Arthur Yitzhak Biram (Hebrew: ארתור בירם; August 13, 1878 – June 5, 1967) was a German-born Israeli philosopher, philologist, and educator. He was the founder of the Reali School in Haifa.[1]
Biram was one of the founders of the Bar-Kochba club and a member of the German liberal religious stream 'Ezra', which recognized the importance of high school education. In 1913, he settled in OttomanPalestine.
Biram married Hannah Tomeshevsky, with whom he had two sons. His son Aharon died in an accident while on reserve duty, and Binyamin, an engineer at the Dead Sea Works, was killed by a land mine.
Pedagogic career
Biram founded the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa in 1913 and was appointed its first principal.[3] When World War I broke out, Biram was drafted by the German army and stationed in Afula. In 1919, he returned to school.
As part of Biram's philosophy of education, in 1937 he implemented compulsory Hagam[4] training for girls in the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa, laying the foundation for recruitment of women in the Haganah, and later the Israel Defense Forces.
In 1948, he resigned his post as principal, and on his 75th birthday, he authored a collection of essays on the Bible. Altogether, he wrote about 50 publications in Hebrew, German, English, and Arabic. Biram died in Haifa in 1967.
Socio-Educational Dilemmas: a typology illustrated by the history of Hebrew education in Haifa during the British Mandate, by Yuval Dror, article in the Journal of Educational Administration and History, 1478-7431, Volume 26, Issue 1, 1994, Pages 35 – 54, doi:10.1080/0022062940260104
Encyclopedia of Zionism and Israel, by Raphael Patai, Vol. 1, Herzl Press, 1971