BIALOBLOCKI, SAMUEL SHERAGA

BIALOBLOCKI, SAMUEL SHERAGA (1888–1960), talmudic scholar born in Pilwiszki (western Lithuania). Bialoblocki studied for many years at the Lithuanian yeshivot of Telz, Slobodka, and Ponevezh; at the last he studied under Isaac Jacob Rabinowitz and Isaac *Blaser. After World War i he entered the Bet Midrash Elyon of Ḥayyim *Heller in Berlin. He also attended various universities and graduated from Giessen with a thesis on Materialien zum islamischen und juedischen Eherecht… (1928) and became instructor in modern Hebrew. Between 1928 and 1934 he was one of the contributors on talmudic subjects to the German Encyclopaedia Judaica. With the advent of the Nazis he emigrated to Palestine where first he taught at the Mizrachi Teachers' Training College in Jerusalem but later ventured into the real estate business, though continuing to devote most of his time to his studies. When Bar-Ilan University was opened in 1955, Bialoblocki was appointed head of its Talmud department; he also served as chairman of the university's Senate.

Bialoblocki, though a profound scholar of vast erudition, did not publish much; his importance lay chiefly in his influence as a teacher. His method, both in teaching and writing, expressed a spirit of conservative criticism. He began to prepare an anthology of early commentaries on the Talmud with notes on the variants and sources for the Makhon ha-Talmud ha-Yisre'eli ha-Shalem, of which a first part was published posthumously (Bar Ilan, Sefer ha-Shanah, 2 (1964), 65–69). In Germany he published his Beziehung des Judentums zu Proselyten und Proselytentum (1930, Heb. tr., 44–60). Various learned articles of his appeared in: Keneset, 6–8 (1942–44); Yovel Shai… S.J. Agnon (1958); and Alei Ayin (Sefer Yovel… S. Schocken 1952). He contributed the article on Personal Status (Ishut) to the Encyclopaedia Hebraica. Bialoblocki also contributed articles on the Torah centers in Lithuania and on his teacher I.J. Rabinowitz in: Yahadut Lita, 1 (1960), 185ff., 394ff.

bibliography:

H.Z. Hirschberg and S.J. Agnon, in: Bar-Ilan, Sefer ha-Shanah…, 2 (1964), 7–43 (Eng. summaries); Ungerfeld, in: Ha-Ẓofeh (Jan. 2, 1970).

[Yehoshua Horowitz]