Actress and acting coach Stella Adler (1901-1992) played a central role in the work of the Bergson Group during and after the Holocaust. Her parents, Sara and Jacob Adler, were stars of the early twentieth-century Yiddish theater, and Stella was an acclaimed actress since childhood. In the 1930s,...
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Yitshaq Ben-Ami (1914-1985) helped smuggle Jews from Europe to Palestine in the 1930s, then became one of the leaders of the Bergson Group's campaigns in the United States for rescue of refugees and Jewish statehood. Born and raised in Tel Aviv, Ben-Ami studied at Hebrew University before joining...
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"The Bergson Group" was the name often used to refer to a series of political action committees in the United States during the 1940s that were headed by Hillel Kook, using the name Peter Bergson. The nucleus of the group came out of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, the Palestine Jewish underground militia associated...
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Actor Marlon Brando (1924-2004) was one of the first public figures in post-World War II America to speak out about the failure of the Allies to aid Europe's Jews during the Holocaust. In the summer of 1946, the 22 year-old Brando co-starred in "A Flag Is Born," a controversial play authored by Ben Hecht,...
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Author, playwright and Hollywood screenwriter Ben Hecht (1894-1964) was a leading activist for the rescue of European Jews from the Holocaust and creation of a Jewish State. The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Hecht grew up in Racine (Wisconsin) and Chicago in what he described as a "large, extended,...
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Actor Paul Muni (1895-1967) was an active supporter of the Bergson Group's campaigns for Holocaust rescue and Jewish statehood. A native of Austria, Muni (born Frederich Weisenfreund) came to the United States as a child and quickly became a mainstay in the Yiddish theater. He made his Broadway debut...
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