Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Bernard Bellush, Historian and Activist, Dies at 94

Bernard Bellush, a labor historian and activist, has died of natural causes at age 94.

Bernard Bellush Image by courtesy of bellush family

Bernard Bellush, who was an editor of the the Forverts’s English supplement and served on the Forward Association’s board, died Friday night at a hospital, his wife, Jewel Bellush, wrote in a message to friends.

Bernard Bellush was raised in the Bronx, attended public schools and graduated from City College in 1941. Although raised as a pacifist, he served in the army during World War II, taking part in the landing on Omaha Beach.

He earned a master’s degree in history at Columbia University, with a thesis on Eugene V. Debs, and a Ph.D., with a dissertation on Franklin D. Roosevelt as governor of New York.

Bellush taught American history at Hunter College and at City College, where he served as first chair of the Faculty Senate. He published several books in American history.

He served as a National Board member of the American Veterans Committee, a national Board member of Americans for Democratic Action, a member of the NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace and Security, and president of the New York Labor History Association.

He frequently lectured on history and baseball, and often appeared together with his wife, Jewel Bellush, also a historian.

He is survived by Jewel Bellush, 87, his wife of 64 years, and their children and grandchildren.

Read Bernard Bellush’s Forward column about fighting in World War II and his column on the protests against the war in Iraq.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.