Arthur Biram

Arthur Biram, 1928

Arthur Biram

Arthur Yitzhak Biram (Hebrew: ארתור בירם) (13 August 1878 – 5 June 1967) was an Israeli philosopher, philologist, and educator.

Biography

Arthur Biram was born in Bischofswerda in Saxony in 1878, the son of a modest, but successful businessman. Biram attended school in Hirschberg, Silesia. His sister Else Bodenheimer-Biram became a well known art sociologist.

He studied languages, including Arabic, at University of Berlin and at University of Leipzig and earned a doctorate Dr. phil. at the University of Leipzig in 1902, discussing the philosophy of Abu-Rasid al-Nisaburi.^[1] In 1904 he concluded the rabbi seminar at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. Afterwards he taught languages and literature at the Berlinisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster.

Biram was one of the founders of the Bar-Kochba club, and a member of the German liberal religious stream 'Ezra', which recognized the importance of high school education. In 1913, he emigrated to Ottoman Palestine.

Dr. Arthur Biram founded the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa in 1913 and was appointed its first principal^[2], but a few months later, World War I broke out, and Dr. Biram was drafted by the German army and stationed in Afula. In 1919, he returned to school.

He married Hannah Tomeshevsky, and they had two sons. Both sons were killed: Aharon died in an accident while on reserve duty, and Binyamin, an engineer at the Dead Sea Works, was killed by a mine.

As part of Dr. Biram's philosophy of education, in 1937, he implemented compulsory Hagam ^[3] training for girls in the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa, laying the foundation for recruitment of women in the Haganah, and later the Israel Defence Forces.

In 1948, he resigned his post as principal, and on his 75th birthday, he authored a collection of essays on the Bible. Altogether, he wrote about 50 publications in Hebrew, German, English, and Arabic. Biram died in Haifa in 1967.

Awards

• In 1954, he was awarded the Israel Prize, for education.^[4]

External links

1. ^ Die atomistische Substanzenlehre aus dem Buch der Streitfragen zwischen Basrensern und Bagdadensern, Arthur Biram, dissertation
2. ^ The Hebrew Reali School in Haifa
3. ^ Haganah, written by Dganit Boni-Davidi (acronym for Expanded Physical Education)
4. ^ "Israel Prize recipients in 1954 (in Hebrew)". Israel Prize Official Site. Archived from the original on 11 February 2010 by WebCite. http://cms.education.gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/PrasIsrael/Tashyag/Tashkab_Tashyag_Rikuz.htm?DictionaryKey=Tashyad. 

• Streetwise: Rehov Biram, Haifa, written by Wendy Blumfeld
• Videos at YouTube: part 1, part 2
• Publications about resp. by Arthur Biram at Worldcat
• Biography at the Upper Lusatian Science Society (in German)

Further reading

• Socio-Educational Dilemmas: a typology illustrated by the history of Hebrew education in Haifa during the British Mandate, by Yuval Dror, article in the Journal of Educational Administration and History, 1478-7431, Volume 26, Issue 1, 1994, Pages 35 – 54, DOI: 10.1080/0022062940260104
• Encyclopedia of Zionism and Israel, by Raphael Patai, Vol. 1, Herzl Press, 1971

See also

• List of Israel Prize recipients

Persondata
Name	Biram, Arthur
Alternative names
Short description	Philosopher, philologist
Date of birth	13 August 1878
Place of birth	Bischofswerda in Saxony
Date of death	5 June 1967
Place of death