JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

loch-michel, jean
cal studies at too early an age. In 1813–14, Bloch worked as
proofreader of Hebrew books for the Viennese printer Anton
Schmid. He published a Hebrew translation (from the German)
of *Manasseh Ben Israel’s Vindiciae Iudaeorum with the
title Teshu’at Yisrael (“Israel’s Salvation,” 1814) with an introduction
and the author’s biography by David Franco-Mendes.
Bloch won his place in Hebrew literature with his Shevilei
Olam (“Paths of the World”), the first general geography in
the Hebrew language. The first two parts of this work, on Asia
and Africa, appeared during his lifetime (1822–1827); the unfinished
third part, on Europe, edited by N.M. Schorr and
published posthumously in 1855, under the title Zehav Shebah.
Shevilei Olam, which ran into four editions, is, in the main, an
adaptation of German geography books. However, Bloch was
able to give his work a popular Jewish flavor by the inclusion
of stories about unusual phenomena in far-off lands, mysterious
tales and legendary anecdotes, and by special stress on the
importance of each country for Jewish history. Bloch’s style is
extremely florid and stilted even for his own period, and the
book as a whole suffers from numerous irrelevant notes. In
1840 Bloch published a Hebrew translation of Leopold Zunz’s
biography of Rashi, with important emendations and notes.
Bloch spent his last years in solitude and illness in his native
town of Kulikow (near Lemberg).
Bibliography: Klausner, Sifrut, 2 (1952), 350–68.
[Gedalyah Elkoshi]
BLOCH-MICHEL, JEAN (1912– ), French novelist and essayist.
Bloch-Michel was influenced by his experiences during
the Nazi occupation of France and by the moral confusion and
crises of conscience affecting his country after World War II.
Both his fiction and his essays show him to be a moralist in the
French classical tradition with notable psychological insight.
Among his best-known works are Le témoin (1949; The Witness,
1950); a book of war memoirs, Les grandes circonstances
(1949); La fuite en Egypte (1952; The Flight into Egypt, 1957),
and Frosinia (1966). He also wrote a study of French politics,
Journal du désordre (1955), and an essay on the contemporary
novel, Présent de l’indicatif (1963). Bloch-Michel was a contributor
to a collective work on capital punishment, Reflexions
sur la peine capitale (1957). Although culturally assimilated,
Bloch-Michel expressed his solidarity with Russian Jewry and
the State of Israel.
Bibliography: E.P. Hazard, in: Saturday Review of Literature
(Feb. 11, 1950); Évidences, no. 30 (1953), 8–9.
[Arnold Mandel]
BLOCK, H & R, U.S. tax preparation and financial services
firm.
HENRY WOLLMAN BLOCH (1922– ) was born in Kansas
City, Mo., the second son of a prominent lawyer. He began his
college career at the University of Missouri but transferred
to the University of Michigan, from which he graduated in
1944. He joined the Army Air Corps and as a navigator on
B-17 bombers he flew 31 combat missions over Germany. He
was awarded the Air Medal and three Oak Leaf Clusters. The
Army Air Corps sent him to the Harvard Business School for
training in statistical control. Bloch came under the influence
of Sumner Schlicter, a noted economist, who suggested that
small business did not have the resources of big business and
labor. In 1946 Bloch and his brother Leon founded the United
Business Company to offer bookkeeping and other services to
small businesses. After a year, Leon left the business to return
to law school. But as the company grew, Henry was joined by
another brother, Richard, and they offered bookkeeping and
tax services to small businesses. Shortly before the 1955 tax
season, they placed an ad in The Kansas City Star offering tax
preparation. The Internal Revenue Service had just discontinued
free tax preparation so the Blochs’ skills were in demand.
The Blochs named the company H&R Block because, they
said, the family name had been difficult for people to pronounce
and Block could be spelled phonetically. Their success
prompted Richard to suggest expanding to New York City, the
next city the IRS stopped servicing. H&R Block opened seven
offices in 1956 and in its second year the company more than
tripled revenues. By 1962 the company had 206 offices and
became a public company.
In the 1970s H&R Block built a national brand by offering
professional services for a mass market. Beginning in 1972
Henry Bloch appeared in television commercials, which also
helped build H&R Block into a national firm. Soon there were
8,600 offices. By 1978 the company offices prepared more than
one of every nine tax returns filed in the United States, and by
the turn of the century it had over 100,000 associates at more
than 12,000 offices around the world.
Widely known as a businessman, civil leader, and avid
supporter of the arts in Kansas City, Henry served on the
boards of the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish
Federation.
RICHARD BLOCH (1926–2004) entered the Wharton
School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania at the age
of 16. The youngest member of his class, he received a bachelor
of science degree in economics in 1945. Ever the entrepreneur,
while in college he purchased and repaired used cars and sold
them for a profit to help pay for college expenses. After graduation,
he returned to Kansas City and worked in the municipal
bond business before joining his brother.
In 1978 Richard was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer
and was told he had three months to live. Refusing to accept
this diagnosis, he underwent aggressive therapy for two
years and was pronounced cured. He promised himself that
if he survived he would devote his life to helping others fight
cancer. By 1980 he was fulfilling his commitment; in 1982 he
sold his interest in H&R Block. Richard and his wife founded
the Cancer Hotline in 1980. It educates and provides information
to thousands of newly diagnosed cancer patients and their
families. They also founded the R.A. Bloch Cancer Management
Center and the R.A. Bloch Cancer Support Center at the
University of Missouri in Kansas City. Richard Bloch and his
768 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3