Beinart Haim (1917, Pskov, Russia - ?) – historian, a leading expert on the history of Jews in medieval Spain.

Haim Beinart was born into a family that observed Jewish traditions. In 1915, his parents were expelled from Dvinsk (now Daugavpils, Latvia) by order of the Russian military authorities, which deported Jews from the front-line zone. The family settled with relatives in Tsarskoye Selo near Petrograd. After the peace treaty between Latvia and Soviet Russia was signed in Riga on 11 August 1920, they returned to Latvia and settled in Riga.

Beinart received his Jewish education at home and in a reformed cheder, where, alongside religious subjects, he was taught Jewish history, the geography of Israel, and Hebrew grammar. In 1935, he graduated from a Jewish gymnasium in Riga. From 1936 to 1937, he served in the Latvian army. He emigrated to Israel on a certificate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he studied intermittently from 1937 to 1947. He took part in the Jewish Yishuv's struggle against British authorities and worked in road construction and sewer cleaning. During his studies at the university, he spent a year conducting research in the National Archives of Madrid and the Barcelona Archive.

In 1955, he was awarded a doctorate, and from 1972, he became a professor.

In his research on the history of Spanish Jews in the 15th century, Beinart used archival sources he had discovered about Jewish life in Spain before their expulsion in 1492, the communities they established worldwide, and the history of the Marranos (Jews forcibly converted to Christianity who secretly maintained their faith).

From 1944 to 1960, Haim Beinart was the academic secretary of the Encyclopaedia Mikrait (Biblical Encyclopaedia in Hebrew). From 1952, he was a lecturer at the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Between 1965 and 1969, during the formation of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, he served as an academic advisor to the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and was its dean from 1969 to 1973. From 1970 to 1973, he headed the Institute of Judaic Studies at the Hebrew University. In 1983–1984, he was the dean of the School for Overseas Students at the Hebrew University.

In 1964, on his initiative, a Museum of Spanish Jewish Culture was established in Toledo (Spain) at the synagogue built in 1357 by Shmuel ben Meir Abulafia (which became the El Tránsito Church in 1492).

Beinart was a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities (elected in 1981), a corresponding member of the Spanish Royal Academy of History, a member of the American Medieval Academy, the Mexican Academy of Culture, and an honorary doctor of the University of Madrid (1989) and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York (1992), among others.

In the spring of 1995, a scholarly conference was held in Hervás (Spain) dedicated to Beinart’s research. In his honour, a forest was planted in Hervás.

In 1991, Haim Beinart was awarded the Israel Prize, as well as the University of Córdoba Prize (1981), the Wischnitzer Prize for the best book on Jewish history (1981), the Ruppin Prize (1996), and the Rothschild Prize (2004). Beinart authored over 300 academic publications in Hebrew, Spanish, and English.

In 1971, he founded the Hispania Judaica series, which publishes monographs on Jewish communities in medieval Spain. He served as its editor and was a member of the editorial board of the Short Jewish Encyclopaedia in Russian, becoming the chair of the editorial board from volume 5 onwards. He also edited articles on the history of Spanish Jews for the first edition of Encyclopaedia Judaica and was on the editorial board of the Zion journal, published in Jerusalem in Hebrew.

Selected Works:

  • Protocols of the Trials of the Spanish Inquisition in Ciudad Real, 4 vols. – Jerusalem, 1974–1985

  • Conversos on Trial – Jerusalem, 1982 [a fundamental study on the history of the Spanish Inquisition]

  • Atlas of Medieval Jewish History – Jerusalem, 1992

  • Gerush Sefarad (Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, in Hebrew) – Jerusalem, 1994

  • Pirkei Sefarad (Chapters on Judeo-Spanish History, in Hebrew), 2 vols. – Jerusalem, 1998

  • Editor of Jews in Italy (in Hebrew) – Jerusalem, 1988

Literature:

  • Khoter E. Haim Beinart // Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed., vol. 3 – 2007, pp. 268–269

  • ?? // Short Jewish Encyclopaedia, 2nd ed., supplement – 1995, pp. 142–143

  • Slivkina E. Famous Jews from the Baltics, Builders of the State of Israel // Jews in a Changing World, vol. 3 – Riga, 2000, pp. 179–204