thumb|Juliu Barasch, Lithography by Josef Kriehuber, 1863

Iuliu Barasch or Baraș (17 July 1815 – 31 March 1863) was a Austrian Galician–born Romanian medical doctor, philosopher, pedagogue and promoter of Romanian culture and science who made his career in Romania. He played a leading role in disseminating the ideas of the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, among the Jews of Bucharest.

Biography

Yehuda ben Mordehai Barasch was born in Brody, Galicia (present-day western Ukraine,

Besides working as a doctor, he became a radical and Romanian patriot. He was a friend of C. A. Rosetti and Ion Heliade Rădulescu.

He was a popularizer of medical science and natural science in general, and the first Jewish Romanian journalist. From 1856 to 1859, he edited the journal Isis sau Natura (Isis or Nature), the first popular science magazine in Romania. The magazine published studies of astronomy, hypothetical articles about the plurality of worlds, or about the most popular inventions of the time, such as the aerostat and "submarine ships".

In 1858, Barasch was also the founder of the first children's hospital in Bucharest. From 1858 to 1860, he treated about 2,000 children in a 40-bed facility in his own house, in the Crucea de Piatră quarter of the Dudești neighborhood; in 1864, the hospital moved to a 90-bed facility in the Popa Tatu neighborhood.

In 1857, together with Aaron Aser and A. Vainberg, Barasch edited Israelitul Român ("The Romanian Israelite"), the first Romanian-language newspaper of the Jewish community in Romania, which was to remain in print for almost 100 years.

He died in Bucharest on 31 March 1863, at the age of 47. He was buried in Bucharest in the Jewish cemetery on Sevastopol Street. After the abolition of this cemetery in the 1940s during the Ion Antonescu regime, his tomb was moved to the Filantropia Israelite Cemetery and appeared on the List of Historical Monuments in Bucharest (2004). He is memorialized in Bucharest's historically Jewish Văcărești neighborhood, where the Barașeum Theater, now home to the State Jewish Theater, the adjoining Barașeum clinic, and the street that runs in front of the theater, formerly Ionescu de la Brad, now str. Dr. Iuliu Barasch, are all named in his honour.

Publications

Books

  • Minunile naturei (3 vol., 1852)
  • Mineralogia, după Belez (1854)
  • Asfixia sau leșinul (1854)
  • Botanica, după Belez (1856)
  • Higiena populară (1857)
  • Zoologia (1857)
  • Debora, melodrama (1858)
  • Cărticica altoiului (1859)
  • Manual de silvicultură (1861)

Journals

  • Isis sau Natura (1856–1859)
  • Natura (1861–1863)
  • Israelitul Român (1857–)

References

Bibliography

  • The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
  • Israil Bercovici, O sută de ani de teatru evreiesc în România ("One hundred years of Yiddish/Jewish theater in Romania"), 2nd Romanian-language edition, revised and augmented by Constantin Măciucă. Editura Integral (an imprint of Editurile Universala), Bucharest (1998), 185. . See the article on the author for further publication information.
  • (1897) Dicționarul contimporanilor, Editura Lito-Tipografiei "Populara"
  • Florin Manolescu, Literatura S.F., Editura Univers, Bucharest, 1980