Bernard Bergman (September 2, 1911 – June 16, 1984) was an

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...

rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...

and businessman who was best known for his operation of a large network of nursing homes and his conviction of Medicaid fraud in 1976. Bergman turned an inheritance of $25,000 into an empire of nursing homes valued at $24 million.

Early life

Bergman was born to Shlomo Bergman and Gittel Leifer on September 2, 1911, in Romania. Shlomo was the son of Avraham Tzvi Bergman (1849–1918), Rabbi of Yasinya, a small town in what was then Maramureş, Hungary, now part of Zakarpattya,

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

. Gittel descended from a long line of

Hasidic Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contem ...

rabbis, most famous of whom was her grandfather,

Mordechai Leifer Mordechai Leifer (or Läufer) (1824–1894) was a rabbi in Nadvirna, Ukraine. Biography Leifer was the son of Rabbi Yesochor Bertche Leifer (d. 1848), author of ''Sisrei Torah'', and a great-great-grandson of Rabbi Meir "The Great" of Premishla ...

of Nadvorna. The family immigrated to the United States in the 1920s, settling in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. Bergman went to

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...

, where he attended the

Hebron Yeshiva Hebron Yeshiva, also known as ''Yeshivas Hevron'', or Knesses Yisroel, is a yeshiva devoted to high-level study of the Talmud. It originated in 1924 when the roshei yeshiva and 150 students of the Slabodka Yeshiva, known colloquially as the "mother ...

in order to pursue his religious studies. He received his ''

semikhah Semikhah ( he, סמיכה) is the traditional Jewish name for rabbinic ordination. The original ''semikhah'' was the formal "transmission of authority" from Moses through the generations. This form of ''semikhah'' ceased between 360 and 425 C ...

'' (rabbinic ordination) from the academy's dean,

Moshe Mordechai Epstein Moshe Mordechai Epstein (1866–1933) was rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Knesseth Yisrael in Slabodka, Lithuania and is recognized as having been one of the leading Talmudists of the twentieth century. He is also one of the founders of the city of Had ...

, on October 22, 1933. Bergman married Anne (''

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

'' Weiss) in 1937. Back in New York City, he took a position as a rabbi at a nursing home on the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

and served as editor and publisher of the Yiddish-language daily ''The

Jewish Morning Journal ''The Jewish Morning Journal'' ( yi, דער מארגען זשורנאל , Der Morgen Zhurnal) was a Yiddish-language publication in New York from 1901 to 1971. Early years A politically conservative, Orthodox Jewish publisher, Jacob Saphirstein ...

'' and head of

Hapoel HaMizrachi Hapoel HaMizrachi ( he, הַפּוֹעֵל הַמִּזְרָחִי, lit. '' Mizrachi Workers'') was a political party and settlement movement in Israel. It was one of the predecessors of the National Religious Party and the Jewish Home. History ...

Nursing homes and criminal prosecution

Bergman started to build his network of nursing homes in the 1960s,Sullivan, Ronald
"BERNARD BERGMAN, NURSING-HOME FIGURE, IS DEAD"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', June 22, 1984. Accessed September 8, 2008. beginning with the former

New York Cancer Hospital The New York Cancer Hospital (NYCH) on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City was a cancer treatment and research institution founded in 1884. The building was located at 455 Central Park West between West 105th and 106th Streets, and ...

Central Park West Eighth Avenue is a major north–south avenue on the west side of Manhattan in New York City, carrying northbound traffic below 59th Street. It is one of the original avenues of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 to run the length of Manhattan, ...

at 106th Street, which was acquired in 1955 and operated by Bergman as the Towers Nursing Home. The home became the center of federal and state fraud charges. Claims were made that patients in the home were abused and neglected, with residents testifying that they had not been given adequate heat, and had been subjected to physical abuse and pest infestations. The site was closed in 1974 as a nursing home. A

New York State Senate The New York State Senate is the upper house of the New York State Legislature; the New York State Assembly is its lower house. Its members are elected to two-year terms; there are no term limits. There are 63 seats in the Senate. Partisan com ...

investigation in 1975 brought witnesses who testified of patients lapsing into comas due to untreated dehydration, bedsores caused by coarse sheets and failure to notify authorities of an epidemic of diarrhea. An unannounced inspection of a home found unsanitary conditions, including milk used a week past its expiration date and excrement on the floors in patient rooms. Bergman vigorously denied the charges, claiming that the homes he operated were well run. In 1976, Bergman was sentenced to serve four months in a Federal correction center after his conviction on Medicare and tax fraud charges. Under a plea bargain, he was supposed to not serve additional jail time. However, the lead prosecutor,

Charles J. Hynes Charles Joseph Hynes (born Charles Aiken Hynes; May 28, 1935 – January 29, 2019) was an American lawyer and Democratic politician from New York who served as Kings County District Attorney from 1990 to 2013. Early life and education Hynes ...

, compromised the plea agreement by publicly informing the media that he wanted the presiding judge (Judge Melia) to sentence Bergman to more jail time. Eventually, Bergman ended up serving an eight-month sentence for convictions on state offenses. In February 1989, New York State's special nursing-homes prosecutor received payment of almost $1.4 million as the final payment of penalties and interest that Bergman was obligated to pay New York State after he pleaded guilty to Medicaid and tax fraud.Roberts, Sam
"Metro Matters; Bergman Legacy: $1,376,032 Check And 110 Auditors"
''

'', February 13, 1989. Accessed September 8, 2008. Accessed September 8, 2008.

Death

Bergman died of a heart attack at

Mount Sinai Medical Center Mount Sinai Hospital, formerly at times known as Mount Sinai Medical Center, is a 319-bed major urban hospital in Chicago, Illinois, with its main campus located adjacent to Douglass Park at 15th Street and California Avenue on the city's West Si ...

on June 16, 1984. He left residences in both

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

and Manhattan at the time of his death. His body was transported to Israel for burial.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bergman, Bernard 1911 births 1984 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American criminals American health care businesspeople American members of the clergy convicted of crimes American Orthodox rabbis Businesspeople from New York City Criminals from Brooklyn Rabbis convicted of crimes Rabbis from New York (state) Romanian emigrants to the United States 20th-century American rabbis