turique, adding “de Turique” to his name by royal
permission. Berr translated N.H. *Wessely’s proposals for Jewish
educational reform into French under the title Instructions
Salutaires Adressées aux Communautés Juives de l’Empire de
Joseph II (Paris, 1790). He also published letters in defense of
Jewish rights, demonstrating the moral value of the Talmud.
While supporting certain reforms in Jewish life and customs,
including the abolition of Jewish communal and judicial autonomy,
Berr did not advocate religious Reform (Réflexions
sur la Régénération Complète des Juifs en France, 1806).
Bibliography: E. Carmoly, in: Revue Orientale, 3 (1843/44),
62–63; L. Kahn, Les Juifs de Paris pendant la révolution (1898), 27;
Graetz, Hist, 6 (1949), index.
[Moshe Catane]
BERSHAD, small town in *Vinnitsa district, Ukraine. Jews
started to settle there at the end of the 16th century. They were
butchered by one of the Cossack bands during the *Chmielnicki
massacres, and in the 18th century by the *Haidamak
gangs. The community numbered 438 in 1765; 650 in 1787;
3,370 in 1847; 6,600 (out of a total of 8,885) according to the
1897 census; and 7,400 (61%) in 1910. At the beginning of the
19th century, when the ẓaddik *Raphael of Bershad lived there,
Bershad became a center of Ḥasidism. It became celebrated for
its tallit weaving industry which came to an end after many
of the weavers immigrated to the United States. Most of the
plants for sugar refining and distilling, flour mills, and tanneries
established in Bershad toward the end of the century
were owned by Jews. Of the town’s 175 artisans, 163 were Jewish.
During the civil war of 1919–20, 150 Jews in Bershad were
massacred by Ukrainian gangs and soldiers of *Denikin’s army.
In 1926 they numbered 7,016 (total population 11,847), dropping
to 4,271 in 1939. During this period, under the Soviets,
many Jews worked in artisan cooperatives, some of which later
developed into factories; about 20% of the Jews were blue-collar
workers and clerks, and 20% were unemployed. A Yiddish
high school had 621 students. Bershad was occupied by the
Germans and Romanians on July 29, 1941, and included in
Transnistria on September 1. A ghetto was established in the
town and 25,000 Jews deported from Bessarabia and Bukovina
were sent there. Many died of hunger and disease as up to 25
people were packed into a room. By August 1942, 10,000 Jews
remained. The situation improved after financial aid arrived
from Jewish organizations in Bucharest. A hospital, pharmacy,
soup kitchen, and orphanage were opened. Local Jews organized
an armed underground and later took to the forest and
joined Soviet partisan units. The Jews numbered 2,200 in 1959
and 553 in 1993. There was a synagogue, and both a rabbi and
kosher poultry were available.
Bibliography: A.D. Rozenthal, Megillat ha-Tevaḥ, 1 (1927),
100–2, 110; Y. Midrashi, Bershad ve-ha-Haganah Shellah (1935); N.
Huberman, Bershad (Heb., 1956). Add. Bibliography: PK Romanyah,
PK Ukrainah, S.V.
[Shmuel Ettinger / Shmuel Spector (2nd ed.)]
°BERSHADSKI, SERGEY ALEXANDROVICH (1850–
1896), historian of Lithuanian Jewry. He became interested in
the history of the Jews in Lithuania through his teacher, F. Leontovich.
Bershadski, who for many years worked in official
archives, in particular those of the archduke of Lithuania, also
lectured in law at the University of St. Petersburg. His first historical
study of Lithuanian Jewry was published in the series
Yevreyskaya Biblioteka, where he also published a collection
of sources relating to Jewish history in southwest Russia and
Lithuania. In 1882 he published two volumes of documents
relating to Jewish history in Lithuania from 1388 to 1569, and
in 1883 his book Litovskiye Yevrei (“The Lithuanian Jews”),
a history covering the same period. His other works on this
subject include a Russian history of the Jewish community in
Vilna from 1593 to 1649 (Voskhod, nos. 10, 11, 1886, and nos.
3–8, 1887), and studies on Abraham Jesofovich, the Lithuanian
treasurer (1888), and on Saul Wahl (ibid., nos. 1–5, 1889).
In the 1890s Bershadski began to interest himself in the
history of the Jews in Poland, for which he collected material
from the central archives in Warsaw. He published several
articles on the subject, the documents upon which he drew
being published posthumously in Russko-Yevreyskiy Arkhiv
(vol. 3, 1903). In response to the growing antisemitism of the
time, Bershadski also undertook a study of the blood libel in
Poland and Lithuania in the 16th to 18th centuries, published
in Voskhod (nos. 1, 9, 11, 12, 1894). Before his death he began
publication of a work on the “Jewish Statute” of 1804, but did
not complete it.
After he began his researches, Bershadski, who had been
formerly radically anti-Jewish, developed an appreciation of
the Jewish people and became their warm supporter. In his
wish to promote their integration into the Russian state and
culture, he attempted to show the antiquity of the Jewish settlement
there and that the Jews had made a positive contribution
to Russian life and the Russian language. He attributed the isolation
of the Jews by the rulers of Poland to the annexation of
Lithuania in 1569. Bershadski considered that the union had
brought Lithuania “the Talmud, Jewish autonomy, and Kahal
488 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3