Bertha Badt-Strauss (7 December 1885 – 20 February 1970) was a German writer and

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

. She wrote for numerous Jewish publications in Berlin and the United States, and edited and translated the works of many other writers.

Biography

Bertha Badt was born in 1885 in Breslau to Benno Badt, a philologist, and Martha (née Guttman), a teacher. She studied literature and philosophy in Breslau, Berlin and Munich, and with her thesis on

Annette von Droste-Hülshoff Baroness Anna Elisabeth Franziska Adolphine Wilhelmine Louise Maria von Droste zu Hülshoff, known as Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (; 10 January 179724 May 1848), was a 19th-century German poet, novelist, and composer of Classical music. She was ...

, became one of the first women in

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

to receive a doctoral degree. She lived in Berlin with her husband , an educator, from 1913, and their son Albrecht was born in 1921. Shortly after Albrecht's birth, Bertha developed

multiple sclerosis Multiple (cerebral) sclerosis (MS), also known as encephalomyelitis disseminata or disseminated sclerosis, is the most common demyelinating disease, in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are damaged. This d ...

. Badt-Strauss was a

and an active member of the Jewish community in Berlin. She wrote articles for a variety of Jewish newspapers, including ''Jüdische Rundschau'', ''Der Jude'', ''Israelitische Familienblatt'', ''Blätter des Jüdischen Frauenbundes'' and ''Der Morgen'', and contributed to two Jewish encyclopedias, ''

Encyclopaedia Judaica The ''Encyclopaedia Judaica'' is a 22-volume English-language encyclopedia of the Jewish people, Judaism, and Israel. It covers diverse areas of the Jewish world and civilization, including Jewish history of all eras, culture, holidays, langua ...

'' and '. She was also a prolific editor and translator of works by other writers, including Droste-Hülshoff,

Achim von Arnim Carl Joachim Friedrich Ludwig von Arnim (26 January 1781 – 21 January 1831), better known as Achim von Arnim, was a German poet, novelist, and together with Clemens Brentano and Joseph von Eichendorff, a leading figure of German Romanticism. ...

Moses Mendelssohn Moses Mendelssohn (6 September 1729 – 4 January 1786) was a German-Jewish philosopher and theologian. His writings and ideas on Jews and the Jewish religion and identity were a central element in the development of the ''Haskalah'', or 'Je ...

Fanny Lewald Fanny Lewald (21 March 1811 – 5 August 1889) was a German novelist and essayist and a women's rights activist. Life and career Fanny Lewald was born at Königsberg in East Prussia in 1811 to a bourgeois, Jewish family. She was taken out of sch ...

Hermann Cohen Hermann Cohen (4 July 1842 – 4 April 1918) was a German Jewish philosophy, philosopher, one of the founders of the University of Marburg, Marburg school of neo-Kantianism, and he is often held to be "probably the most important Jewish ph ...

Rahel Varnhagen Rahel Antonie Friederike Varnhagen () (née Levin, later Robert; 19 May 1771 – 7 March 1833) was a German writer who hosted one of the most prominent salons in Europe during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She is the subject of a celeb ...

Heinrich Heine Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was a German poet, writer and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of '' Lied ...

Süßkind von Trimberg 230px, ''Süßkind, der Jude von Trimberg'' (Süsskind, the Jew of Trimberg), portrait from the ''Codex Manesse''. Süßkind von Trimberg (or Suesskind of Trimberg) is given as the author of six poems in the ''Codex Manesse''. The poems date to the ...

Profiat Duran Profiat Duran (c. 1350 – c. 1415) (Hebrew: פרופייט דוראן), full Hebrew name Isaac ben Moses ha-Levi; was a Jewish apologist/polemicist, philosopher, physician, grammarian, and controversialist in the 14th century. He was later sometim ...

and

Leon of Modena Leon de Modena or in Hebrew name Yehudah Aryeh Mi-Modena (1571–1648) was a Jewish scholar born in Venice to a family whose ancestors migrated to Italy after an expulsion of Jews from France. Life He was a precocious child and grew up to be a re ...

. She wrote a book-length unpublished biography of German writer

Elise Reimarus Elise Reimarus (22 January 1735, Hamburg, as ''Margaretha Elisabeth Reimarus'' – 2 September 1805, Hamburg) was a German writer, educator, translator and salon-holder. She was the sister of Johann Albert Heinrich Reimarus and the daughter of He ...

. Badt-Strauss migrated from Nazi Germany to the United States in 1939. She settled in

Shreveport, Louisiana Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the third most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, respectively. The Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area, with a population of 393,406 in 2020, is t ...

, where her husband was a professor at

Centenary College of Louisiana Centenary College of Louisiana is a private liberal arts college in Shreveport, Louisiana. The college is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Founded in 1825, it is the oldest chartered liberal arts college west of the Mississippi Rive ...

. She published a biography of the Zionist

Jessie Sampter Jessie Sampter (March 22, 1883 – 1938) was a Jewish educator, poet, and Zionist pioneer. She was born in New York City and immigrated to Palestine in 1919. Biography Jessie Ethel Sampter was born in New York City to Rudolph Sampter, a New Y ...

titled ''White Fire: The Life and Works of Jessie Sampter'', and continued to write for a variety of Jewish-American publications: ''

Aufbau ''Aufbau'' is a term which was used in publications from 1919 to 1947 in the German language. The term can be translated as "structure", "construction" or as "rebuilding", "reconstruction". Peter Galison advocated its use as a "keyword", in the s ...

'', ''The Jewish Way'', ''The Menorah Journal'', ''The Reconstructionist'', ''The National Jewish Monthly'', ''Hadassah Newsletter'' and ''Women's League Outlook''. She died in 1970 in

Chapel Hill, North Carolina Chapel Hill is a town in Orange, Durham and Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 census, making Chapel Hill the 17th-largest municipality in the state. Chapel Hill, Durham, and the state ca ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Badt-Strauss, Bertha 1885 births 1970 deaths Writers from Wrocław 20th-century German writers 20th-century German women writers Jewish American writers Jewish women writers Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States German Zionists