f the Jewish fraternal organizations. Its membership in 1908
was 35,870, its 481 lodges and 10 grand lodges being distributed over
the United States, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Rumania, Egypt and
Palestine. Its objects are to promote a high morality among Jews,
regardless of differences as to dogma and ceremonial customs, and
especially to inculcate the supreme virtues of charity and brotherly
love. Political and religious discussions were from the first excluded
from the debates of the order. In 1851 the first grand lodge was
established at New York; in 1856, the number of district lodges having
increased, the supreme authority was vested in a central body consisting
of one member from each lodge; and by the present constitution, adopted
in 1868, this authority is vested in a president elected for five years,
an executive committee and court of appeals (elected as before). The
first lodge in Germany was instituted at Berlin in 1883. A large number
of charitable and other public institutions have been established in the
United States and elsewhere by the order, of which may be mentioned the
large orphan asylum in Cleveland, the home for the aged and infirm at
Yonkers, N.Y., the National Jewish hospital for consumptives at Denver,
and the Maimonides library in New York City. The B'nai B'rith society
has also co-operated largely with other Jewish philanthropic
organizations in succouring distressed Israelites throughout the world.

See the _Jewish Encyclopaedia_ (1902), s.v.

BOA, a name formerly applied to all large serpents which, devoid of
poison fangs, kill their prey by constriction; but now confined to that
subfamily of the _Boidae_ which are devoid of teeth in the praemaxilla
and are without supraorbital bones. The others are known as pythons
(q.v.). The true boas comprise some forty species; most of them are
American, but the genus _Eryx_ inhabits North Africa, Greece and
south-western Asia; the genus _Enygrus_ ranges from New Guinea to the
Fiji; _Casarea dussumieri_ is restricted to Round Island, near
Mauritius; and two species of _Boa_ and one of _Corallus_ represent this
subfamily in Madagascar, while all the other boas live in America,
chiefly in tropical parts. All _Boidae_ possess vestiges of pelvis and
hind limbs, appearing externally as claw-like spurs on each side of the
vent, but they are so small that they are practically without function
in climbing. The usually short tail is prehensile.

One