times passed to that effect, but these laws were often broken by the Christians themselves, who preferred to deal with Jewish slave traders.

Lit.: Baron, S., A Social and Religious History of the Jews, vol. 1, pp. 321-24; Jacobs, J., in Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 11, pp. 402-3; Assaf, S., in Zion, vol. 4 (1938-39)

91-125.

SLAVERY. The Bible uses the same word, 'ebed, for both servant and slave, so that it is often difficult to determine which meaning is intended in a particular passage. Accordingly, when there are references to servants as sharing in the inheritance (Gen. 15:2-3), or as being allowed to marry the daughters of the family (I Chron. 2:35), the meaning may be only that of hired servants, although there are parallels to such events among Oriental peoples. There is a reference in legislation to a thief's being sold as a slave if he can not make restitution (Ex. 22:2); it is probable, therefore, that debtors were sold into slavery (cf. Amos 2:6). Other slaves were acquired as captives of war, or by purchase from traders.

The status of the "Hebrew slave," as recorded in the legislation, was a special one. In this case an Israelite who became a slave served only for a limited term of six years. If he had a family at the time, his family became slaves with him and gained freedom with him after the six years were over. But if his master gave him a wife, she and her children remained slaves, even after the father had completed his term; and if the slave desired to remain with his master, he had to go through a ceremony which made him a perpetual slave (Ex. 21:1-6). An Israelite might sell his daughter as a slave, and special laws were provided for her protection (ibid., verses 7-11). On the other hand, there is evidence in Jer. 34:9-11 that these laws were frequently disobeyed.

The lot of the slaves does not seem to have been particularly hard, since the life of the times was comparatively simple. The law provided that if a master destroyed the sight of an eye of his slave, or knocked out his tooth, the latter should be given his freedom. A master who struck his slave so hard as to kill him on the spot would be punished (the penalty is not given); but otherwise the law did not interfere, out of respect for the property rights of the owner (Ex. 21:20-21, 26-27).

There is an entirely different passage of legislation in another part of the Torah (Lev. 25:39-46) which also makes a differentiation between Israclite and non-Israelite slaves, but in a different manner. Israelite slaves are not set free at the end of a six-year period of service, but en masse, at the jubilee every fifty years; but the jubilee does not apply to non-Israelite slaves. However, Biblical critics hold that this legislation is late and was never actually enforced.

captivity and that from then onward there were no "Hebrew slaves." Jews who were taken into captivity by non-Jews were quickly redeemed by their families or coreligionists, and slavery for debt seems to have disappeared; the only slaves among the Jews were the so-called "Canaanite," or non-Jewish, slaves. These were humanely treated and possessed certain definite rights. In fact, the rabbis rather humorously declared that one who had bought a slave had actually bought himself a master, since he had to provide the latter with food, drink, shelter and clothing. Old slaves were often given the titles "father" or "mother," and Greek inscriptions testify to the fact that masters or mistresses, at the time of their own death, made provisions for the maintenance of their surviving slaves. Freedmen (meshohararim) were put in an intermediary legal class, between slaves and free Israelites.

On the other hand, there are various expressions of a sentiment belittling the character of slaves. Thus one passage says: "The more slaves, the more robbery" (Aboth 2:7); other statements brand them as gamblers, drunkards and idlers, and as being impudent and immoral. They were made a separate caste into which Israelites could not marry. Of course, these verdicts about slaves need not be taken literally, and there is evidence that the regulations about slaves were not always strictly heeded.

As far back as the period of the Second Temple there was an anti-slavery movement among the Jews. Two ascetic groups, the Essenes and the Therapeutae, refused to keep slaves. Others of the teachers were concerned with ameliorating the condition of slaves, or making it as easy as possible to set them free. Rabban Gamaliel was especially noted for the liberality with which he treated his slaves and for the fact that in one case at least he accorded them the same respect as that of free men. Johanan always gave a portion of the meat he ate and the wine he drank to his own slave, justifying his action with the Biblical saying, "Did not He that made me in the womb make him?" (Job 31:15; Yer. B.K. 6c). Thus slavery, although a condition of the times, was made as tolerable as possible in Jewish legislation. SIMON COHEN.

Lit.: Rubin, S., Das talmudische Recht, vol. 1; Die Sklaverei (1920); the Biblical archeologies and dictionaries; Cohen, A., Everyman's Talmud (1932) 210-15; Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 11, pp. 403-8; Baron, Salo W.,The Jewish Community (3 vols., 1942); Zucrow, Solomon, Women, Slaves and the Ignorant in Rabbinic Literature (1932); Mendelsohn, Isaac, Legal Aspects of Slavery in Babylonia, Assyria and Palestine (1932); Salomon, Robert, L'esclavage en droit comparé juif et romain (1931).

SLAWSON, JOHN, social welfare administrator, b. Russia, 1896. He came to the United States in 1903, and there received his higher education. In 1924 he was awarded the degree of doctor of philosophy by

SLIOSBERG

Columbia University. After working with the New York State Board of Charities as investigator and psychologist (1921-24), he became research director of the Jewish Welfare Federation of Cleveland, Ohio (1924-28), and subsequently director of the Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit, Mich. (1928-32). In 1932 he was appointed director of the Jewish Board of Guardians of New York city, a post he still held in 1943. Slawson, active in general and Jewish welfare work, was vice-president of the American Association of Social Workers (1930-31), chairman of the protective and correctional sections of the Welfare Council of New York city (1933-34) and in 1939 was elected president of the National Conference of Jewish Social Welfare.

In 1935 he had been appointed secretary of the crime prevention division of Governor Herbert Lehman's Conference on Crime, the Criminal and Society. In 1942 he was appointed consultant on delinquency to the Social Security Board, and conducted a demonstration, jointly sponsored by the Bureau of Public Assistance and the United States Children's Bureau, on prevention of wartime delinquency in war-affected areas. A contributor of numerous articles on Jewish and general social work, particularly in the field of delinquency, to professional publications, he served as chairman of the editorial board of the Jewish Social Service Quarterly (1935-39). He published The Delinquent Boy (1926).

SLEEP. Ordinary, physical sleep (shenah) was regarded as the gift of God. It is the blessing which He gives to His beloved (Ps. 127:2); it softens the life of toil of the laborer (Eccl. 5:11). On the other hand, the sluggard who loves sleep overmuch will never attain to fortune (Prov. 6:9-11 and frequently). Since sleep resembles death in appearance, it becomes a metaphor for death; to die is to "sleep with one's fathers" (1 Kings 1:21), and the dead are "those who sleep in the dust" (Dan. 12:2).

In addition, the Bible speaks of a special form of sleep (sometimes called tardemah, "trance") which God sends upon man for special purposes or for revelation. Thus Eve is created out of a rib of Adam while the latter is in a deep sleep (Gen. 2:21); revelations in sleep are made to Abraham (Gen. 15), Jacob (Gen. 28), Pharaoh (Gen. 41), Solomon (I Kings 3), Eliphaz (Job 4:13) and Daniel (Dan. 8:18). The dreams of Jacob and Solomon, both of which take place at sacred places (Gibeon and Beth-el), recall the practice of oneiromancy, in which the worshipper sought an answer to his questions or a revelation by sleeping in the temple precincts. The Rip Van Winkle motive of an enchanted sleep, lasting for years, appears in the story of Honi Hameaggel.

See also: DREAMS; REVELATION.

SLEPIAN, JOSEPH, research engineer, b. Boston, Mass., 1891. He received the Ph.D. degree from Harvard University (1913), pursued postgraduate studies in Germany and France, and was an instructor in mathematics at Cornell University (1914-15). From 1918 on he served as an engineer for the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, East Pittsburgh, and in 1943 he held there the position of associate director of research.

Slepian developed the auto-valve lightning arrester to protect cross country transmission lines (1922), the deion circuit interrupter (1926), the ignition mercury arc tube (1930) and several other devices used in the electric power field. He was a recipient of the John Scott Medal (1932) and of the Westinghouse Order of Merit. His writings include Conduction of Electricity in Gases. Slepian was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1941.

Henry Sliosberg

SLESINGER, DONALD, professor of law, b. New York city, 1897. He was educated at Columbia University (A.B., 1920). He served as psychologist to the Judge Baker Foundation, Boston (1920-21), then worked with the Committee for Mental Hygiene, New York (1921-23), and conducted researches under the auspices of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Foundation (1926-27). Slesinger taught law at Yale University (assistant professor, 1929-30) and at the University of Chicago (associate professor, 1930-36). He was director of the management of training courses for the National Association of Housing Officials, Washington, D. C. (1935-36), and director of the department of education of the New York World's Fair.

SLIOSBERG, HENRY, lawyer, b. Mir, province of Minsk, 1863; d. Paris, 1937. In 1900 he became counsel to the Minister of the Interior of the Czarist government, a post he held until the revolution of 1917. During this period he was also legal advisor and attorney of the Jews in Russia in all civil and administrative cases. As such, Sliosberg was the spokesman for the Russian Jews against the numerous abuses to which Czarism subjected them. He investigated the Beilis case and much later (1934) testified at the Berne investigation of the Elders of Zion protocols, offering proof of their forgery.

For many years Sliosberg was president of the Jewish community of St. Petersburg, and during his residence in Paris, where he came after a period of imprisonment in Soviet Russia, he was head of the Russian community there. Twice, in 1925 and again in 1935, he visited the United States. Sliosberg was the editor of a law journal, Viertnik Prava, and toward the end of his life he wrote his memoirs in three volumes.

SLONIM

SLOBODKIN, LOUIS, sculptor, b. Albany, N. Y., 1903. At the age of fifteen he came to New York city, where he then studied for five years at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design. He became chiefly interested in the creation of architectural sculpture. In 1935 he was awarded, in a nation-wide competition, the commission to do a statue of the Hawaiian Postman, which was placed in the reception room of the Postmaster General in the Post Office Building at Washington, D. C. Later he executed panels and figures for post office buildings in New York city, in Johnstown, Pa., and in North Adams, Mass. Slobodkin was awarded second prize in a national competition for his statue Lincoln Symbol of Unity, for the garden court of the Federal Building at the New York World's Fair in 1939. The working model was then cast in bronze, and placed on permanent exhibit in the new building of the Department of Interior in Washington. Slobodkin headed the sculpture department of the Master Institute of the Roerich Museum in New York city (1934-37) and was head of the sculpture division of the New York City Federal Art Project (1941-42).

His pen drawing illustrations for the children's book The Moffats, by Eleanor Estis (1941), were designated as distinguished book illustration by the American Graphic Art Society and exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of New York city. With Eleanor Estis, he wrote and illustrated the children's book The Sun, The Wind and Mr. Todd (1943).

SLOCHOWER, HARRY, educator and writer, b. Bucovina, Austria, 1900. He came to the United States in 1913. In 1928 he received his Ph.D. degree from Columbia University. The following year he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Slochower became instructor at Brooklyn College (1930) and in 1943 he was assistant professor of German. He also lectured at the University of Berlin (1929) and at the Humboldt Hochschule, Berlin (1930).

Slochower's works include Richard Dehmel, der Mensch und der Denker (1928); Three Ways of Modern Man (1937), which was voted the best book of literary criticism for the year 1937; and Thomas Mann's Joseph Story (1938), which Mann characterized as "the most intelligent and understanding appreciation of my work that I have come across."

Lit.: Jewish Frontier, vol. 4 (1937), No. 10, p. 24. SLOMANN, EMIL, educator and philologist, b. Copenhagen, Denmark, 1855; d. Copenhagen, 1904. He studied philology at the University of Copenhagen (1872), but soon became actively involved in the movement for intellectual freedom led by Georg Brandes; this led to his leaving the university without graduating. From 1874 to 1880 Slomann taught at a school in Vejle which combined realistic and classical instruction. He was also vitally interested in the workers' desire for culture, and established a workers' night school. In 1885 he founded a reform school in Copenhagen. The law of April 24, 1903, which reformed the schools of Denmark, was mainly influenced by Slomann's suggestions.

Although Slomann had not received any diploma or degree, he was generally regarded as a competent modern pedagogue who imparted to his pupils clear thinking and a good style. He advocated the reduction of Latin and Greek lessons in modern schools, but was opposed to their elimination. He was interested also in Egyptology and Danish history, publishing several treatises and lectures concerning them. He was author of a reader which became very popular in the schools of his country.

SLOMOVITZ, PHILIP, editor, b. Novogrodek, province of Minsk, Russian Poland, 1896. He was graduated from Russian schools and came to the United

States in 1910, pursuing studies at the University of Michigan. Slomovitz began his newspaper career as contributor to the Bayonne, N. J., Times (1915). He was on the editorial staff of the Detroit News (1918-20), editor of the Detroit Jewish Chronicle (1921-24 and 1927-42), and did free-lance newspaper work, and publicity for the Zionist Organization of America (1925-26). He was editor of the Detroit Jewish Herald (1927), and in 1942 became editor and publisher of the Detroit Jewish News, first communitysponsored Jewish periodical in the country. His syndicated articles appeared in the English-Jewish press, the liberal Catholic Commonweal, the Christian Century, the Christian Register, B'nai B'rith Magazine, the Jewish Daily Bulletin, and elsewhere.

In 1918 Slomovitz organized Young Judaea in Detroit. He was president locally of the Jewish National Fund (191926), the Zionist Organization (1928-29), and of the American Jewish Congress (1926-42). He served on the national executive of the Zionist Organization of America, on the national board of the American Association for Jewish Education, and in the editorial advisory council of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. He was an organizer and for two years president of the Society of Occident and Orient.

SLONIM, JOEL, poet and journalist, b. Drogatzin, Russia, 1885. He was a member of the Slonimsky family to which Hayim Selig Slonimsky also belonged. Slonim was brought to the United States at the age of two, and educated first in Chicago, then in New York. His literary career began when he was fifteen, with the writing of poetry in both English and Yiddish. Although leading English critics praised his verse, Slonim ultimately chose Yiddish as his medium. His American background-he was the first Yiddish writer to have spent virtually his whole life in the United Statesimplemented his role as one of the founders of the school of modern Yiddish poetry in the western world. His Yugend-Lieder appeared in 1905, and the poetry which was published subsequently in periodicals and newspapers continued to win from Yiddish literary critics praise for its musical, imaginative and exuberant quality. His poems of New York, the first of this type in Yiddish, caught the spirit of the metropolis.

In the words of the critic Benjamin Graubart, "He is the only one who became imbued with Anglo-Saxon feeling-clear joy or clear sorrow." Morris Rosenfeld declared that Slonim had the power and energy of a Byron, while Abraham Reisen praised the power and dynamic music of his poems.

Slonim became known as a specialized writer on American political subjects; he was unofficial adviser to the city and state Democratic leaders, and many times a delegate to the state conventions. He was also secretary of the department of docks in New York city. As a journalist, he succeeded in unearthing various rackets, including public property and shipping rackets; other aspects of the New York city underworld were exposed to public opinion by Slonim through his reportorial work.

In Jewish communal life, Slonim was executive member of the Ikuf, a director of Icor, and a member of the Central Committee of the Poale Zion and of the executive of the American Jewish Congress. His work appeared in the leading Yiddish periodicals. In 1943 he was writing regularly for the Day, the staff of which he joined when the Varheit, with which he had previously been affiliated, merged with it. B. Z. GOLDBERG.

Lit.: Reisen, Z., Lexikon fun der Yiddisher Literatur, Presse un Filologie, vol. 2 (1929) cols. 650-52; The Reflex, June, 1928, pp. 23-29; Danzis, M., "Poet and Personality," Jewish Spectator, March, 1938; Graubart, Benjamin, in Feder (1924) 30-36.

Hayim Selig Slonimsky

SLONIMSKY, a noted Russian family of scholars, artists and scientists. HAYIM SELIG SLONIMSKY (Hasass), Hebraist, mathematician and astronomer (b. Bialystok, Poland, 1810; d. Warsaw, Poland, 1904), until his eighteenth year studied Talmud and rabbinical literature exclusively, and continued his studies in the home of his father-in-law after his marriage (1829). Here, however, he also studied foreign languages and the sciences, especially astronomy and mathematics. The first result of this application was a book on algebra, Mosede Hochmah (1834).

Slonimsky's ambition was to spread the knowledge of modern science in Hebrew. The appearance of Halley's comet in 1835 prompted the writing of Kochba Dishebet, a synopsis of the history of astronomy from Johann Kepler to his own times, with special consideration of cometary astronomy. His next work, Toledoth Hashamayim (1838), was a compendium of astronomy and optics, and provoked a scientific controversy about the Jewish calendar calculation between Slonimsky and Hirsch Pineles. Slonimsky wrote a study of the calendar, Yesode Haibbur (1852).

In 1844 he received the Demidoff prize of 2,500 rubles for a calculating machine he had invented. Between 1853 and 1856 he evolved an improved appliance for the steam engine and, with Aron Bernstein, a device in telegraphy which was later adapted by Lord Kelvin. In 1862 Slonimsky was made inspector of the rabbinical school at Zhitomir by the Russian government. Earlier that year he had founded the Hatzefirah in Warsaw, dedicated primarily to science. Slonimsky's various writings were collected as Maamare Hochmah (1891). Even toward the end of his life Slonimsky was still writing scientific articles for the Hatzefirah, whose associate editor he was until his death.

STANISLAW SLONIMSKY (b. 1855; d. 1915) was Slonimsky's eldest son, and a physician. ANTONY SLONIMSKY (b. Warsaw, 1894), the son of Stanislaw, was a well-known Polish poet who, in 1943, was living in England.

LEONID ZINOVIEVITCH SLONIMSKY (b. Zhitomir, 1850; d. Petrograd, 1918), the second son of Hayim Selig Slonimsky, was a lawyer and writer. He was educated in Kiev. His Basic Problems in Politics (1880) was one of the first such discussions to be published in Russia, and his analysis of Karl Marx (1898) was translated into German as well. In 1906 he published the text of the Russian Constitution, with a preface which caused the official suppression of the book. A Political Encyclopedia he undertook to publish did not go beyond one volume (1907). Slonimsky was a contributor to various Russian and international periodicals of his time.

JOSEF SLONIMSKY (b. 1860; d. 1933) was the third son of Hayim Selig Slonimsky. He was a linguist and the inventor of the Neo-Roman language.

Leonid Zinovievitch Slonimsky had three sons who won fame in various fields. ALEXANDER SLONIMSKY (b. Minsk, 1881) was a critic and novelist. Educated in St. Petersburg, he turned particularly to a study of Pushkin, under the influence of his uncle, S. Wengeroff. He edited the Academy edition of Pushkin's works and wrote the scenario for the Pushkin centennial film, The Youth of the Poet (1937). He was also the author of a historical novel, Tchernigovtzi.

Mikhail Leonidovich Slonimsky and Nicolas Slonimsky, sons of Leonid Zinovievitch Slonimsky, are treated separately.

SLONIMSKY, HENRY, rabbi and professor, b. province of Minsk, Russia, 1884. He was brought to the United States in 1890 and was educated in Philadelphia. After attending the University of Pennsylvania he went to Europe, studying at various German universities and receiving the Ph.D. degree from the University of Marburg (1912). Slonimsky studied also at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, Berlin.

In 1914 to 1915 Slonimsky was instructor in philosophy at Columbia University, and from 1915 to 1921 at Johns Hopkins. In 1922 he joined the faculty of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, remaining until 1924, when he was made professor of ethics and philosophy of religion at the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York city. He held this post in 1943.

SLONIMSKY, MIKHAIL LEONIDOVICH, writer, b. Russia, 1897. He was the son of Leonid Zinovievitch Slonimsky, and the grandson of Hayim Selig Slonimsky. In 1919 he organized in Petrograd (Leningrad) a literary society called Serapion Brothers. Through this organization a group of young writers opposed the encroachment of politics upon art, which they considered destructive of talent. In the political