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ernard, Ḥayyim david
tions and manuscript reliquiae are listed by A. Wood (Athenae
Oxonienses, ed. by P. Bliss, 4 (London, 1813–20), 703),
and a printed auction-catalog of his library survives in the
British Museum.
Add. Bibliography: ODNB online.
[Raphael Loewe]
BERNARD, ḤAYYIM DAVID (1782–1858), Polish physician
and ḥasidic leader. Born in Dzialoszyce, near Piotrkow,
Bernard is reputed to have been the son of the poet and physician
Issachar Falkensohn *Behr. At the age of 14 Bernard
arrived in Berlin and later qualified as a physician in Erfurt.
The liberal policies of King Frederick William II enabled him
to become court physician at Potsdam and a medical officer
in the Prussian Army – a considerable achievement for a Jew.
After Napoleon’s conquest of Poland, Bernard was appointed
medical inspector for the western regions of the Grand Duchy
of Warsaw (1807–15). A typical product of the German-Jewish
Enlightenment, he at first remained aloof from Polish Jewry,
but a spiritual crisis led him to approach R. David of *Lelov,
who introduced him to R. *Jacob Isaac ha-Ḥozeh mi-Lublin,
the Seer of Lublin. Bernard, known thereafter as R. Ḥayyim
David, became a strictly Orthodox Jew and a follower of the
Seer. He grew a beard, although he retained western dress, and
never mastered Yiddish. As the Warsaw Jewish archives have
shown, he was a leading communal figure and later worked in
collaboration with R. *Simḥah Bunem of Przysucha. Among
the Jews and Christians whom he treated, Bernard was venerated
as a saint and he spent the rest of his life in Piotrkow,
both as head of the local hospital and as a “wonder-working”
Ḥasid. Although his wife opposed the Seer’s wish to designate
her husband as his successor, Bernard was widely regarded as
the Seer’s spiritual heir and for decades after the physician’s
death his grave was a center of ḥasidic pilgrimage.
Bibliography: Maḥanayim, no. 123 (1969), 174–8.
BERNARD, JESSIE (1903–1996), U.S. sociologist and feminist.
Born Jessie Sarah Ravitch in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the
daughter of Jewish-Romanian immigrants, Bernard received
B.A. (1923) and M.A. (1924) degrees from the University of
Minnesota. Her M.A. thesis was entitled “Changes of Attitudes
of Jews in the First and Second Generation.” In 1935 Bernard
earned a Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis. In
some of her work Bernard collaborated with her husband, Luther
Lee Bernard, a professor of sociology whom she had met
at the University of Minnesota. Bernard spent many years on
the faculties of Washington University and Pennsylvania State
University. In her early career she researched issues relating to
Jewish life. Later, her concerns focused on the family, sexuality,
and gender. In her sixties Bernard became an ardent advocate
of feminism; she was an influential figure who was regarded
as a role model for younger women. She served as president
of the Eastern Sociological Association and president of the
Society for the Study of Social Problems; in retirement Ber-
nard was a visiting professor at Princeton University. Among
awards established in her name are the Jessie Bernard Wise
Women Award of The Center for Women’s Policy Studies and
The American Sociological Association’s Jessie Bernard Award
for scholarly works dealing with the role of women in society,
presented at the group’s annual meeting. Among Bernard’s
publications are Academic Women (1964); The Future of Marriage
(1972); The Future of Motherhood (1975); and The Female
World (1981). Bernard’s books were often best sellers and frequently
controversial. The Future of Marriage, for example,
concluded that, while men thrived emotionally in marriage,
women were oppressed.
Bibliography: R.C. Bannister, Jessie Bernard: The Making
of a Feminist (1991); M.J. Deegan, “Jessie Bernard,” in: Women in Sociology:
A Bio-bibliography Sourcebook (1991); Obituary, New York
Times (Oct. 11, 1996).
[Libby White (2nd ed.)]
BERNARD, TRISTAN (1866–1947), French playwright and
novelist. Born in Besançon, Bernard began his career as a
sports writer, but soon turned to the theater, where he was able
to exercise his talent for comedy, good-humored satire, and
witty observation of the man in the street. His bons mots were
so famous that for three decades he was credited with many
of the jokes current in France. Bernard wrote several novels,
notably Mémoires d’un jeune homme rangé (1899), Amants et
voleurs (1905), and Mathilde et ses mitaines (1912). He is best remembered,
however, as the author of such hilarious comedies
as Les pieds nickelés (1895), L’anglais tel qu’on le parle (1899),
Le petit café (1911), Le prince charmant (1923), Jules, Juliette,
et Julien (1929), Le sauvage (1931), and Que le monde est petit
(1935). Tristan Bernard combined the wit of the French with
the bitter humor of the Jew. Le Juif de Venise (1936) attempts
to reinterpret the character of Shakespeare’s Shylock. He was
arrested by the Nazis during World War II but was released,
following the intervention of influential friends. His son,
JEAN-JACQUES BERNARD (1888–1972), also wrote a number
of popular plays including Martine (1922) and L’invitation au
voyage (1924). Though a convert to Catholicism, he was imprisoned
at Compiègne for part of the Nazi occupation. His
war experiences were recorded in Le camp de la mort lente
(1945) and are reflected in the story, L’Intouchable (1947).
Bibliography: R. Blum, Tristan Bernard (Fr., 1925); P.
Blanchart, Masques, 11 (1928); idem, Tristan Bernard, son oeuvre
(1932); J.J. Bernard, Mon père, Tristan Bernard (1955).
[Moshe Catane]
BERNARDI, HERSCHEL (1924–1986), U.S. actor. Born in
New York City, Bernardi was the product of a long-established
family of Yiddish performers. On stage from childhood, he
made his first on-camera appearances in 1939 in the Yiddishlanguage
films Green Fields and The Singing Blacksmith. Bernardi
toured in a one-man program of Shalom Aleichem stories
and performed in The World of Sholom Aleichem, 1954.
Along with many fellow entertainers, he was blacklisted by
468 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3