Fritz Bamberger Collection

Siegfried Fritz Bamberger was born on January 7, 1902 in Frankfurt-am-Main, the son of the businessman Max and Amalie (née Wolf) Bamberger. He grew up in Gelsenkirchen, where the family resided, and attended the Städtische Oberrealschule (Public High School) there. At the University of Berlin he studied philosophy, literature and Oriental languages, and at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums Jewish studies. At the age of 21 he had already earned his doctorate in philosophy and soon thereafter continued as a research fellow and lecturer in philosophy at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. Later he became director of the Berlin Lehrerbildungsanstalt and head of the school administration of the Berlin Jewish Community. He also taught at and helped to found the Jüdisches Lehrhaus in Berlin. In 1933 he married violinist Käte (later Kate) Schwabe, originally of Aschersleben. They had two children, Michael and Gabrielle.

In 1939 Fritz Bamberger and his wife immigrated to the United States, where they first settled in Chicago. From 1939 until 1942 he taught philosophy and comparative literature at Chicago's College of Jewish Studies. Even after Fritz Bamberger's father, Max Bamberger, died in 1940, Fritz had been in the process of assisting his mother to immigrate to the United States when the American consulates in Germany were closed in July 1941. Amalie Bamberger died in Warsaw in May 1942.

From 1942 until 1961 Fritz Bamberger worked for Coronet magazine, a publication of Esquire, Inc. beginning as a part-time researcher and eventually working his way up through the organization until he became editor-in-chief in 1952. In 1956 he became executive director of Esquire, Inc. In 1952 Kate Bamberger died; Fritz Bamberger would later marry Maria Weinberg in 1963.

In 1962 Fritz Bamberger returned to the world of academia, finding a position at the Hebrew University College – Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City. There he became a professor of intellectual history and a member of the college's Board of Governors in addition to being the assistant to the President. He retired from Hebrew University College in 1979.

In addition to his professional appointments, Fritz Bamberger engaged himself in the work of Jewish research organizations. He was vice-president of the Leo Baeck Institute, on the executive committee of the Frank L. Weil Institute for Studies in Religion and Humanities and vice-chairman of the World Union for Progressive Judaism's North American Board. In 1982 he received an honorary doctorate from Hebrew Union College. He died in 1984.

Fritz Bamberger was active in Jewish scholarship and published a number of academic works in addition to having been an avid bibliophile. In Berlin he was a member of a bibliophile society, the Bibliophilen Freunde, formed after the former Berliner Bibliophilen-Abend was dissolved by the Nazis. In 1961 Bamberger founded the Society for Jewish Bibliophiles in New York. He had an extensive and reputable collection of books on Spinoza, numbering three thousand volumes, which his family gave to the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion branch in Jerusalem in 1990.

Fritz Bamberger's published works include:

1924

Entstehung des Wertproblems

1929

Moses Mendelssohn

1928-1930

Die Lehren des Judentums

1929-1932

Moses Mendelssohns gesammelte Schriften

1935

Das System des Maimonides

1936

Jüdische Gestalten und ihre Zeit. Eine Geschichte des jüdischen Geistes von Moses bis Mendelssohn

1958

Leo Baeck – The Man and the Idea

1960

Julius Guttman: Philosopher of Judaism

1962

Books are the Best Things

1967

Mendelssohns Begriff vom Judentum

1970

The Mind of Nelson Glück

1974

Exploring a Typology of German Jewry (The Arden House Conference)