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Elias Bickermann

Elias Bickerman was a historian of the Greco-Roman and Hellenistic world and of Second Temple Judaism, who taught ancient history at Columbia University.

1897 to 1981Research on the Maccabean revoltStudy of the Hellenistic worldSecond Temple period history

Born: 1 July 1897, Chișinău
Died: 31 August 1981, Jerusalem
Occupation: historian, university teacher
Education: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Elias Bickermann was born in 1897 in Chișinău

Bickerman was born in 1897 in Kishinev, then part of the Russian Empire, to a secular Jewish family. His father, Joseph, was a journalist. He attended a Russian gymnasium in Petrograd and began studying at the University of Petersburg in 1915.

In 1916 he was drafted into the Russian army and attended an officers' school. In 1922 he moved with his family to Berlin. He studied at the University of Berlin and submitted his doctorate in 1926, under the papyrologist Ulrich Wilcken.

He worked at the papyrology institute in Berlin and studied Judaism in the Second Temple period. After the Nazis rose to power he moved to Paris, where he worked from 1933 at the national center for scientific research. After the fall of France he fled to the United States.

From 1952 to 1967 he was professor of ancient history at Columbia University. His work on the Maccabean revolt stressed internal Jewish tensions in Judea. He also argued that documents in the books of the Maccabees were authentic.

In 1976 he received the Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize from the University of Tübingen. In 1977 he was a member of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem. He died in Jerusalem in 1981.