JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

lowitz, henri georges stephane adolphe opper de
ish immigrants. After service in the Civil War in the Kansas
Volunteers, he returned to New York where he and his brother
Joseph opened a hoopskirt and ladies’ notion store. In 1886
Bloomingdale Brothers Department Store was established on
its present site in midtown New York City. Lyman was a patron
of the arts and a noted philanthropist, with his chief interests
the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Montefiore Hospital.
JOSEPH BERNHARDT (1842–1904), brother of Lyman, was associated
with the family’s business endeavors in the West and
later in New York. Retiring from Bloomingdale Brothers in
1896, he was president of the Hebrew Technical Institute and
one of the founders of Barnard College. EMANUEL WATSON
(1852–1928), lawyer and merchant, a third brother, received
a law degree from Columbia University and was active both
as an attorney and in the family business. His major interests
included Republican politics, the New York State Bridge and
Tunnel Commission, and the Society for Reformation of Juvenile
Delinquents. SAMUEL JOSEPH (1873–1968), son of Lyman,
was educated at the Columbia University School of Architecture
but devoted himself to the management of the family’s
store, serving as its president during 1905–30. An innovator
in retailing techniques, he became a director of Federated Department
Stores when it absorbed Bloomingdale Brothers in
1930. Samuel was trustee of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies
and active in the American Jewish Committee, also
continuing the family association with the Metropolitan Museum
of Art and Montefiore Hospital. HIRAM C. (1876–1953),
another son of Lyman, served as vice president of Bloomingdale
Brothers and was a leader in the movement to establish
standards for accuracy in advertising. Hiram’s son ALFRED
S. (1916–1982) was founder and chairman of the Diners Club
credit organization. In 1970 he left Diners Club, acquiring
its International Floatels division. Alfred Bloomingdale and
his wife, Betsy, became good friends with Ronald and Nancy
*Reagan. In 1981, after Reagan was elected U.S. president, he
appointed Bloomingdale to the President’s Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board and the following year named him a
member of the United States Advisory Commission on Public
Diplomacy. When he died at age 66 Alfred Bloomingdale, a
practicing Catholic, was buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery
in Culver City, California.
But the Bloomingdale legacy lives on. A fixture on New
York City’s Third Avenue since 1927, in addition to branches
nationwide, Bloomingdale’s department store is renowned
for its flair for fashion and merchandising. Over the years,
Bloomingdale’s has helped launch the careers of many world-
famous designers, such as Ralph *Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger,
Calvin *Klein, and Donna *Karan.
[Morton Rosenstock / Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)]
BLOWITZ, HENRI GEORGES STEPHANE ADOLPHE
OPPER DE (1825–1903), French journalist. As chief Paris correspondent
of The Times, London, in 1875, he originated the
technique of interviewing celebrities (among them Bismarck,
the sultan of Turkey, and Pope Leo XIII). In 1875 Blowitz, by
now influential in European political circles, exposed plans
of the military party in Germany for a second invasion of
France. Three years later, he obtained the full text of the Berlin
Treaty while it was still being negotiated, enabling The Times
to print it the day it was signed. Blowitz was born Adolf Opper
in Bohemia, but in 1860 added the name of his birthplace
to his surname. He left home at 15, traveled, learned several
languages, and taught for some years at the lycée in Tours
and then in Marseilles. He wrote for the Paris newspapers
and though sometimes in conflict with the French authorities,
became naturalized after the Battle of Sedan. At the close
of the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), he helped to suppress
the Commune at Marseilles by maintaining a private telegraph
line to Versailles. Blowitz showed an excessive desire
to remain detached from the Dreyfus Affair. He wrote short
stories, comedies and My Memoirs (1903).
Bibliography: F. Giles, Prince of Journalists (1962), incl.
bibl.
°BLOY, LÉON (1846–1917), French Catholic writer whose
work contained many Jewish themes. His prose poem, Le salut
par les Juifs (1892), described by the author as the “only
one of my books I would dare to present to God,” opens with
a condemnation of antisemitism and its arch-priest, Edouard
*Drumont. However, holding a theory of the identity of opposites,
Bloy regards the Jews as both glorious and despicable, at
one and the same time the elect of God and “une poignée de
boue merveilleuse” (“a handful of wonderful mud”). Among
Bloy’s later writings, Le Sang du Pauvre (1909) contains a moving
chapter devoted to the Yiddish poet, Morris *Rosenfeld.
Those whom he converted to Catholicism included Jacques
and Ráïssa *Maritain.
Bibliography: A. Béguin, Léon Bloy, a Study in Impatience
(1947); J. Petit, Léon Bloy (Fr., 1966), incl. bibl.; R. Maritain, Les
grandes amitiés (1941–44); C. Journet, Destinées d’Israël à propos du
Salut par les Juifs (1945).
[Denise R. Goitein]
784 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3