BERMAN, ADOLF ABRAHAM

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 socalled 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]