JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

lank, samuel leib
Add. Bibliography: S. Bickel, Yahadut Romanyah (1978),
47–50, 321; A Mirodan, Dictionar neconventional, I (1986), 174–79; L.
Bathory, in: Studia Judaica, I (1991), 94–103.
[Joachim O. Ronall / Lucian-Zeev Herscovici (2nd ed.)]
BLANK, SAMUEL LEIB (1893–1962), Hebrew novelist and
short-story writer. Blank, who was born in the Ukraine, spent
his formative years in Bessarabia and in 1922 settled in the
United States. His early stories described the Jewish farmers
of Bessarabia, and his tetralogy Ẓon, Adamah, Naḥalah
(1930–33), and Moshavah (1936) focused upon a simple protagonist,
significantly and symbolically called “Bo’az.” Blank
was not a subtle psychologist, but he vividly depicted the Jewish
man of the soil in his primitive surroundings. When he
attempted to portray the harsher realities of life after World
War I, such as the pogroms in the Ukraine in his Bi-She’at
Ḥerum (1932) or the maladjusted immigrant in America, as in
Mr. Kunis (1934) or Iy ha-Dema’ot (1941), he verged on melodrama.
Al Admat Amerikah (1958) and Eẓ ha-Sadeh (1961)
were among his last works.
Bibliography: Waxman, Literature, 4 (19602), 1055–58;
5 (19602), 202–4; M. Ribalow, Im ha-Kad el ha Mabbu’a (1950),
237–43.
[Eisig Silberschlag]
BLANK, SHELDON HAAS (1896–1989), U.S. rabbi and
Bible scholar. Blank was ordained at Hebrew Union College,
Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1923. From 1926 he taught Bible at the
Hebrew Union College. Blank published numerous studies
on many aspects of biblical scholarship, dealing with questions
of the text and of social and political history. He made a
special contribution by his insights into the religious experience
of biblical personalities, especially the prophets, and by
his exposition of their religious ideas. These qualities characterize
his books Prophetic Faith in Isaiah (1958) and Jeremiah:
Man and Prophet (1961) as well as such essays as “Men
against God, the Promethean Element in Biblical Prayer” (in
JBL, 72 (1953), 1–13), “Doest Thou Well to Be Angry? A Study
in Self-Pity” (in HUCA, 26 (1955), 29–41), and “Of a Truth the
Lord Hath Sent Me, an Inquiry into the Source of the Prophet’s
Authority” (1955). In these studies he strictly followed the
canons of critical scholarship. Elsewhere, however, he sought
to reinterpret biblical thoughts in terms of the present day:
“The Relevance of Prophetic Thought for the Modern Rabbi”
(CCARY, 65 (1955), 163–72) and The Dawn of Our Responsibility
(1961). He was editor of the Hebrew Union College Annual
for more than 60 years,
Bibliography: Dictionary Catalog of the Klau Library,
4 (1964), 465–70. Add. Bibliography: HUC-JIR at 100 Years
(1976).
[Bernard J. Bamberger]
BLANKENSTEIN, MARCUS VAN (1880–1964), Dutch
journalist. From 1909 to 1920, Blankenstein reported from
Berlin, returned to Rotterdam in 1931, and became chief for-
eign editor of the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant. He left
in 1936 when his articles were considered too anti-Nazi. He
reached England in 1940 and became chief editor of the Free
Dutch weekly Vrij Nederland in London. After the war he
was a foreign editor and roving correspondent of the daily
Het Parool.
Add. Bibliography: E. van Blankenstein, Dr. M. van Blankenstein:
een Nederlandse dagbladdiplomaat, 1880–1964 (1999).
BLANKFORT, MICHAEL S. (1907–1982), novelist, and
screenwriter. After publishing The Widow-Makers (1946) and
Big Yankee, the Life of Carlson of the Raiders (1947), Blankfort,
an ardent Zionist, achieved international success with The Juggler
(1952), which deals with a young refugee’s adjustment to
normal life in the State of Israel. His other works include The
Strong Hand (1956), about a young Orthodox rabbi’s tragic love
affair with a war widow; screenplays, such as his adaptation of
Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny (1954); and Behold the Fire
(1965), a novel based on the exploits of the *Nili conspirators
for which he was awarded the S.Y. Agnon Prize.
Add. Bibliography: “Michael Blankfort, 74,” in: New York
Times (July 16, 1982), B4.
BLANKSTEIN, CECIL (1908–1989), Canadian architect.
Blankstein was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, into a building
and architectural dynasty. His grandfather Meyer was a contractor
and stonemason in Odessa and his father Max was a
Russian-trained architect who practiced in Winnipeg from
1905, the first registered Jewish architect in western Canada.
Cecil Blankstein graduated with a degree in architecture from
the University of Manitoba in 1929. His sister Evelyn and
brother Morley were also architects and his son Arthur became
an interior designer in Winnipeg and son Max a town
planner in Israel.
Heavily influenced by the German Bauhaus tradition,
Blankstein’s contemporary designs graced residential, commercial,
and public building in Winnipeg and elsewhere in
Canada, including the Winnipeg Concert Hall, Winnipeg
Airport, Winnipeg City Hall, Winnipeg Post Office, the Lorne
Building in Ottawa, which until recently housed The National
Gallery of Canada, and buildings on several Canadian university
campuses. Of special note are Blankstein’s contemporary
postwar design for Winnipeg’s Shaarey Zedek Synagogue
and his imaginative conception, in the late 1960s, for a major
terraced housing project, Tzameret Habirah, in Jerusalem’s
French Hill quarter. Blankstein’s artful combination of row
housing with stacked building techniques set a new standard
for hillside residential construction in Israel.
[Harold Troper (2nd ed.)]
BLANTER, MATVEY ISAAKOVICH (1903–1990), songwriter.
Born in Pochep, Ukraine, Blanter studied violin, theory,
and composition in various institutions in Kiev (1915–17)
and Moscow (1917–21). His pieces and music for the Leningrad
Satirical Theater attracted early attention. During the
740 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3