ארכיון שמואל הוגו ברגמן

Samuel Hugo Bergmann (1883–1975) was a Czech - German - Israeli Jewish philosopher, a member of the Prag Circle of writers, founder and director of the Jewish National and University libraries and the first chancellor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was born in Prag and studied philosophy in Prag and Berlin. During his studies in Prag, he joined the university Zionist association Bar Kochba, of which he gradually became a leading member. He started writing articles about Zionism, which he published in the German Zionist press in Prag and published several philosophical works. At that time, he also met Martin Buber. From 1907 to 1919 he was a librarian at the university of Prag - with the exception of World War I when he served in the Austrian army. He was a frequent guest of the cultural salon of Berta Fanta, the wife of the famous Prag pharmacist Max Fanta. Here he met their daughter Else, whom he married in 1908. In 1919, he represented Czechoslovak Jews in the Committee of Jewish Delegations at the Paris Peace Conference. In 1920 he and his wife Else traveled to British Mandate Palestine, where he became the founder and first director of the National and University Library from 1920 until 1938. In 1928 he began lecturing philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and became a professor in 1935. Between 1935 and 1938 he was the first rector of the university. Part of his activity was an active effort to bring Jews and Arabs closer together. Together with Martin Buber and other personalities, he founded the Brit Shalom movement. He received the Israel Humanities Prize in 1954. The archive includes correspondence, manuscripts, newspaper clippings, certificates on his public activities, biographical material, and essays sent to him. Read more