BERLIN Origin of surname

Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997), social and political philosopher, one of the most brilliant thinkers of the 20th century, born in Riga, Latvia (then part of the Russian Empire). Berlin's work on liberal theory and on pluralism has had a great influence on social thought. Born the son of a wealthy timber company owner, he was a direct descendant of Rabbi Shneur Zalman, the founder of Chabad Hasidism.

The family lived in St. Petersburg, Russia, but left in 1920 after feeling the oppression of Bolshevism and anti-Semitism. They came to Britain in 1921. Berlin was educated at St Paul's School in London, then at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he studied classics. He then took another degree, this time at Oxford, in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He was appointed a tutor in philosophy at New College, Oxford, and in 1932 at the age of 23, was elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. He was the first Jewish fellow at All Souls College. Berlin was to remain at Oxford for the rest of his life, apart from a period working for British Information Services in New York, USA, from 1940 to 1942, and for the British embassies in Washington, DC, and Moscow from then until 1946.

Berlin was fluent in Russian and English, spoke French, German and Italian, and knew Latin and Ancient Greek. From 1957 to 1967, he was Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford and in 1966 he was elected to be the first president of the newly founded Wolfson College in Oxford. He was knighted in 1957, and was awarded the Order of Merit in 1971. He was President of the British Academy from 1974 to 1978. He also received the 1979 Jerusalem Prize for his writings on individual freedom. The annual Isaiah Berlin Lectures are held at the Hampstead Synagogue and both Wolfson College and the British Academy each summer.

The London based "Independent" newspaper once wrote that "Isaiah Berlin was often described, especially in his old age, by means of superlatives: the world's greatest talker, the century's most inspired reader, one of the finest minds of our time ... there is no doubt that he showed in more than one direction the unexpectedly large possibilities open to us at the top end of the range of human potential"

In 1956, Berlin married Aline Halban, née de Gunzbourg, who was from an exiled half Russian-aristocratic and half ennobled-Jewish banking and petroleum family He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1959.

His work was characterized by a very liberal attitude to social and political questions. In his “Karl Marx”, published in 1939, he examines Marxism in the context of the times when it was written. In the “August Conte Memorial Lectures” he opposed the notion that events are inevitable and therefore predictable. His essay "Two Concepts of Liberty", delivered in 1958 as his inaugural lecture as Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford argued for a nuanced and subtle understanding of political terminology, where what was superficially understood as a single concept could mask a plurality of different uses and therefore meanings. He distinguished between thinkers who tried to find liberty within a framework of restraints while recognizing the diversity of human needs and those who are dogmatic and try to “force men to be free`' and so end up by enslaving them.

For Berlin, values are creations of mankind, rather than products of nature waiting to be discovered. He argued that the nature of mankind is such that certain values – for example, the importance of individual liberty – will hold true across cultures, and this is what he meant when he called his position "objective pluralism". When values clash, it may not be that one is more important than the other. Keeping a promise may conflict with the pursuit of truth; liberty may clash with social justice. Moral conflicts are "an intrinsic, irremovable element in human life". "These collisions of values are of the essence of what they are and what we are." For Berlin, this incommensurate clashing of values within, no less than between, individuals, constitutes the tragedy of human life.

Berlin had many close ties to Zionism and Israel having close friendships with Chaim Weizmann and other Zionist leaders. He was a governor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Berlin's essay "Historical Inevitability" (1954) focused on a controversy in the philosophy of history. Berlin is also well known for his writings on Russian intellectual history, most of which are collected in Russian Thinkers (1978; 2nd ed. 2008),

Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin / Baline) (1888-1989), composer, born in Tyumen, Siberia, Russia.  Berlin emigrated to the United States at the age of four. Berlin played the piano, had no other formal music education, and became one of the most successful composers of musicals in the United States. He first worked as a “singing waiter,” later became a partner in a production firm and, finally, established his own music publishing house. Among his musicals are Annie Get Your Gun, 1946; Call Me Madam, 1950 and Mr. President, 1962. Berlin composed more than 1000 songs, including the famous Alexander's Ragtime Band, Always, Marie, Easter-Parade, God Bless America, White Christmas, all of which became hits and standards of America’s entertainment music genre. Berlin also composed music for films, including Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936), On the Avenue (1937) and Holiday Inn (1942). He died in New York, USA.

Velizh

In Russian: Велиж

A town in Smolensk Oblast, Russia.

A blood libel which stirred up Russian Jewry during the first decade of the reign of Nicholas I (1825--55) took place there. In 1817 the czar, Alexander I, issued an edict according to which Jews were not to be accused of the murder of Christians. Merely upon the basis of the ancient particular case an investigation of the murder was to be conducted according to those rules which applied to an accused of another religion. Six years later a blood libel occurred in the district town of Velizh, then in the province of Vitebsk. In April 1823 the stabbed body of the three-year-old child Feodor, who had disappeared three days before from the house of his parents, was found near the town. Rumors were immediately spread through the town that the child had been assassinated by the Jews for their Passover requirements. A drunken prostitute, Maria Terentyeva, testified that on the day of his disappearance she had seen the child being led away by a Jewish woman.

The local tribunal decided that although the investigation had not revealed any conclusive proof against the Jews who were suspected of the murder, it was nevertheless to be assumed that they had perpetrated it out of their hostile attitude toward the Christians. The verdict was then referred to the provincial tribunal in Vitebsk, which decreed that the accused were to be acquitted of all suspicion and that the witness Terentyeva was to receive an ecclesiastic penalty for the sin of leading a life of prostitution. The tribunal also ordered a new investigation into the murder, but it did not produce any results. Nevertheless, groups of anti-semites in the town, who were headed by several uniate clergymen and were supported by the chief governor of Belorussia, Count Khovanski, continued to stir up the blood libel. In the autumn of 1825, when Alexander I passed through the town, Terentyeva submitted a complaint to him against the local authorities, who had not brought the murderers of her son [sic], the child Feodor, to justice. Ignoring his edict of 1817, the czar ordered the chief governor Khovanski to reopen the investigation. One of Khovanski's officials, Strakhov, was sent to Velizh for this purpose. Terentyeva was arrested, and on this occasion she related that she herself had brought the child to the houses of the Jews, Zeitlin and Berlin, and had been present in the synagogue when he was put to death after having undergone much torture. His blood was then poured into barrels which were transported to Vitebsk and Liozno. Two Christian maids who, according to her words, had participated in these acts were arrested and also interrogated. On the strength of their evidence over 40 of the Jews of the town were arrested. In August 1826 it was decreed (from above) that all the Velizh synagogues were to be closed because the Jews abused the tolerance which was shown to their religion. The investigators then began to search for proof of the actual existence of a custom among the Jews to murder Christian children. They collected material and testimonies which had been deposited on the occasion of previous blood libels in Poland and Russia; they found several apostates, one of whom - Grodzinski - brought a Hebrew manuscript before the commission of inquiry which, according to his words, described the ceremony that accompanied the execution of Christian children. At the same time, Terentyeva and the Christian maids testified that they had also participated in the murders of other Christian children.

The czar himself, who received reports on the progress of the investigation, then began to doubt the truth of the charge. He ordered an inquiry to determine who the other children were who had been murdered ("it can easily be clarified whether or not a despicable lie is present"). It rapidly became obvious that there was no foundation to the new libel and that the manuscript which was discovered by Grodzinski dealt with the ritual slaughter of animals and poultry. Grodzinski was ordered by the court to serve in the military, and in 1830 the investigation was handed over to the senate. In the senate there were divergences of opinion as to the actual accusation which was brought against the Jews and the guilt of the Jews who had been arrested. The deputy minister of justice, Panin, who was responsible for the analysis of the material concerning the accusation, declared that from a legal point of view there was no reason to accuse the Jews of Velizh and he called for their immediate release.

The first decision was then placed in the hands of the state council. The Jews were defended by the head of the department for civil and religious affairs, Admiral N. Mordvinov, who, as the owner of estates in the surroundings of Velizh, was well acquainted with the Jews of the town and their way of life. In his memorandum to the state council, Mordvinov declared that the trial of the Jews of Velizh was a premeditated conspiracy led by Count Khovanski, and that the testimony which had been deposited by Terentyeva and her colleagues had not been given of their own free will but as a result of a powerful influence. in January 1835 the state council ordered the release and exoneration of the accused Jews. Terentyeva and her colleagues were sentenced to exile in Siberia on the charge of libel. Mordvinov's proposal to indemnify the Jews for their sufferings was rejected. Four of the arrested died during their nine years of imprisonment.

The trial of Velizh revived the belief in ritual murder among the Christian masses. When he ratified the final verdict, Nicholas I himself commented that he was not convinced that the Jews had not committed the murder. In his opinion, there are religious fanatics or sectarians among the Jews who required Christian blood for their ceremonies. Accordingly, the czar refused to renew the edict of 1817 and blood libels remained one of the instruments of agitation against the Jews until the abolition of the czarist regime.

Siaulenai

Shavlan in Jewish sources

A town in the district of Siauliai, central Lithuania.

The local Jewish community originated in the 16th century. The synagogue whose holy ark was carved of wood, was built in the 17th century. There was also a Jewish cemetery dating from the same period. In 1861 a blood libel involving a Jew of a neighboring village caused an uproar, which placed the town's Jews in danger of revenge by farmers of the vicinity. The matter came to an end when the Jews demanded an investigation by the authorities, and the witnesses confessed that they had lied.

In 1766 there were 331 Jews in the town, in the middle of the 19th century they numbered 550, more than half the local population. Later on their number decreased, apparently due to emigration. In the 1920's, in the days of independent Lithuania, there were less than 250 Jews in Siaulenai. The Jews there made their living in trade, and by growing vegetables and fruit trees. The community's children attended the Lithuanian school. There was a local Hebrew and Yiddish library with an adjoining reading room. The last rabbi to officiate in Siaulenai was Rabbi Akiva Berlin.

On the eve of World War II about 20 Jewish families were living in Siaulenai.


The Holocaust Period

After the outbreak of World War II (1. September 1939) and the occupation of Poland by the Germans, Lithuania came under Soviet rule, and at the end of summer 1940 was annexed to the Soviet Union.

A few days after their attack on the Soviet Union that began on 22 June 1941, the Germans entered the Siaulenai area. After the Jews were subject to harassing decrees and tortures in the town itself, they were transferred to the town of Zagare, that served as a place for concentrating the Jews of the surrounding area. On Yom Kippur 5702, October 2, 1941, they were murdered and buried in a mass grave in the park in Zagare.