JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

ergmann, max
Judaism against emerging Christianity; Legenden der Juden
(1919), a study on the nature and sources of aggadah; Ha-Am
ve-Ruḥo (1938), studies and essays on the problems of scholarship
and life; Ha-Ẓedakah be-Yisrael (1944), a study on the
history and institutions of charity among the Jews; and Ha-
Folklor ha-Yehudi (1953), about the popular knowledge, beliefs,
characteristics, and customs of Jewish people. He was
one of the founders of the Freie Juedische Volkshochschule
in Berlin. When the Nazis seized power in 1933, he emigrated
to Jerusalem. His son was E.D. *Bergmann.
[Abraham Meir Habermann]
BERGMANN, MAX (1886–1944), chemist, best known for
his research in leathers. Bergmann was born in Fuerth, Bavaria.
He obtained his doctorate in 1911 at Berlin, where he
became the assistant to the organic chemist Emil Fischer.
In 1920, Bergmann was appointed head of chemistry at the
Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut fuer Faserstoff-Forschung in Berlin,
and in 1921, director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut fuer
Lederforschung in Dresden and professor of the Technische
Hochschule there. He held these positions until forced to leave
Germany in 1934. His main area of research was in the chemistry
and structure of proteins. Bergmann went to the United
States where he became a member of the Rockefeller Institute
for Medical Research.
Bibliography: Journal of the Chemical Society (1945), 716–8;
H.T. Clarke, in: Science, 102 (1945), 168–70; J.C. Poggendorff, Biographisch-litterarisches
Handwoerterbuch der exakten Naturwissenschaften,
7B (1967), 335–7.
[Samuel Aaron Miller]
BERGMANN, RICHARD (1920–1970), table tennis player,
winner of seven world championships, including four singles
crowns. Born in Vienna, Bergmann began playing table tennis
at age 12 and won his first world championship in 1936 at the
age of 16 as a member of the Austrian Swaythling Cup team.
He also won the bronze medal that year in the men’s singles
event. A year later in 1937, Bergmann became and remains
the youngest player in history to win the gold medal in the
men’s singles competition; he won the silver in 1938. When the
Nazis invaded Austria in March, Bergmann fled to England.
In 1939, he won his second world singles crown and the world
doubles title with Victor *Barna. Following World War II, he
reclaimed his title in 1948 as world singles champion and won
the bronze in doubles again with Barna. In 1949 Bergmann
and Barna helped England win the bronze in team competition,
and Bergmann won the bronze in doubles with Tage
Flisberg. In 1950 Bergmann won his fourth world championship
singles 13 years after his first and led England to a team
bronze. In 1952 he won silver in doubles (with Johnny Leach)
as well as in team competition, and his seventh and final world
championship was in team play in 1953. Bergmann won the
bronze in singles and team in 1954, and his final medal was
bronze with England in 1955. Bergmann also finished first in
the English singles championships six times and the doubles
four times. Bergmann became the world’s first professional
table tennis player in the mid-1950s, touring extensively with
the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team. Sometimes referred
to as Richard the Lionhearted, Bergman was the author of
Twenty-One Up (1950).
[Elli Wohlgelernter (2nd ed.)]
BERGNER, ELISABETH (1897–1986), actress. Born as Ella
Ettel in the Galician town of Drohobycz (today Ukrainian
Drogobyc), she came in her youth to Vienna, where she studied.
She acted there and in Berlin for Victor Barnowsky, Max
Reinhardt, and her future husband, Paul Czinner. Especially
as Rosalind in As You Like It on stage and in many films of
the 1920s and early 1930s, she gained an international reputation,
bolstered by her interpretation of the title role of Shaw’s
Saint Joan. Her androgynous type, which combined sex appeal
with a female aspiration for emancipation, made her an
idol on stage and screen in interwar Europe. Bergner toured
the Continent and made her first appearance in Great Britain
in Margaret Kennedy’s Escape Me Never (1933). This was
an immediate success, which she repeated two years later in
New York. She remained there as an émigré until 1950, when
she returned to London. Under the direction of her husband,
Paul Czinner, she appeared in a number of films. Her films
included Der traeumende Mund and Stolen Life (1939). She
was not a success in Hollywood films. After World War II
she toured Germany and Austria. In 1978 she published her
memoirs, Bewundert und viel gescholten – Elisabeth Bergners
unordentlichen Erinnerungen.
Add. Bibliography: K. Voelker, Elisabeth Bergner (Ger.,
1990); D. Wuensche: Elisabeth Bergner. Dokumente ihres Lebens
(1990); Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, Unsere schwarze Rose
(catalogue, 1993).
[Pnina Nave / Marcus Pyka (2nd ed.)
BERGNER, HERZ (1907–1970), Yiddish novelist. The
younger brother of Melech *Ravitch, Bergner grew up in
Radimno, Galicia. After a short stay in Warsaw, he immigrated
to Melbourne in 1938. From 1928 he published short stories in
leading Yiddish periodicals in Europe, Israel, Australia and the
United States. In Warsaw he published the collection Shtubn
un Gasn (“Houses and Streets,” 1935) and was co-editor of
Shriftn (1936). His novels, Tsvishn Himel un Vaser (Between
Sky and Sea, 1946) dealing with a boatload of Jewish refugees,
and Likht un Shotn (1960; Light and Shadow, 1963) describing
the struggle of a Jewish family for acceptance in an Australian
community, were translated into English. Bergner’s Australian
short stories, especially his volume Vu der Emes Shteyt Ayn
(“Where the Truth Lies,” 1966), realistically mirror various aspects
in the life of Jewish immigrants in Melbourne.
Bibliography: LNYL, 1 (1956), 379; M. Ravitch, Mayn Leksikon
(1945), 43–45. Add. Bibliography: I. Kahan, in: Australian
Jewish Historical Society, 7/4 (1973), 286–90; I. Turkov-Grudberg, in:
Di Goldene Keyt, 56 (1966), 248–50.
[Sol Liptzin]
430 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3