JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

jailed. Ultimately, the Soviet Union opened its gates and the
mass aliyah to Israel began. Two prominent refuseniks, Joseph
Mendelevich and Eliyahu Essas, currently reside in
Israel and continue to teach Judaism to the Russian immigrant
community.
Eventually, the Ba’al Teshuvah movement spread to Israel.
On the one hand, numerous institutions and organizations
were created to teach and influence English-speaking students
who arrived in Israel to continue their studies and enhance
their Jewish observance. The most prominent are: Kefar Ḥabad
(Lubavitcher), Kefar Ḥabad; Magen Avraham, Bene Berak; Diaspora
Yeshiva (Har Ẓion), Jerusalem; Or Sameaḥ, Jerusalem;
Kollel Or Sameaḥ, Zikhron Ya’akov; Or Sameaḥ Work and
Study Program, Givat Ada; D’var Yerushalayim, Jerusalem;
Aish HaTorah, Jerusalem; Kehillat Yaakov, Jerusalem; Hamivtar,
Efrat; Shapell College, Jerusalem; Neve Yerushalayim,
Jerusalem; Isralight, Jerusalem; Machon Pardes (co-ed), Jerusalem.
These institutions, in many cases, function not only as
schools, but as the centers of living communities. Many of
their students marry, set up homes within the community,
continue their studies and, even after the end of formal studies,
continue to maintain strong ties with the yeshivah or school.
Thus these yeshivot may be seen as the vital center of the entire
Ba’alei Teshuvah movement. On the other hand, the native,
Israeli society has also witnessed a growing, Hebrew-speaking
Ba’al Teshuvah movement. Here, the movers and shakers
are primarily Sephardi rabbis, many of whom preach to large
crowds, exhorting them to return to their religious roots. On
the whole, the Israeli Ba’al Teshuvah movement can be characterized
as “right-wing” or ultra-Orthodox.
In the U.S., in 1987 an organization called National Jewish
Outreach Program (NJOP) was created to provide support
and in-service training for those engaged in outreach to potential
ba’alei teshuvah. Founded by a leading outreach rabbi,
Ephraim Buchwald, NJOP has guided thousands of volunteer
teachers and tens of thousands of Jewish adults. They participated
in programs advertised via the mass media and taught
at Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox synagogues, as well
as Jewish non-religious organizations, such as Jewish community
centers. There is also a complementary organization
called Association for Jewish Outreach Professionals & Programs
(AJOP), which was founded in 1988.
The Ba’al Teshuvah movement, both in Israel and
throughout the Diaspora, can certainly claim great success.
Though no accurate records exist, literally thousands of Jews
have returned to Jewish observance over the past 45 years of
the movement’s history. The movement has generated a whole
library of books aimed at ba’alei teshuvah, strengthened existing
and built new communities in Israel and abroad, and experienced
its own unique set of problems, such as the growing
difficulties in educating and maintaining the observance
of the second generation, i.e., the children, of ba’alei teshuvah.
Nevertheless, the movement has been an integral element in
the resurgence of Orthodoxy throughout the Jewish world
over the last half century.
baal-hazor
Bibliography: M.H. Danzger, Returning to Tradition: The
Contemporary Revival of Orthodox Judaism (2005); D. Klinghoffer,
The Lord Will Gather Me In: My Journey to Jewish Orthodoxy
(1998).
[Jonathan Chipman / David Derovan (2nd ed.)]
BAAL-GAD (Heb. דָ ּג לעַ ַ ּב), biblical locality below Mount
Hermon that was apparently sacred to *Gad, the god of fortune.
Perhaps the name of the locale means “Baal is fortune.”
Baal-Gad is described as the northernmost point conquered
by Joshua (Josh. 11:17; 12:7) and, accordingly, the “land that
yet remaineth” (i.e., that the tribes did not conquer), extends
“… from Baal-Gad under Mount Hermon unto the entrance
of Hamath” (Josh. 13:5) or, as in a parallel passage “… from
Mount Baal-Hermon unto Lebo-Hamath” (Judg. 3:3). The exact
location of Baal-Gad is not known, but the sources clearly
indicate that it must be situated in the southern part of the
Lebanon Valley, at the foot of Mount Hermon, not far from
Dan. It has been proposed to identify it with Ḥaṣbayyā on the
Ḥasbani River.
Bibliography: Maisler (Mazar), in: BJPES, 12 (1946), 91ff.;
Abel, Geog, 2 (1938), 258ff.; Aharoni, Land, index. Add. Bibliography:
N.S. Ahituv, Joshua (1995), 214; Na’aman, in: DDD, 144.
[Yohanan Aharoni]
BA’AL HA-BAYIT (Heb. תִיַ ּבַה לעַ ַ ּב, pl. Ba’alei Battim, “Head
of the household”; in Yid., pronounced “Balebos”), head of a
family. The term is often also associated with the notion of
wealth and is used to describe a man of wealth and secure
economic position, e.g., a landlord. The Yiddish adjective
balebatish, in the sense of bourgeois, is derived from this
term. Ba’al ha-bayit was also applied to married and taxpaying
members of the congregation, as opposed to *baḥur
(“young man”). In the learning sense ba’al bayit means a
man whose Torah learning is basic but superficial, as against
baḥur yeshivah (Yid. yeshiveh bucher) whose learning is intensive
and deep. The feminine form is ba’alat bayit, in Yiddish
baleboste, denoting a housewife, often in the sense of a
good housekeeper.
BAAL-HAZOR (Heb. רֹ וצָח לַ עַ ּב), biblical locality “which is beside
Ephraim” (II Sam. 13:23; a Greek version reads Tophraim,
i.e., Ophrah?) where *Absalom had *Amnon killed to avenge
his sister Tamar at the feast of sheepshearing. It may be identical
with the *Hazor mentioned in the territory of Benjamin
in the post-Exilic period (Neh. 11:33). The identification
of Baal-Hazor with the highest point in the central range of
Mount Ephraim, Jebel al-ʿAṣūr, a mountain 3,293 ft. (1,003 m.)
high, north of Beth-El and near Ophrah (al-Ṭayba), has been
strengthened by the mention of Ramath-Hazor as a high observation
point in the Genesis Apocryphon found among the
Dead Sea Scrolls. Baal-Hazor is possibly the “mountain of
Azor,” a proposed emendation of Azotus, which is found in
I Maccabees 9:15 in the account of the battle of Eleasa, but the
version is doubtful.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 7