Baruch

Baruch (Hebrew: בָּרוּךְ, Modern Barukh Tiberian Bārûḵ ; "Blessed") has been a given name among Jews from Biblical times up to the present, on some occasions also used as surname. It is also found, though more rarely, among Christians—particularly among Protestants who use Old Testament names.

Except for its use as a name, this is also related to berakhah or bracha (Hebrew: ברכה; plural ברכות, berakhot), which is a Jewish blessing. See also: Baraka and Barakah.

The root B-R-K meaning "blessing" is also present in other Semitic languages. The most common Arabic form is the passive form Mubarak, but the form Barack is also used.

Benedictus is a Latin name with similar meaning; cf. Baruch Spinoza or Benedictus de Spinoza.

People with the given name Baruch

Bible

• Baruch ben Neriah, aide to the prophet Jeremiah
• Baruch, son of Zabbai; one of Nehemiah's helpers in repairing the walls of Jerusalem
• Baruch, son of Col-Hozeh; a member of the Tribe of Judah who settled in Jerusalem

Later times

• Baruch Agadati (1895–1976), Israeli painter, dancer, and film director
• Baruch Ben Haim (1921–2005), assistant chief rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York
• Baruch Blumberg, American Nobel-prize winning physician, developed Hepatitis B vaccine
• Baruch Goldstein, American-Israeli settler physician who murdered 29 Muslim worshipers in 1994
• Baruch Kurzweil, Israeli literary critic
• Baruch Ostrovsky (1890–1960), first mayor of Ra'anana, Israel
• Baruch Spinoza, Dutch rationalist philosopher
• Baruch Schleisinger Weil (1802-1893) American businessman and politician
• Baruch Zuckerman (1887–1970), American-Israeli zionist, Yad Vashem proponent

Fictional characters

• The Baruch of Baghdad, the king of the Saracens in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival
• Baruch (His Dark Materials), a fictional angel in the His Dark Materials series
• The real name of Billy Joe Cobra, of the television show Dude, That's My Ghost

People with the surname Baruch

• Bernard Baruch, American financier, stock market speculator, statesman, and presidential advisor.

Scriptures attributed to Baruch ben Neriah

• Book of Baruch or 1 Baruch, a deuterocanonical book, considered by Jews and most Protestants to be apocryphal
• 2 Baruch, also called the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch
• 3 Baruch, also called the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch
• 4 Baruch, also known as the Paraleipomena of Jeremiah

Other

• Baruch College, part of the City University of New York, named after Bernard Baruch.
• Baruch Plan, a proposed U.S. atomic energy plan following WWII by Bernard Baruch.

This page or section lists people with the surname Baruch. If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link.