BAMBERGER, FRITZ

BAMBERGER, FRITZ (1902–1984), philosophical scholar and author. Born in Frankfurt, Bamberger from 1926 to 1933 was a research fellow of the *Akademie fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums and until 1938 occupied various teaching posts in Berlin. Emigrating from Germany to the United States, he became professor of philosophy at the College for Jewish Studies, Chicago, from 1939 to 1942, and was on the staff and later editor in chief of Coronet magazine from 1942 to 1961. He was a founder of the Society of Jewish Bibliophiles. From 1962 Bamberger was professor of intellectual history and assistant to the president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. His collection of Spinoziana was considered to be the finest private collection of its kind.

Bamberger's main interest in the field of Jewish philosophy centered on Moses *Mendelssohn (Moses Mendelssohns geistige Gestalt (1929) and "Moses Mendelssohns Begriff vom Judentum," in: Wissenschaft des Judentums im deutschen Sprachbereich, ed. by K. Wilhelm (1967), 521ff.), and he edited three volumes of the bicentenary edition of Mendelssohn's writings (1929–32; cf. also Denkmal der Freundschaft (1929), and Living Legacy (1963), 86ff.). Other philosophers to whom he devoted studies were Spinoza (sbb, 5 (1961), 9ff.); Maimonides (Das System des Maimonides, 1935); Julius Guttmann (Philosopher of Judaism, 1960; also in German in: Deutsches Judentum, Aufstieg und Krise (1963), 85–119); and Leo Baeck (The Man and the Idea, 1958). Bamberger edited Die Lehren des Judentums (3 vols., 1928–30, together with S. Bernfeld); Juedische Gestalten und ihre Zeit (1936); Das Buch Zunz (1931; cf. also Zunz's Conception of History in paajr, 1941); and an anthology of ancient Jewish aphorisms (Books Are the Best Things, 1962).