Past: Zishe Breitbart

Long before the word made people cringe with thoughts of far-right agendas, Breitbart was a legendary Jewish strongman whose name was synonymous with strength and resilience. I love him for many reasons: he breaks the stereotype of the weak and meek European Jew, he used his fame to give to others, and of course - because he had a short stint at the circus!

Zishe bending an iron bar into a floral pattern

Siegmund Breitbart was born on February 22nd, 1883 in Stryków, near Łódź, Poland. His family were observant Jews, and blacksmiths by trade. His family discovered his unusual strength at the age of three years old, when he was able to free himself from a heavy iron bar that had fallen on him in his father's shop. Soon Siegmund (or Zishe, as he was known) was flexing his muscles wherever he could, which got him expelled from several religious schools. When World War I broke out, he was drafted by the Russian Army and was taken prisoner by the Germans.

When the war was over, Zishe chose to stay in Germany. He started performing on street corner and in street markets, showcasing feats of strength for the public; that's where he was spotted by the director of Circus Busch, Germany's most powerful circus at the time, in 1919. Featured first as an opening act, Zishe eventually became a prime draw on vaudeville stages of Europe and the United States, attracting a mass following in Berlin, Vienna, New York, Prague, and Warsaw. During his time in Europe, a Breitbart craze resulted in two German films and a Yiddish screenplay, product endorsements, a physical-culture correspondence course, jokes, poems, songs, and even Christmas cards. In Christmas week of 1923 he performed in North America, drawing a crowd of over 85,000 people. [My personal favorite fun-fact: Zishe was working at Circus Busch at the same time the Lorch Family performed there with their Risley Act!]

Zishe Breitbart being escorted in to perform at a sports ground, where he bent bars of metal and demonstrated other feats of strength, Kraków, 1920s. (Beth Hatefutsoth, Photo Archive, Tel Aviv)

Zishe's work (or his shtick, if you will) was always inspired by his own family's background as iron workers: he bent iron bar into floral patterns, bit through iron chains or tore them apart, and breaking horseshoes in half. Other acts he was known for included: pulling wagons full of people with his teeth; lying on his back and supporting cars filled with up to ten people on his chest; Supporting a bridge built across his chest while bulls or elephants were paraded over him—this routine was called the Tomb of Hercules; a routine where two men chased each other with motorcycles ridden over his chest; lifting a baby elephant while climbing a ladder and holding a locomotive wheel in his teeth with three men suspended from the wheel.
His stage nickname - "The Iron King" (Eisenkönig in German) - was also a nod to his family's history. Zishe, it appears, always remembered where he came from.

Poster depicting Breitbart, printed by Adolph Friedlander, Hamburg, 1924–1925. Here he is shown balancing a platform of motorcyclists on his stomach. (© 2006 Gary Bart, The Siegmund Breitbart Archive)

According to scholar Sharon Gillerman, "While most middle-class Central European Jews recoiled from sensationalist public spectacles, Breitbart’s most devoted fans were among the Yiddish-speaking Jews of Eastern Europe, for whom he was a genuine folk hero. In his bulk and brawn, many East European Jews saw a potent response to ever-growing threats of antisemitic attacks. A popular Yiddish saying maintained, “If a thousand Breitbarts were to arise among the Jews, the Jewish people would cease being persecuted.” [...] His embodiment of qualities associated with the German racial ideal—namely strength, beauty, and courage—appeared to give hope to his coreligionists that Jews, too, might look to a future of national empowerment, breaking their own chains of oppression through physical strength and the cultivation of heroic manly virtues."

Zishe dreamed and believed that he was the Modern Samson. As president of the Maccabi Berlin Sports Federation, Zishe symbolized a Jewish renaissance. He never hid his Jewish identity or his Zionism. Some claim he visited Palestine, but there are no records of such a trip. The rumors probably testify more to the breadth of his popularity, extending even as far as the Middle East. He also wrote a book called "Muscle Power" in 1924, and he began a mail order catalogue that same year, which taught his bodybuilding regimen.

Zishe pulling a wagon by his teeth, November 1923. National Photo Company; restored by Michel Vuijlsteke

It all ended quite tragically. In 1925, Zishe had an accident performing an act he has done many times before: He was stabbed in the knee by a spike he drove through five 1-inch-thick (25 mm) oak boards using only his bare hands. The wound became infected, which led to fatal blood poisoning. Although he endured ten operations in which both legs were amputated, the infection was too severe. Eight weeks after his injury, in October 1925, Zishe died and was buried in the Adass-Yisroel cemetery in Berlin. He was only 42 years old.

Yiddish postcard from 1925 depicting the end of Zishe's life. Bottom right reads: "The tragedy while hammering inward", and in the center: "Zishe Breitbart's last moments".

Following his death, Zishe's brother Gershon carried on his act in Europe and Palestine. The Polish Jews who had been most receptive to Zishe’s message of Jewish empowerment continued to recount stories and sang songs to their children about the Jewish strongman, although unfortunately much of this oral tradition was lost following the destruction of Polish Jewry at the hands of the Nazis.

His legacy lives on: Zishe was played by Finnish strongman Jouko Ahola in a highly fictionalized account of his life in Werner Herzog's 2001 film Invincible; he was also the inspiration for the children's book Zishe the Strongman by Robert Rubenstein, from Kar-Ben Publishing.
Some even credit Zishe, who was billed during his 1923 American tour as "the Superman of the Ages," with inspiring the Jewish writers Joe Siegel and Jerry Shuster to create the iconic superhero Superman.

​Biography:
*Gillerman, Sharon. "Breitbart, Zishe." YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. (29 July 2010). Sep. 2018.
*Portnoy, Edward. "Entertainers." YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (5 August 2010). 17 May 2020.
*Meyer, Daniel. "Siegmund "Zishe" Breitbart - Strongman." J-Grit: The Internet Index of Tough Jews. Sep.  2018
​*Oneg Shabbat
*Israeli National Library

For further reading:
*Sharon Gillerman, “Samson in Vienna: The Theatrics of Jewish Masculinity,” Jewish Social Studies 9.2 (Winter 2003): 65–98
*Gisela Winkler and Dietmar Winkler, Allez hopp durch die Welt: Aus dem Leben berühmter Akrobaten (Berlin, 1977).