Height 1.57 m Role Olympic athlete | Name Isaac Berger Club York Barbell Club | |
 | ||
Olympic medals Weightlifting at the 1956 Summer Olympics - Men's Featherweight 56-60 kg Similar People Charles Vinci, Yoshinobu Miyake, Sebastiano Mannironi | ||
Isaac Berger Wins 1958 World Weightlifting Championships - Featherweights
Isaac "Ike" Berger (born November 16, 1936) is a retired weightlifter, who competed for the United States at the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Olympics and won one gold and two silver medals. He held eight world records (four official and four unofficial), and won the United States national title eight times.
Berger was born to a rabbi in Jerusalem. He immigrated to the United States when he was in his teens, and became a naturalized American citizen in December 1955.
Berger was the first featherweight in history to lift more than 800 pounds (360 kg), and the first to press double his body weight. He twice won the world championships and the Pan American Games. In his gold medal performance at the 1957 Maccabiah Games, Berger was the first (and only one until 1998) athlete to set a world record on Israeli land in any sport. He pressed 117 kilograms (258 lb).
Berger was named to the United States Weightlifters Hall of Fame in 1965, and the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1980.