Abstract
To fulfill a long-held dream of a return to Zion, Shmuel Hugo Bergman (1883-1975) moved from his native Prague in 1920 to make his home in Eretz Yisrael. A loyal yet trailblazing intellectual and spiritual heir to Nicholas of Cusa, Bernhard Bolzano, Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber and Sri Aurobindo — and devout Jew — Bergman not only all but singlehandedly created the famed library of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but served as docent, professor, and rector at the Jerusalem university, translated (with the help of his disciple-collaborator and philosopher in his own right, Nathan Rotenstreich) the works of Kant from German into Hebrew, and was a founding member of B'rit Shalom ["covenant of peace" from Numbers 25:121, to foster Arab-Jewish understanding. Bergman's preoccupation with clearing the barriers between Jews and Arabs was of a piece with his conviction that the impassable divisions between religion and science, philosophy and religion, Judaism and Christianity, and western and eastern religions, particularism and universalism need not be.
Recommended Citation
Bergman, Shmuel Hugo and Friedland, Eric L.
(1991)
"The Power of Conversation (Translated by Eric L. Friedland),"
University of Dayton Review: Vol. 21:
No.
2, Article 13.
Available at:
https://ecommons.udayton.edu/udr/vol21/iss2/13
