Joseph Berger

Background

Joseph Berger was born on January 17, 1945, in Lysva, Perm Krai, Russian Federation. He is a son of Marcus Berger.

Education

Joseph Berger's parents immigrated to the United States in 1950 fleeing from the Nazi persecution. They settled down in New York City.

Growing up, Berger mingled with immigrants of all descriptions. According to him, the move to America was a mixed blessing in his family. Young Joseph and his brother quickly learned to cope in a new world, especially in a neighborhood full of tough kids. For Berger's vocal and outgoing mother, the riches of America served to remind her of the horrors left behind. Scavenging for food in a bombed-out Warsaw, witnessing the death and devastation wrought by Nazi occupation, and fleeing Russia alone while her father and stepmother were ultimately lost in the Holocaust.

Berger was educated at Manhattan Day School before spending a year at Yeshiva University. He pursued his studies at the Bronx High School of Science, and later enrolled at the City College of New York from which he graduated in 1966. He then obtained a Master of Arts degree in journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Career

Joseph Berger taught English from 1967 to 1971. He then joined the staff of the New York Post where he served as a feature writer for the next seven years. In 1978, he became a reporter in Newsday serving in that capacity till 1984 when he was invited to The New York Times. Beginning as a religion correspondent, he then served as a national education correspondent, a deputy education editor, and acting education editor.

The events he has reported on as a journalist include the 1973 Mideast war, Watergate, and Pope John Paul II's trip across America. He retired from the newspaper in 2014.

As an author, Berger has written four books. Displaced Persons: Growing up American after the Holocaust recounts the family's arrival in a furnished apartment on New York's Upper West Side, and the struggles of his parents to assimilate into a land that was decidedly different from the one they had fled.

In The Young Scientists: America's Future and the Winning of the Westinghouse, Berger parlays his background as an education reporter to examine the study of science in the United States against the background of the prestigious Westinghouse Science Talent Search, a competition for science students held annually since 1941.

The World in a City: Traveling the Globe Through the Neighborhoods of the New New York is based on the articles on New York's ethnic culture he penned since 2004.

The latest publication of Berger, The Pious Ones, was issued in 2014.

Achievements

• Joseph Berger is an accomplished journalist who has contributed to the development of The New York Times serving its reporter and editor for about thirty years.
  
  Berger has been a recipient of the Supple Award from the Religion Newswriters Association (three times). In 2011, he was presented to the Peter Kihss Award from the Society of the Silurians for his reporting work.
  
  Berger's Displaced Persons was named the Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Pious Ones: The World of Hasidim and Their Battles with America

    (The author takes us inside the notoriously insular world ...)

    2014
  • The Young Scientists: America's Future And The Winning Of The Westinghouse

    (The author examines the schools that have won the Westing...)

    1994
  • The World in a City: Traveling the Globe Through the Neighborhoods of the New New York

    (A look at today's polyglot and polychrome, cosmopolitan a...)

    2007
  • Displaced Persons: Growing Up American after the Holocaust

    (Joseph Berger reflects upon his days growing up in Manhat...)

    2001

Religion

Joseph Berger is a member of a Reconstructionist synagogue in Westchester County.

Connections

Joseph Berger is married to a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst named Brenda. The family produced one daughter.

Father:

Marcus Berger

He communicated primarily in Yiddish.

Wife:

Brenda Berger