JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

Jewish people to achieve self- determination and national independence..
Bibliography: B. Sapir, Jewish Community of Cuba (1948),
18–21. Add. Bibliography: J. Hochstein, “David Blis,” in: Havaner
Lebn Almanaque 1947–48.
[Margalit Bejarano (2nd ed.)]
°BLISS, FREDERICK JONES (1859–1937), British archaeologist.
The son of a missionary, Bliss taught for a time at the
Syrian Protestant College, Beirut. On behalf of the *Palestine
Exploration Fund, he excavated at Tell al-Ḥasī (1891), Jerusalem
(1894–97), and (in collaboration with R.A.S. *Macalister)
at various mounds in the *Shephelah (1899–1900). At
Tell al-Ḥasī Bliss continued the work of Sir William Flinders
*Petrie and in Jerusalem he discovered the walls of “Mt. Zion”
and the wall enclosing the Tyropoeon Valley, in addition to
many other minor discoveries. His work in the Shephelah was
marked by some important finds but was too hurried to be of
lasting value. His publications include Mound of Many Cities
(1898); Excavations at Jerusalem 1894–1897 (1898); Excavations
in Palestine 1898–1900 (1902), with R.A.S. Macalister; Development
of Palestine Exploration (1906); and Religions of Modern
Syria and Palestine (1912).
[Michael Avi-Yonah]
BLITZER, WOLF (1948– ), U.S. journalist. Blitzer earned a
bachelor’s degree in history from the State University of New
York at Buffalo and a master’s in international relations from
the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
in Washington. While at SUNY, he spent a year at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. He started in the news business as a
reporter for *Reuters in Tel Aviv in 1972. Three years later he
became the Washington correspondent of the Jerusalem Post
and served for 15 years until 1990. He joined the all-news television
network CNN that year as Pentagon correspondent and
appeared frequently on screen during the Persian Gulf War.
With his work for the Post and his coverage of the prosecution
of Jonathan *Pollard, an American Jew charged with spying
for Israel, Blitzer became an expert on the weapons systems
of the Pentagon and on the Iraqi military. He was among a
team of CNN reporters who won a Golden Cable Ace award
for coverage of the war. In 1992 he became CNN’s senior White
House correspondent, covering the administration of President
Bill Clinton, and served in that capacity until 1999. He
became host of Wolf Blitzer Reports, a nightly newscast, in
December 2000 and took over CNN’s Night Edition, a Sunday
talk show which in 2004 was seen in more than 200 countries.
In 1996 Blitzer won an Emmy award for his coverage
of the bombing in Oklahoma City. In 1999 he won the Lowell
Thomas Broadcast Journalism Award for contributions to
broadcast journalism.
Over the years Blitzer covered many key events on the
international political scene. In 1973 he was on hand when
Willy *Brandt traveled to Israel, marking the first visit of a
German chancellor. He also covered the first Israeli-Egyptian
bloc, andrÉ
peace conference in Egypt in 1977 and in 1979 he traveled with
President Jimmy Carter for the final round of negotiations that
resulted in the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty.
In addition to receiving several honorary degrees, Blitzer
is the author of two books, Between Washington and Jerusalem:
A Reporter’s Notebook (1985) and Territory of Lies (1989), which
dealt with the Pollard affair. The son of Holocaust survivors,
Blitzer has noted an irony in his personal family history. His
grandparents were killed on Yom Kippur and two of his parents’
grandchildren, Blitzer’s nephew and daughter, were born
on Yom Kippur.
[Stewart Kampel (2nd ed.)]
BLITZSTEIN, MARC (1905–1964), U.S. composer. Born in
Philadelphia, Blitzstein studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris
and Arnold Schoenberg in Berlin. Intensely interested in political
problems, he developed a genre of operas of “social significance.”
His short works, The Cradle Will Rock (1937) and
No for an Answer (1941), were important though transitory
landmarks in the American “proletarian opera” movement.
Among his other works are The Airborne (1946), a cantata resulting
from his service with the U.S. army in England during
World War II, and a musical drama, Regina, based on Lillian
*Hellman’s play The Little Foxes (1949). Blitzstein also made an
idiomatic American translation of the libretto of Kurt Weill’s
Dreigroschenoper. His opera on the theme of Sacco and Vanzetti,
commissioned by the Ford Foundation for production
by the Metropolitan Opera, was left unfinished. He died on
the island of Martinique of head injuries suffered in an attack
by a group of sailors.
At the time of his death Blitzstein left unfinished two
one-act operas based on the short stories of Bernard Malamud.
One of them, Idiots First, was completed by Leonard
Lehrman, assistant chorusmaster of the Metropolitan Opera,
and performed on March 1977 in Bloomington, Ind., and received
its first New York premiere in January 1978. The story,
in 13 short scenes, is of an old Jew, Mendel, spending the last
night of his life in seeking means to provide for his retarded
son, Yiẓḥak.
Bibliography: Baker, Biog Dict, and 1965 Supplement;
Grove, Dict, s.v; MGG, S.V.
[Nicolas Slonimsky]
BLOC, ANDRÉ (1896–1966), French sculptor and engineer,
who was concerned with the relationship of architecture to
sculpture. He was the creator of “habitacles” (pieces of sculpture
which could be entered) and “constructions,” sculptural
forms which lie on the borderline between the two arts. Born
in Algiers, Bloc studied science in Paris. He then took a degree
in engineering, which he practiced from 1930 onward. In 1941
he began to sculpt, and his first important work was executed
in 1949. This was a 38-foot “signal” placed outside the Public
Works Museum, Paris, on the occasion of the centenary of the
invention of reinforced concrete. In 1951 he helped to found
the “Espace” group. He was also associated with the founda-
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 757