JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

logg, solomon ben ephraim
total population of 119,000. Thereafter, in common with most
other Jewish communities outside the main urban centers of
*Johannesburg, *Cape Town, and *Durban, the Bloemfontein
Jewish community declined steadily. In 1997, the synagogue
was sold and the congregation relocated to the smaller premises
of the now defunct Reform congregation. In 2004, the
community numbered about 180 Jews.
Bibliography: G. Saron and L. Hotz (eds.), Jews in South
Africa (1955), index.
[Lewis Sowden]
BLOGG (also Bloch), SOLOMON BEN EPHRAIM
(c. 1780–1858), Hebrew grammarian and liturgist. He was a
teacher at the Jewish community’s school at Hanover (Germany),
where he founded the Hebrew printing press in 1827,
Telgener, which was noted for its neatly and accurately printed
books. Blogg published Psalms as well as a Passover Haggadah
(1829) with German translation and his own commentaries.
He wrote a history of the Hebrew language and literature
with a short study on the Targums, Korot Leshonenu ha-Kedoshah
– Geschichte der hebraeischen Sprache und Literatur
(Berlin, 18262), included also in his Binyan Shelomo – Aedificium
Salomonis (Hanover, various ed. starting 1926), dealing
with the history of Hebrew and of the Talmud. Blogg also reedited
Solomon London’s Kohelet Shelomo, a Hebrew work on
the liturgy and ceremonial customs according to the Ashkenazi
(Polish and German) rite. This work was first published
in Amsterdam, in Hebrew (1744), then in Yiddish, in Frankfurt
on the Oder (1790 and 1799). Reedited and translated
into German by Blogg (1830), it enjoyed great popularity and
was several times reprinted (reedited by A. Sulzbach, 1908).
Blogg also wrote: a book of devotion for the sick and for the
mourners, Sefer ha-Ḥayyim (1856, several times reedited, last
in 1930); Seder ha-Piyyutim, a German translation of the piyyutim
(1824); Massekhet Purim, a parody of a Talmud tractate
with a travesty of evening prayers (ma’aravit) and seliḥot for
Purim (1844); and further minor treatises on Moses the elect
prophet (1824), on the Jewish Oath (1826), etc.
Bibliography: Fuerst, Bibliotheca, 1, pt. 1 (1863), 122–3;
Steinschneider, Cat Bod, 801, no. 4602; Steinschneider, Handbuch,
23; idem, in: HB, 1 (1858), 16. Add. Bibliography: S. Weininger,
Grosse juedische National-Biographie mit mehr als 8000 Beschreibungen,
1 (1925), S.V. “Orient”; M. Roest, Catalog der Hebraica und Judaica
aus der L. Rosenthal’schen Bibliothek, 80:232f., 322, 703, 709.
[Moshe Nahum Zobel]
BLOIS, capital of the department of Loir-et-Cher, north-central
France. The earliest information concerning Jews in Blois
dates from 992. The community is known in medieval Jewish
annals for the tragic consequences of a *blood libel in 1171, the
first ritual murder accusation to be made in France. Thirtythree
members of the community including men, women and
children, were burned at the stake on May 26, on the orders
of Count Theobald. Jacob b. Meir *Tam established the 20th
of Sivan, the date of the martyrdom, as a fast day for the Jews
in France, England, and the Rhineland. *Ephraim b. Jacob of
Bonn, his brother Hillel, and others composed elegies on the
martyrs. The tragedy was the subject of a Hebrew drama by
S.D. *Goitein, Pulẓelinah (1927). Jews possibly settled in Blois
again, for in 1345 a quarter known as la Juiverie is reported.
The present-day rue des Juifs near the cathedral is probably
located on the same site. During World War II a few Jews from
Alsace settled in Blois. In 1968 there were 60 Jews living in
Blois, mainly from North Africa.
Bibliography: S. Spiegel, in: Sefer ha-Yovel le-M.M. Kaplan
(1953), 267–87; A.M. Habermann, Sefer Gezerot Ashkenaz ve-Ẓarefat
(1945); M. Steinschneider, Die Geschichtsliteratur der Juden (1905), 34;
Zunz, Lit Poesie, 279, 283, 286, 290, 293, 308; Salfeld, Martyrol; Gross,
Gal Jud, S.V.; R. Chazan, in: PAAJR, 36 (1968), 13–31.
[Zvi Avneri]
BLOK, ARTHUR (1882–1974), English engineer, first head
of the Haifa Technion. Blok studied electrical engineering at
University College, London, and became personal assistant
to Prof. Ambrose Fleming, the inventor of the radio tube. He
personally operated the instrument which flashed radio signals,
for the first time in history, from Cornwall to America,
in 1901, and became principal examiner in the British Patent
Office. Blok became a Zionist during World War I and in 1920
was appointed by the Zionist Executive as a member of the
Governing Board of the Haifa Technion. He was the only engineer
on that body and was invited to become the first head
of the institution. At the request of Sir Herbert Samuel, the
British Patent Office granted him extended leave to enable him
to take up his position, which he did in August 1924, organizing
the first academic staff.
Blok returned to England a year later and did research
in nuclear polymers. In 1946 he was awarded the Order of
the British Empire for outstanding scientific services during
World War II. He continued to take an interest in the Technion
and was a member of the Council of Jews’ College.
BLONDES, DAVID, victim of a *blood libel in Vilna in 1900.
Blondes, a young Jewish barber, was accused by his Polish
housemaid of assaulting her and was subsequently imprisoned.
Since the charge was made shortly before Passover, rumors
began to circulate that the girl had been wounded to
obtain blood for ritual purposes. The implications of the accusation
deeply stirred Russian Jewry, and the eminent non-
Jewish lawyers P.G. Mironov and D.V. Spassovich, led by the
noted Jewish lawyer Oscar O. *Grusenberg, were engaged to
defend Blondes. The trial jury in Vilna convicted Blondes of
injurious intent, but acquitted him of intent to murder; he
was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment. The ritual implications
of the accusation still remained. Grusenberg appealed
to the Russian Senate, and the case was reopened before the
same court in 1902. Medical experts from St. Petersburg testified
for the defense, showing that the woman’s injuries were
self-inflicted. The jury subsequently returned a verdict of
“not guilty.”
770 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3