The founder of modern Hasidism was the Polish-born Israel ben Eliezer (ca. 1700-ca. 1760), who is generally known as Baal Shem Tov (Good Master of the Name). Israel ben Eliezer was born to aged parents in Okopy, a small town in the Ukraine. He was...

BAAL. The name Baal (bʿl) is a common Semitic appellative meaning "lord" that is used as a proper name for the West Semitic storm god in ancient Near Eastern texts dating from the late third millennium BCE through the Roman period....

BAʿAL SHEM TOV (master of the good name), popular designation for Yisraʾel ben Eliʿezer (c. 1700–1760), the founder of the Hasidic movement in eastern Europe, who is also known by the acronym BeSHT (commonly written...

(Besht, Baal Shem Tov) (1700–1760) Founder of *Hasidism. Israel ben Eliezer’s life is the subject of many legends. As a teacher and leader, he travelled round the communities of Eastern Europe. His teachings were based on the *Kabbalah and...

(Hebrew: “Master of the Good Name”) Designation for Israel b. Eliezer, founder of Hasidism (ca. 1700–1760), often referred by the acronym “Besht.” Early in his life a popular healer, from the 1730s onward he undertook...

For a career soldier with impeccable hawkish credentials, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer goes to great lengths to describe what Israel will not do, would hate to do and honestly prefers not to do to fight the Palestinians. Ben-Eliezer, a pugnacious former general who...

TEL AVIV - Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer last night beat back proposals for the Labor Party to leave the national-unity coalition led by the Likud Bloc, and a party congress dominated by his supporters rejected proposals for unilateral action to separate Israel from Palestinian-populated...