Zishe Breitbart

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Zishe (Siegmund) Breitbart (1893 - 1925) was a Polish-born circus performer, vaudeville strongman and Jewish folk hero. He was known as the "Strongest Man in the World" during the 1920s and was born into an Orthodox Jewish family of blacksmiths in Lodz.

For a brief period preceding the Holocaust and at a time of presumed weakness, the Jews had a strongman as a hero who was the idol of worshiping children, who defended his people, and wanted them to be strong. Facing continuing challenges from other strongmen and relentless anti-Semites who at every turn were determined to defame him, and thereby his people, only made his astonishing feats more sensational, especially in prewar Germany. As the dark cloud was gathering strength for its final unleashing, one man stood alone to symbolize the strength, determination and perseverance of the Jews. He became a legend and took on the proportions of a national hero in Europe and America, only to die tragically and ironically at the age of 32. In a demonstration in which he drove a spike through five one inch thick oak boards using only his bare hands, his knee was accidentally pierced. The spike was rusted and caused an infection which led to fatal blood poisoning.

In an era of sensationalism his wonders of strength and his sense of mission symbolized the proof that Jews were a strong and heroic people. His fiery self-confidence and haunting little speeches stirred the increasingly downtrodden Jewish masses to the depths of their hearts. He was the most visible challenge and lonesome defender against a growing tidal wave of antisemitism that was later to wipe out all traces of him and his people. "For a brief time we had a hero!"

His life was fictionalized in the 2001 Werner Herzog film Invincible.