JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

ermann, vasili
BERMANN, VASILI (Ze’ev Wolf; 1862–1896), one of the first
members of Ḥovevei Zion in Russia. He was born in Mitava,
Russia (today Jelgava, Latvia) and studied at the Russian-Jewish
school run by his father Eliezer Bermann, who published
the Russian-Jewish newspaper Russkii Yevrei in St. Petersburg.
He graduated as a lawyer from St. Petersburg University. After
the 1881 pogroms in South Russia, he joined the Ḥibbat Zion
movement. He published and edited the Russian-language
anthologies Palestina (1884, with A. Flekser, Volynsky) and
Sion, which expounded the intellectual basis for the Ḥibbat
Zion ideology. Bermann attended the Ḥovevei Zion Druskiniki
conference (1887) and aided in the efforts to obtain an official
permit for the Ḥovevei Zion society to operate in Russia.
He was secretary of the founding assembly of the society
in Odessa (1890). Convinced that organized emigration was
essential for Russian Jewry, Bermann supported Baron de
*Hirsch’s plans to organize the mass exit of Jews from Russia,
and regarded this as supplementing the settlement project in
Ereẓ Israel. He became secretary of the ICA (*Jewish Colonization
Association) founded by Baron de Hirsch, conducted
a comprehensive survey of the problem of Jewish emigration,
and established and headed the ICA’s emigration department.
Bermann was also a founder of the Historical-Ethnographical
Committee of the Society for the Spreading of Enlightenment
among the Jews in Russia. He contracted tuberculosis
and went to live in Cairo, where he died.
Bibliography: Lu’aḥ Aḥi’asaf, 4 (1896), 46–50; Katznelson,
in: Ha-Meliẓ, no. 76 (1896), 3–4; A. Raphaeli (Zenziper), Pa’amei ha-
Ge’ullah (1951), 28, 88.
[Yehuda Slutsky]
BERMANT, CHAIM ICYK (1929–1998), Lithuanian-born
Scottish humorist and journalist noted for his gently satirical
sketches of British Jewry. His short novels, which reflect
a traditional upbringing, include Jericho Sleep Alone (1964),
Diary of an Old Man (1966), and Swinging in the Rain (1967).
He also published a guidebook, Israel (1967), and Troubled
Eden: An Anatomy of British Jewry (1969). Possibly Bermant’s
most valuable work was his biographical history of England’s
“grandee” Jewish families like the Rothschilds and Montefiores,
The Cousinhood (1961). Bermant also published a biography
of England’s Chief Rabbi, Lord Jakobovits (1990). Bermant
wrote a weekly column in the Jewish Chronicle (of which he
was Features Editor in 1964–66), which was widely noted and
often controversial. Two volumes of Bermant’s best weekly
columns appeared, Murmurings of a Licensed Heretic (1990)
and On the Other Hand (2000), which was published posthumously.
Bermant also wrote a volume of autobiography, Genesis:
A Latvian Childhood (1998).
[William D. Rubinstein (2nd ed.)]
BERMUDA CONFERENCE, Anglo-American Conference
on Refugees in 1943. During World War II, Jewish and general
public opinion in the U.S. and the British Commonwealth
urgently demanded that the Allied governments rescue the
victims of the Nazi regime. Under pressure from parliament,
churches, and humanitarian organizations, the British Foreign
Office, on Jan. 20, 1943, proposed joint consultation between
Britain and the U.S.A. to examine the problem and possible
solutions. After an exchange of diplomatic notes, the Anglo-
American Conference on Refugees was held in Bermuda from
April 19 to 30, 1943. The American delegation was headed by
Harold Willis Dodds, president of Princeton University; the
British delegation, by Richard Law, parliamentary undersecretary
of state for foreign affairs. No private organizations or
observers were admitted but interested Jewish organizations
in America and England prepared memoranda proposing
rescue measures. Chaim *Weizmann submitted a document
on behalf of the *Jewish Agency for Palestine, underlining
the importance of Palestine in the solution of the problem of
Jewish refugees, and demanding abandonment of the policy
based on the British White Paper policy of May 1939. The delegates,
however, anxiously avoided referring to the Jews as the
Nazis’ major victims. Disagreement between the two governments
about continuing the Intergovernmental Committee of
Refugees, founded at the *Evian Conference in July 1938, took
up most of the time but it was decided eventually to extend
its mandate to deal with postwar problems. British plans for
opening up camps in North Africa as a haven for refugees during
the war proved impracticable. After seven months – on
Dec. 10, 1943 – the report of the conference was published. Its
only positive decision – to revive the Evian Committee – came
too late to save a single Jew from the Nazi Holocaust.
Bibliography: M. Wischnitzer, To Dwell in Safety (1948),
245–8; Adler-Rudel, in: YLBI, 11 (1966), 213–41; A.D. Morse, While
Six Million Died (1968), index; World Jewish Congress (Australian
Section), Bermuda Conference on Refugees (1943); A. Tartakower and
K.R. Grossmann, The Jewish Refugee (1944), index.
[Shalom Adler-Rudel]
°BERNADOTTE, FOLKE, EARL OF WISBORG (1895–
1948), Swedish statesman. Bernadotte was the youngest son
of Prince Oscar August of Sweden, a brother of King Gustav
V. During World War II he organized an exchange of disabled
prisoners of war between Germany and the Allies on behalf
of the Swedish Red Cross. He became vice chairman in 1943,
and president in 1946, of the Swedish Red Cross. Stimulated
by Norwegian and Danish intervention on behalf of their civilian
prisoners in German concentration camps, he negotiated
on behalf of the Swedish Red Cross with *Himmler who was
persuaded to release more than 7,000 Scandinavians during
March and April 1945, including over 400 Danish Jews, from
*Theresienstadt. Following negotiations with a representative
of the *World Jewish Congress in Sweden, Norbert Masur, he
also effected the release of several thousand Jewish women
from various countries interned in the Ravensbrueck concentration
camp. Most of those released were transferred to
Sweden. Subsequently, at a meeting in Luebeck on April 24,
1945, Himmler tried to use Bernadotte’s good offices to forward
peace proposals to the Allies. Bernadotte transmitted
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