Encyclopaedia Judaica - Vol.06 (Dr-Feu) - WiccanGeek's Reading ...

July 2, 1942, the Germans surrounded the ghettos in order to
liquidate them. The inhabitants tried to break out and some
groups succeeded in reaching the forests. In order to prevent
a mass escape, the Germans shot at Jews and set the ghettos
aflame. Some of those who escaped to the forest joined the
partisans around the village of Balnia and participated in activities
against the Germans. About 50–60 persons survived.
[Aharon Weiss]
Bibliography: I. Schipper, Dzieje handlu żydowskiego na
ziemach polskich (1937), index; B. Wasiutiński, Ludność żydowska w
Polsce… (1930), 84; O. Hedemann, Dzisna i Druja (1934); A. Druyanow,
in: Reshumot, 1 (1925), 437–49; Yad Vashem Archives.
DRUYANOW, ALTER (Asher, Avraham Abba; 1870–1938),
Hebrew writer, editor, and Zionist leader. Born in Druya, in
the district of Vilna, he studied at the Volozhin yeshivah in
his youth and then turned to commerce. In 1890 he published
his first essay in Ha-Meliẓ, under the pen name “Alef, Beit,
Gimmel, Dalet,” and from then on was a frequent contributor
to the Hebrew press (Mi-Mizraḥ u-mi-Ma’arav; Ha-Shilo’aḥ,
etc.), using various pen names. From 1900 to 1905 he was the
secretary of the Committee for the Settlement of Ereẓ Israel
in Odessa. In 1906 he immigrated to Palestine, but returned
to Russia in 1909 and until 1914 was editor of Ha-Olam, the
official organ of the World Zionist Organization. In 1921 he
settled permanently in Palestine. Together with *Bialik and
*Ravnitzky, he edited the first four volumes of Reshumot, a
periodical devoted to the study of folklore (1919–26). His literary
work includes Zionist articles, descriptive writing, and
literary criticism. He is best remembered for two compilations:
Ketavim le-Toledot Ḥibbat Ẓiyyon ve-Yishuv Ereẓ Yisrael
(“Writings on the History of Ḥibbat Zion and the Settlement
of Palestine,” 3 vols., 1919–32 (re-edited by Shulamit Laskov,
1982)) and Sefer ha-Bediḥah ve-ha-Ḥiddud (“The Book of Jokes
and Witticisms,” enlarged 3-vol. edition, 1935–38), a collection
of Jewish folk humor with notes on the origin and history of
the contents. A two-volume selection of his essays was published
in 1943–45.
Bibliography: J. Fichmann, Be-Terem Aviv (1959), 371–6;
Kressel, Leksikon, 1 (1965), 564; ABGD: Yad la-Kore, 9 (1968), 116–8,
a bibliography.
DRZEWIECKI, HENRYK (Hercel Rosenbaum; 1902–1937),
Polish novelist and critic. An avowed Communist, Drzewiecki
wrote essays and reviews advocating revolution in order
to abolish Poland’s economic misery. His controversial
novel Kwaśniacy (1934) greatly influenced Polish proletarian
literature and the writer only escaped imprisonment by fleeing
first to Paris and then to the U.S.S.R. He was executed
during the Stalinist purges of the late 1930s. He was rehabilitated
in 1956.
DUALISM, the religious or philosophical doctrine which
holds that reality consists, or is the outcome, of two ultimate
principles which cannot be reduced to one more ultimate
dualism
first cause. Dualistic systems have appeared in philosophical
(metaphysical) as well as moral forms, both of which have
exerted considerable influence on the history of religions, including
the history of Judaism.
Philosophical Dualism
In the history of Western thought, philosophical dualism goes
back to *Platonism and *neoplatonism which developed and
spread the idea of an opposition between spirit and matter,
spirit being the higher, purer, and eternal principle, whereas
matter was the lower and imperfect form of being, subject to
change and corruption. Applied to the understanding of the
nature of man, this meant that man was composed of a lower,
material part (the body), and a higher, spiritual part (the soul).
This dualism could, and not infrequently did, lead to a contempt
for the body and for “this world” in general, and encouraged
a moral outlook which held *asceticism (or, in its
more extreme forms, total renunciation of the world) to be
the way by which the soul could liberate itself from the hold
of the body and, purifying itself of the bodily passions, render
itself worthy again of returning to its celestial and spiritual
home. This view exerted considerable influence on Jewish
thinking in the Hellenistic period (see *Philo) and in the
philosophy and *Musar literature of the middle ages, though
its more radical forms were partly inhibited by the rabbinic
tradition which considered the physical universe and its enjoyment
as essentially good, provided they were hallowed in
the service of God.
Moral Dualism
Although moral dualism generally tended to express itself in
the forms of a thoroughgoing metaphysical dualism, the term
is justified inasmuch as it reflects the basic doctrine that good
and evil were the outcome or product of two distinct and ultimate
first causes. The best known form of this dualism is
the ancient religion of Persia (Zoroastrianism), according
to which history is a cosmic struggle between the powers of
good, i.e., light, and evil, i.e., darkness. This system has the
logical advantage of accounting for evil in terms of a separate,
independent principle, and thus exonerating the “good”
creator and God from responsibility for the existence, in the
world, of evil and sin. On the other hand it raises many other
problems and was unacceptable to any form of *monotheism.
Some commentators see in the declaration that God “formed
the light and created darkness, is the maker of peace and the
creator of evil” (Isa. 45:7) the prophet’s polemic against this
dualism (a polemic, the harshness of which is mitigated by
the wording in which this verse appears in the daily morning
prayer: “the maker of peace and creator of all” Hertz, Prayer
109). The two types of “philosophical” and “moral” dualism
were capable of fusing and merging in various combinations.
The body, matter, and “this world” could become identified,
or at least associated, with darkness and evil, and the soul,
with goodness and light. Another pair of opposites, “spirit”
and “flesh,” though not identical with Platonic dualism, was
yet sufficiently similar to combine with it in various ways. It
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