JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

the pasteurization of milk and an improvement in its quality.
He played a leading part in the fight against the spread of
tuberculosis and wrote a number of articles on hygiene and
preventive medicine. He set out his agnostic ideas on matters
of religion and philosophy in his book Conclusions (1902).
Toward the end of his life Berliner supported the rebuilding
of Palestine and was active on behalf of the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem.
[Grete Leibowitz]
Emile’s son HENRY ADLER BERLINER (1895–1970), aeronautical
engineer, did pioneering work with his father on helicopter
construction during and after World War I. He was president
of Berliner Aircraft, Inc. in Washington and from 1930 to 1954
chairman of Engineering and Research Corporation. In 1955
he became president of the Maryland firm of Tecfab Inc. In
World War II, during which he lost an arm, he was chief of
war plans for the Eighth Air Force.
[Samuel Aaron Miller]
Bibliography: F.W. Wile, Emile Berliner, Maker of the Microphone
(1926); C.J. Hylander, American Inventors (1934).
BERLINER, ISAAC (1899–1957), Mexican Yiddish poet.
Born in Lodz, Berliner immigrated to Mexico in 1922 and
earned a precarious livelihood as a peddler in the Mexican
provinces. In 1927 he and two other Mexican Yiddish poets,
Moses Glikovski (d. 1980) and Jacob *Glantz, published a volume
of lyrics Dray Vegn (“Three Roads,” Spanish transl. Tres
Caminos, 1997). His second volume Shtot fun Palatsn (1936),
illustrated by the Mexican painter Diego Rivera, appeared
in English as City of Palaces (1996). His national elegies Ad
Mosay (“Until When?” 1941) were followed by Shtil Zol Zayn
(“Let There Be Silence,” 1948) and Gezang fun Mentsh (“The
Song of Man,” 1954). In style, imagery, use of neologisms, and
rich rhythms, Berliner was influenced by his Lodz fellow poet
Moses *Broderzon, but Berliner was more socially conscious.
In many lyrics he cries out vehemently against the abysmal
poverty of the Mexicans around the Tepito Market in the heart
of the “city of palaces.”
Bibliography: LNYL, 1 (1956), 392–3; S. Kahan, Yidish-
Meksikanish (1945), 211–23; idem, Meksikaner Viderklangen (1951),
106–201; idem, Meksikaner Refleksn (1954), 228–31.
[Melech Ravitch / Alan Astro (2nd ed.)]
BERLINSKI, HERMAN (1910–2001), composer. Born in
Leipzig, Berlinski studied piano, composition, and conducting
at the Leipzig Conservatory (1927–32). He left Germany in
1933 and went to Paris, studying piano with Alfred Cortot and
composition with Nadia Boulanger at the Ecole Normale de
Musique (1934–38). In 1939 he joined the French Foreign Legion
but on the fall of France he emigrated to the United States
(1941). Berlinski’s style combines twelve-tone techniques with
traditional Hebrew cantillation. His works include a cantata,
Habakkuk, pieces for organ and piano, Flute Sonata (1941),
Violin Sonata (1949), Symphonic Visions (1949) and liturgical
Berman, Howard Lawrence
Jewish compositions – Kaddish (1953), Avodat Shabbat (1957),
and Kiddush ha-Shem (1958).
Add. Bibliography: Baker’s Biographical Dictionary; M.
Kayden, “The Music of Herman Berlinsky,” in: Bulletin of the American
Composers Alliance 3 (1959).
[Israela Stein (2nd ed.)]
BERMAN, ADOLF ABRAHAM (1906–1978), socialist
Zionist. Born in Warsaw, he was the son of Isser Berman, a
well-known Zionist and member of the Ḥovevei Sefat Ever society,
and a brother of Jacob *Berman. Adolf Berman joined
the Left Po’alei Zion as a student and edited both its Polish
language organ and its Yiddish weekly, Arbeter Tsaytung. After
the outbreak of World War II he was for some time chief
director of “Centos,” the organization for social welfare in
Warsaw, and was active in the Polish underground movement.
Upon the establishment of the Anti-Fascist Bloc in 1942, he
became one of its leaders and coeditor of its paper Der Ruf.
He left the ghetto after the mass deportation of Jews to Treblinka
in the summer of 1942 and established himself in the
so-called Aryan side of Warsaw, where he cooperated with
left-wing political groups. He was a member of the presidium
of the Jewish National Committee and its representative with
the Polish underground organization. He fought in the Warsaw
uprising of 1944 and after the liberation of Poland was a
member of the Polish temporary parliament.
In 1947 Berman became president of the central committee
of Polish Jews, but three years later he immigrated to
Israel. Here he joined Mapam, and in 1951 was elected to the
Knesset. In 1954 he left Mapam and became a member of the
Communist Party. He was elected to the party’s central committee
and edited its Yiddish language weekly, Frei Israel. In
1956 he became a member of the general council and bureau
of the International Resistance Organization.
Add. Bibliography: A. Berman, Mimei ha-Makhteret
(1971); idem, Be-Makom asher Yo’ad li- ha-Goral (1978; Yid. Wos der
Goyrel Hot Mir Bashert, 1980); I. Gutman, Yehudei Varshah 1939–1943
(1977), index; A. Berman, Dzialalnosc komunistow wsrod Zydow w
Polsce, 1944–1949 (2004), index.
[Abraham Wein]
BERMAN, HOWARD LAWRENCE (1941– ), U.S. congressman.
Raised in a traditional home in Beverlywood, Los
Angeles, by an Orthodox Polish-immigrant father, Berman
spent several summers at Machene Yehuda, a Jewish camp in
the hills northeast of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. The
camp’s head counselor was the young Rabbi Chaim *Potok
(1929–2002). Berman always considered his summers at Machene
Yehuda to be “the single-most important Jewish experience”
in his life.
Berman entered the University of California at Los Angeles
(UCLA) in 1958, where he majored in political science and
became active in the California Federation of Young Democrats,
where he was befriended by the head of the Draft Stevenson
campaign, fellow Angelino Henry Waxman. The two
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 461