Post card written in Yiddish, showing Zishe Breitbart at his last performance; 1925. x
Siegmund Breitbart, also known popularly as Zishe, was an Ashkenazi Jewish circus performer who was born in Poland and known as the "Strongest Man in the World" during the 1920s. He performed extensively in Europe and America and toured with the Circus Busch. As a performer, Breitbart’s acts included pulling a wagon-load of people with his teeth, bending iron bars around his arm in floral patterns, biting through iron chains, breaking horseshoes in half, supporting enormous weights, such as automobiles loaded with up to ten passengers, while lying on his back. Zishe also performed the Tomb of Hercules feat in which a bridge was built across his chest and heavy beasts such as bulls or elephants were paraded over him. But Breitbart even took it a step further; he supported a motordrome on his chest while two men chased each other on motorcycles inside. Breitbart passed away eight weeks after he accidentally hurt himself during a strongman demonstration in Germany in 1925. He was buried in the Adass-Jisroel cemetery in Berlin.
