BIKERMAN (Bickermann), JOSEPH

BIKERMAN (Bickermann), JOSEPH (1867–1941), journalist active in Jewish political life. Born in Okny, Podolia, Bikerman graduated in philology at Odessa University in 1903. In an article written in 1902 in the monthly Russkoye Bogatstvo, he strongly opposed Zionism, and called upon Jews to join with progressive elements in Russia to help in the country's rebirth. His article aroused a controversy in which V. Jabotinsky and B. Borochov took part. He contributed to the democratic journal Yevreyskiy Mir, and wrote studies in Russian on the Pale of Settlement (Cherta yevreyskoy oszedlosti, 1911) and on Jews in the grain trade (Rol yevreyev v russkoy khlebnoy torgovle, 1912). After the Bolshevik revolution, Bikerman settled in Berlin. He was one of the founders of the short-lived "Patriotic Union of Russian Jews Abroad," which supported the ideal of the restoration of the Russian monarchy. His views on Jewish political problems are summarized in his Russian pamphlet on the self-knowledge of the Jew (K samopoznaniyu yevreya, 1939). He was the father of the historian elias j. bickerman and the scientist jacob j. bikerman . -BIBLIOGRAPHY: B. Dinur, Bi-Ymei Milḥamah u-Mahpekhah (1960), 66–68; J. Frumkin (ed.), Russian Jewry (1966), index. BIKKUREI HA-ITTIM BIKKUREI HA-ITTIM (Heb. בִּכּוּרֵי הָעִתִּים; "First Fruits of the Times"), Hebrew literary-scientific annuals, published in Vienna for 12 successive years (1821–32), and a central forum for haskalah literature. The editor of the first three volumes, shalom b. jacob cohen , sought to continue in this publication the tradition of Ha-Me'assef, the journal which initiated Hebrew periodical publications in the Haskalah period. (He had previously published and edited the last three volumes of Ha-Me'assef he-Ḥadash.) The first volumes also contained a German section (transcribed in Hebrew letters), which was later discontinued. The editors following Cohen were: moses landau (vols. 4–5), Solomon Pergamenter (vol. 6), Issachar Baer Schlesinger (vols. 7–8), isaac samuel reggio (vols. 9–10), and judah loeb jeiteles (vols. 11–12). All the various literary genres were represented in these volumes – e.g., fiction, research, as well as translations of world literature (but mainly from German) – and were contributed by writers from Italy, Bohemia, Austria, Galicia, and Hungary. Reprints of a selection of works from Ha-Me'assef were also included. The standard improved in the last volumes, especially with S.J. Rapoport 's publication of his biographical monographs on geonic medieval Jewish scholars and authors. Other contributors included S.D. Luzzatto and isaac erter . With the discontinuation   of these annuals, M.E. Stern attempted in 1844 to publish Bikkurei ha-Ittim, and Reggio together with isidore bush , Bikkurei ha-Ittim ha-Ḥadashim in 1845. While these attempts were unsuccessful, another annual, Kokhevei Yiẓḥak, did succeed. Its publication began in 1845 in Vienna, under the editorship of M.E. Stern, and lasted until 1873. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: B. Wachstein, Die hebraeische Publizistik in Wien (1930), xiii–xl (introduction); R. Fahn, Kitvei Re'uven Fahn, 2 (1937), 100–41 (Pirkei Haskalah). (Getzel Kressel)