JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

versities of Prague and Leipzig, and then proceeded to Switzerland
and received his doctorate in physical chemistry at
Berne in 1926. From 1927 to 1933 he headed the department of
metallography and X-ray spectrography at the Higher Technical
Institute of Karlsruhe. His researches on silver iodide and
refrigeration were interrupted when the Nazis came to power,
and he thereafter served as consultant on the technology of
refrigeration in Holland, England, and France. Immigrating to
Ereẓ Israel in 1936 he worked at the potash works at the Dead
Sea, where he introduced a method of increasing evaporation
by the sun and was head of the research division of the
works. From 1940 to 1968 he was a member of the Scientific
Council of Israel and the Advisory Technological Council of
the Israel Government. In 1967 he was guest professor for research
on water resources at the Hebrew University and at the
Institute of Atomic Physics at Heidelberg from 1967 to 1968.
Bloch also undertook research on bromine and potash in nature,
and climatic and geological research. He was awarded
the Israel Prize for Science in 1966.
BLOCH, PHILIPP (1841–1923), German historian and Reform
rabbi. He was born at Tworog (Silesia) and studied in
Breslau. After a period as teacher with the Munich Jewish
communal school (1869–71), he became rabbi of the Liberal
congregation Bruedergemeinde of Posen where he remained
active for some fifty years. When that city reverted to Poland
after World War I, Bloch retired from the rabbinate and moved
to Berlin. He took a leading part in the association of Liberal
rabbis and in the work of German Jewish scholarly societies;
in 1905 he was a co-founder of the General Archives of German
Jews. Bloch’s contributions to Jewish scholarship were
concerned mainly with the philosophy of religion, aggadah,
and Kabbalah; he also wrote about the history of Jews in Poland
and the city and province of Posen. Among his works are
a translation of and introduction to the first book of Saadiah’s
Emunot ve-De’ot (1879); a translation of and commentary on
the fifth chapter of Book II of Crescas’ Or Adonai concerning
free will (1879); essays on the development of Kabbalah
and Jewish religious philosophy for Winter-Wuensche’s Die
juedische Literatur (1894–96); Die Kabbalah auf ihrem Hoehepunkt…
(1905); Spuren alter Volksbuecher in der Aggadah
(in Festschrift … Hermann Cohen, Judaica, 1912); and Piskoth
fuer die drei Trauersabbathe, translation and commentary (in
Festschrift … Steinschneider, 1896).
Bibliography: M. Brann, Geschichte des juedisch-theologischen
Seminars… in Breslau (1904), 146–7, bibliography; A.
Warschauer, in: MGWJ, 68 (1924), 1–16; idem, in: MGADJ, 6 (1926),
107–9; J. Guttman, in: KAWJ, 5 (1924), 1–7; N.M. Gelber, in: S. Federbusch
(ed.), Ḥokhmat Yisrael be-Ma’arav Eiropah, 2 (1963), 59–63.
BLOCH, ROLF (1930– ), Swiss Jewish community leader.
Born into a family of Alsatian origin in Berne, he studied law.
His father, Camille Bloch, had built up a chocolate firm in
Courtelary, which also produced kosher chocolate.
Rolf Bloch was president of the Berne community be-
bloch, samson ha-levi
tween 1975 and 1985. Between 1992 and 2000 he served as
president of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities. As
a moderate figure, he mediated in the clash between American-Jewish
organizations and Swiss bankers and politicians in
the furor surrounding the assets of Nazi victims. He headed
a private foundation endowed by the banks and Swiss industry,
distributing 296 million Swiss francs to the victims, 90%
of them Jewish. As an able administrator and conciliatory
personality he became a popular public figure. The Catholic
Faculty of the University of Berne awarded him an honorary
Ph.D. for his promotion of Christian-Jewish understanding
in Switzerland.
Bibliography: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, 2, 496.
[Uri Kaufmann (2nd ed.)]
BLOCH, ROSINE (1844–1891), singer. Bloch made her debut
at the Paris Opera as Azucena in Verdi’s Il Trovatore in 1865
and remained there as one of its most prominent members.
Among her most notable parts was that of Fides in Meyerbeer’s
Le Prophète. She sang Amneris in the first French production
of Aida in 1880, the year she retired.
BLOCH, SAMSON BEN MOSES (d. 1737), dayyan and rabbi
of Hamburg. Bloch, known also as “Samson the Ḥasid,” was
one of the first scholars and teachers and later the principal in
the bet midrash built by Issachar Baer Kohen in 1707. He was
known for his erudition and for his close ties with the great
halakhic authorities of his generation. Bloch greatly exerted
himself for the benefit of his community and it was through
his efforts that the Jews were permitted to escape to Altona
during a time of danger. The glosses and novellae which he
wrote in the margins of the Shulḥan Arukh, Oraḥ Ḥayyim
were published under the title Nezirut Shimshon (Berlin, 1764),
and, again, together with the text of the Oraḥ Ḥayyim (Prague,
1785). Tosafot Ḥadashim (Amsterdam, 1775), his commentary
on the Mishnah, was published with the text and later republished
in many editions of the Mishnah. Samson also wrote
halakhic novellae which have not been published. His sons
were Issachar Baer and Moses, dayyan of Mezhirech.
Bibliography: H. Wagenaar, Toledot Ya’veẓ (1868), 34, 63; E.
Duckesz, Chachme AHW (1908), 24–26 (Hebrew section), 9–10 (German
section); S.M. Chones, Toledot ha-Posekim (1910), 447.
[Abraham David]
BLOCH, SAMSON (Simson) HA-LEVI (1784–1845), one
of the early Hebrew authors of the *Haskalah in Galicia. He
was, for a number of years, a student of Naḥman *Krochmal
and a close friend of Solomon Judah *Rapoport. In the early
1800s he settled in Zamosc, in Russian Poland. In 1809 he
published a new edition of Iggeret ha-Rashba (Epistle of R.
Solomon b. Abraham *Adret) against the study of philosophy,
together with Iggeret ha-Hitnaẓẓelut (Letter of Defense) by *Jedaiah
ha-Penini on behalf of philosophy. In his introduction,
Bloch explained that Adret had objected only to philosophi-
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 767