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aerwald, alex
(Eshkol). Baer’s first extensive research was into the history
of the Jews of Christian Spain. On this subject he wrote his
dissertation Studien zur Geschichte der Juden im Königreich
Aragonien während des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1913);
Untersuchungen über Quellen und Komposition des Schebet
Jehuda (Berlin, 1923; second printing 1936); Probleme der jüdisch-spanischen
Geschichte (in KAWJ, 6 (1925), 5–25); articles
on Abner of Burgos (in Tarbiz, 11 (1939/40), 188–206), on the
disputations of Paris, Barcelona, and Tortosa, on Isaac Abrabanel
(in Tarbiz, 8 (1936/37), 241–59); Die Juden im christlichen
Spanien (1929, 1936), an important two-volume collection of
unpublished documents on Spain, which served as the basis
for his History of the Jews in Christian Spain (Heb., 1945, 19592,
repr. 1965; Eng. ed., 2 vols., 1961–66), which is regarded as the
standard work on the subject. Baer’s work is remarkable for
its broad historical outlook, accuracy in detail, and scholarly
synthesis. These qualities enabled him to throw new light on
the economic, social, legal, political as well as the religious and
cultural condition of Spanish Jewry. His works are a model of
historiography. Especially important among his studies of the
development and history of the Jewish communal organization
are his Das Protokollbuch der Landjudenschaft des Herzogtums
Kleve, 1 (1922, repr. 1936), and his article on the beginnings
and fundaments of Jewish communal organization
in the Middle Ages (Zion, 15 (1949/50, 1–41). His method seeks
to bring to light the internal forces that fashioned the Jewish
communities within the framework of general history and local
conditions. Baer believed that the essential features of Jewish
communal organization were already set during the early
generations of the Second Temple period and that these forms
of organization were a product of the religious and national
experiences of the people, and not that the Diaspora gave birth
to them, although there were changes reflecting special conditions
of time and place. Baer also investigated the spiritual and
religious world of the Jewish people from the Second Temple
period and the Middle Ages. Among his studies in this area
are a series of articles in Zion written between 1932 and 1961
dealing with the theology of the Sefer Ḥasidim (see also Baer’s
contribution to G. Scholem… Fest schrift, 1968) and the Ḥasidei
Ashkenaz in general; with the historical basis of halakhah;
with the relations between Jews, the early Christian Church,
and the Roman Empire until Constantine; and his books Galut
(Ger. 1936; Eng. 1947, Port. 1952) and Yisrael ba-Ammim
(1955), and the article “Social Ideals of the Second Commonwealth”
(in Cahiers d’Histoire Mondiale, 11 (1967/68), 69–91).
From all these emerges an original view of the entire course of
Jewish history. According to Baer the driving force of Jewish
history lies in the continuing socioreligious activity of groups
of pious and practical men of faith who aimed at perfecting
the world. They succeeded in influencing the active elements
among the people, with their beliefs and teachings, maintaining
close ties with the non-Jewish world, and participating in
its religiocultural and socioethical development. Baer reveals
keen understanding of hellenistic and Christian culture and
society. From this vantage point he examined the history of the
Jews in the days of the Second Temple. His conclusions may
be evaluated from his above-mentioned works as well as from
articles in Molad (21 (1963), 308ff.) and Zion (23–24 (1958–59),
nos. 3–4) and on Serekh ha-Yaḥad (“The Manual of Discipline,”
Zion, 29, 1964), which he sees as a Judeo-Christian document
of the beginning of the second century C.E. He also dealt with
the image of Judaism in the synoptic gospels (Zion, 31, 1966)
and came to the conclusion that the polemics reflect conditions
of the period following the destruction of the Temple.
Baer is recognized as one of the most fruitful students and
teachers of Jewish history of modern times. A jubilee volume
was published in his honor in 1961 on the occasion of his 70th
birthday (including his bibliography up to 1959).
Bibliography: I. Sonne, in: JSOS, 9 (1947), 61–80; L. Yahil,
in: Molad, 21 (1963), 549–3: H.H. Ben-Sasson, in: Religion and Society,
Lectures of the Historical Society of Israel (Heb., 1964), 23–40; J.M.
Millás, in: KS, 9 (1932/33), 464–5; C. Roth, ibid., 15 (1938/39), 200–1;
F. Cantera, in: Sefarad, 1 (1941), 232–3; 26 (1966), 346–52; J.M. Millás,
ibid., 5 (1945), 417–40; 6 (1946), 163–88; 22 (1962), 178–80.
[Benzion Dinur (Dinaburg)]
BAERWALD, ALEX (1878–1930), one of the first Jewish architects
in Ereẓ Israel. He was born in Berlin, and studied
architecture at Charlottenburg. In 1910, he was invited by
the Hilfsverein to plan the Technion buildings and the Reali
school in Haifa. In these buildings, Baerwald tried to create a
Jewish style of architecture, based on Muslim architecture.
Baerwald settled in Palestine in 1925, when he was appointed
a lecturer at the Technion (which had been opened
in 1924), and founded its Faculty of Architecture. He built
many buildings in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and elsewhere in Palestine,
in the same style that he developed in the Technion
buildings (Bet Struck, the Anglo-Palestine Bank in Haifa).
In spite of the quality of these buildings and their high architectural
standard their influence on the development of
architecture in Jewish Palestine was very limited. Baerwald
himself designed a number of buildings in the contemporary
modern European style. These include the Central Jezreel
Valley Hospital and the Electricity Company’s power stations
at Haifa and Tiberias. He also planned two buildings in
kibbutz Merḥavyah, combining rural European architecture
with Middle Eastern motifs.
Add. Bibliography: A. Elhanani, “Israeli Architecture in
the Twentieth Century” (Heb., 1998).
[Abraham Erlik]
BAERWALD, MORITZ (1860–1919), German lawyer and
politician. Baerwald was born in Thorn, West Prussia, and
founded a law firm in Bromberg, Posen, where Jewish business
and professional men constituted the nucleus of the urban
bourgeoisie and enjoyed privileges not easily available
to them elsewhere in Germany. Baerwald was elected to the
board of attorneys, to the Bromberg city government, and to
the Prussian Diet in 1912. In 1919 he was elected to the German
National Assembly but, like all the other deputies from
54 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3