Ber from Bolechow

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Ber from Bolechow (also Ber Birkenthal ; * 1723 , probably Bolechow , Ruthenian Voivodeship , Poland-Lithuania ; † 1805 ) was a Jewish writer and businessman.

Life

Ber was born the son of a Jewish wine merchant and learned Polish, Latin, German and French at an early age. He married at a young age and initially traded in local products such as fish, wool and spices, but then went into the wine trade like his father - an activity that regularly brought him to the wine-growing regions of Hungary . Through this business he was in close contact with Armenian, Greek, French and German wine merchants as well as with Polish nobles and authorities. He also worked as a shtadlan (linguist and legal advocate of the Jewish community in the non-Jewish outside world).

Works

Well-read in the non-Jewish writings, he was also active as an author in the Hebrew language. His work Divre Binah ( Words of Wisdom , written 1780–1800) deals with the history of various currents in Judaism, his memoirs ( Sichronot ) written between 1790 and 1800 deal with his business activities and his duties as a Schtadlan. The works are significant in terms of cultural history, as he combined traditional Jewish knowledge with a broad general education before the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala) reached Eastern Europe.

literature

  • The Memoirs of Ber of Bolechow (1723-1805) , translated from the original Hebrew MS with an introduction, notes and a map by M. Vishnitzer , New York 1973
  • JG Kohl: Austria: Vienna, Prague, Hungary, Bohemia, Styria, Moravia, Bukovina and the Military Frontier. Chapman & Hall, London 1843

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Ber_of_Bolechow
personal data
SURNAME Ber from Bolechow
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Birkenthal, Ber
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jewish author
DATE OF BIRTH 1723
DATE OF DEATH 1805