JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

evin, ernest
tic Judaism. Bevan was a close friend of Claude *Goldsmid-
Montefiore and an active member of the Society of Christians
and Jews. Paradoxically, his sister was the notorious conspiracy
theorist Nesta Webster. His brother, ANTHONY ASHLEY
BEVAN (1859–1933), taught Oriental languages at Cambridge
University. His chief interests were Arabic and Hebrew and he
wrote a commentary on the Book of Daniel (1892).
Add. Bibliography: ODNB online.
°BEVIN, ERNEST (1881–1951), British trade union leader
and statesman. He was a member of the British War Cabinet
in World War II (1941–45), and foreign secretary in the Labor
government (1945–50) when Palestine was transferred de facto
from the aegis of the Colonial Office to that of the Foreign Office.
Bevin’s Palestine policy was based on two premises: first,
he felt that since the vast majority of the Middle East population
was Arab, nothing should be done against their will, lest
this set the Arab world against Great Britain and the West in
their global struggle with the U.S.S.R. and Communism; second,
he believed that Palestine could not essentially solve the
Jewish problem as Jews should continue residing in Europe
and contributing to its welfare. Rather than impose a Jewish
state on the Arabs, he desired some kind of settlement between
Jews and Arabs. In an attempt to obtain U.S. government approval
for his Palestine policy, Bevin proposed appointing an
Anglo-American commission whose task would be to plan a
solution to the Palestine question. In the summer of 1946 he
rejected the committee’s proposals for the immediate admission
of 100,000 Jewish refugees from Europe and the annulment
of the provisos in the Macdonald White Paper restricting
the acquisition of land by Jews. As a result, the situation
in Palestine deteriorated, and Bevin began applying severe repressive
measures against the yishuv. Leading members of the
Jewish Agency and the Va’ad Le’ummi were arrested, “illegal”
immigrants were deported to detention camps in Cyprus, and
the Exodus, bearing 4,500 such immigrants, was shipped back
to Germany. At the same time, Bevin proposed other ways of
solving the problem. One of these was the cantonization of
Palestine, better known as the Morrison Scheme, which allocated
about 17% of the country to the Jews; another was the
Bevin Plan to give the British government a five-year trusteeship
over Palestine with the declared object of preparing the
country for independence. On Feb. 15, 1947, after both plans
had been rejected by Jews and Arabs, Bevin announced that
he was referring the entire matter to the United Nations. As
a result, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine
(UNSCOP) was appointed and, on Nov. 29, 1947, the UN voted to
divide Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab State. Bevin gradually
became reconciled to the idea of a Jewish state; in January
1949, eight months after the proclamation of the State of
Israel, he granted it de facto recognition.
Bibliography: F. Williams, Ernest Bevin (Eng., 1952); J.C.
Hurewitz, The Struggle for Palestine (1950); R.H.S. Crossman, A Nation
Reborn (1960), ch. 2; idem, Palestine Mission (1946); B.C. Crum,
Behind the Silken Curtain (1947); Jewish Agency, The Jewish Plan for
Palestine (1947). Add. Bibliography: A. Bullock, Ernest Bevin:
Foreign Secretary (1984); ODNB online.
[Moshe Rosetti]
BEYTH, HANS (1901–1947), *Youth Aliyah leader. Beyth,
who was born in Bleicherode, Germany, was active in his
youth in the *Blau-Weiss Zionist youth movement. In 1935 he
went to Palestine, where he worked as Henrietta *Szold’s assistant
in Youth Aliyah. His resourcefulness in rescuing and
warmth in educating the Youth Aliyah wards made him an
outstanding personality in the organization. He was instrumental
in the establishment of Youth Aliyah institutions in
communal settlements, and in the absorption of many wards
into kibbutz life. Beyth was sent to Europe at the end of World
War II to prepare the emigration and absorption of surviving
Jewish children. In the last year of his life he arranged for the
care of 20,000 wards. Beyth was murdered by Arabs in December
1947 while on his way home to Jerusalem from Haifa
and Athlit, where he had been welcoming children on their
arrival from a youth village in Cyprus.
Bibliography: Hans Beyth, Ish Aliyyat ha-No’ar (1951); Im
Gedenken an Hans Beyth, (1948), published by the Jewish Agency.
[Arye Lipshitz]
BEẒAH (Heb. ה ָצי ּב; ֵ “egg”), a tractate (so called after its opening
word) of the order Mo’ed, in the Mishnah, Tosefta, Babylonian
Talmud, and Jerusalem Talmud. The tractate deals
with the laws of festivals, but whereas other tractates of the
order Mo’ed deals with specific festivals, Beẓah, in the main,
discusses the laws common to festivals in general; for this
reason this tractate is also called Yom Tov (“festival”). The
tractate consists of five chapters in both the Mishnah and the
Talmud, but of only four in the Tosefta. The first two chapters
of the Mishnah consist chiefly of differences of opinion
between Bet Shammai and *Bet Hillel (e.g. 2:7; 3:8; 5:5) but
also includes traditions from the period of Jabneh (2:6). The
Mishnah ascribes most of the halakhot to various tannaim
who were disciples of R. *Akiva, but it also contains many
anonymous mishnayot of later tannaim who were contemporaries
of Judah ha-Nasi. Beẓah in the Babylonian Talmud
contains many teachings of Palestinian scholars who reached
Babylon by way of the *neḥutei, but which do not appear in the
Jerusalem Talmud. Conversely, the text of the tractate in the
Jerusalem Talmud contains statements of Babylonian scholars
which are not found in the Babylonian Talmud. Beẓah contains
many additions of the savoraim (26a, 27a, 35b), as well
as older material revised by them. Aside from the regular editions
and commentaries, one of the earliest commentaries on
the Jerusalem Talmud has been preserved for Beẓah, that of
R. Eleazar Azikri, edited by Israel Francis (1967).
Bibliography: P. Blackman (ed. and tr.), Mishnayot, 2 (Eng.,
1952), 349–75 (with introd. and notes); H.Strack, Introduction to the
Talmud and Midrash (1959[2]), 39–40; Epstein, Tanna’im, 354–62;
Epstein, Amora’im, 24–44; H. Albeck, Shishah Sidrei Mishnah, Seder
Mo’ed (1958), 281–6.
[Zvi Kaplan]
556 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3