JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

ecame both a city councillor and an honorary Justice of the
Peace. He was a director of the Odessa Talmud Torah.
BERNSTEIN, ORI (1936– ), Israeli poet. Bernstein, who
was born in Tel Aviv, studied law at the Hebrew University,
serving as an attorney in the army and later in the private sector.
For 23 years he acted as managing director of one of Israel’s
largest corporations. His first poems, Be-Oto ha-Ḥeder,
be-Oto ha-Or (“Same Room, Same Light”) appeared in 1962,
followed by a dozen collections of poems, three books for
children, and a volume of essays on poetry entitled Isuk bein
Ḥaverim (“Among Friends,” 1998). While his early poetry is
influenced by N. Alterman and N. Zach, Bernstein later developed
his own, very intimate style, contemplating the dialectics
of life and death, the yearning for love and friendship
and, on the other hand, loneliness and bereavement. Im Mavet
(“With Death,” 1982) deals with the death of his mother, the
sequel Ẓafonah le-Tamid (1987) with the death of his father. A
selection of Bernstein’s poems was published under the title
Shirim 1962–2002 (2004). Bernstein’s only novel, Safek Ḥayyim
(“A Dubious Life,” 2002), is an autobiographical account in
the tradition of Proust: The recollection of experiences from
childhood and adolescence, hours of friendship and love, is
interwoven with literary echoes. Bernstein is a professor at the
Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, where he teaches poetry
and the theory of writing. He also translates English, Italian,
and French poetry into Hebrew.
Bibliography: Z. Luz, Shirat Ori Bernstein (2000); Y. Oppenheimer,
in: Haaretz (Dec. 20, 2002); N. Calderon, in: Maariv
(May 25, 2004); Z. Shamir, “Siḥot im Erev,” in: Itton 77, 64 (1985),
13; Y. Bachur, “Meshorer Ḥushani, Neziri u-Mufnam,” in: Moznayim
60:4 (1986), 55–57; Y. Mazor, “Kifninim Mitpazrot be-Zerem Iti,” in:
Moznayim 73:8 (1999) 17–20. Website: www.ithl.org.il
[Anat Feinberg (2nd ed.)]
BERNSTEIN, OSIP SAMOILOVICH (1882–1961), Russian-
French chess master, born in Zhitomir. Bernstein placed second
to Tchigorin in the Russian championship (Kiev, 1903)
and tied with Akiva *Rubinstein for first place in a tournament
at Ostend, Belgium (1907). He settled in France after
1916 and shared a first prize with Miguel *Najdorf, at Montevideo,
Uruguay, when 72.
BERNSTEIN, PEREZ (Fritz; 1890–1971), Zionist leader,
publicist, and Israel politician. Bernstein, who was born in
Meiningen, Germany, studied commerce. In his youth he went
to Rotterdam, Holland, where he entered business. In 1917 he
joined the Dutch Zionist organization, and soon attained a
prominent position. He later served as secretary of the Dutch
Zionist Federation and as its president for four years. From
1930 to 1935 he was chief editor of the Dutch Zionist weekly,
in which he fought for “unconditional Zionism,” both in relations
with non-Jews and in debate with the socialist and the
religious Zionists. In his major work Der Anti-semitismus als
Gruppenerscheinung (1926; Jew-Hate as a Sociological Problem,
bernstein, philip sidney
1951) he tried to prove that antisemitism is a sociological phenomenon
which cannot be eliminated by better knowledge,
by persuasion, or by education. He also rejected the theory
that the Jews in the Diaspora have negative traits which encourage
antisemitism. Another of his books is: Over Joodsche
Problematiek (1935). In 1936 Bernstein settled in Palestine and
became editor of the General Zionist newspaper Ha-Boker.
From 1941 he was chairman of the Union of *General Zionists
which, in 1946, elected him a member of the Jewish Agency,
where he was responsible for commerce and industry. Bernstein
was a member of the Knesset from its inception until
1965, and minister of commerce and industry in 1948–49 and
from 1952 to 1955. When the Liberal Party was established
he was elected one of its two presidents. Following the party
split in 1964, he became honorary president of the larger faction
which retained the name of the Liberal Party. Bernstein
continued his journalistic activities during his political career.
He often opposed the left wing in his articles and advocated
a business-oriented policy.
Bibliography: Y. Nedava (ed.), Sefer Pereẓ Bernstein: Mivḥar
Ma’amarim u-Massot (1962); D. Lazar, Rashim be-Yisrael, 1 (1953),
62–66; Tidhar, 3 (19582), 1395.
[Jozeph Michman (Melkman)]
BERNSTEIN, PHILIP SIDNEY (1901–1985), U.S. rabbi.
Bern stein was born in Rochester, N.Y., and was ordained in the
first graduating class of the Jewish Institute of Religion (1926).
He served as rabbi of Rochester’s Congregation B’rith Kodesh
for half a century. Bernstein was a committed pacifist until the
German invasion of Poland, which forced him to rethink his
views. During World War II he was executive director of the
committee on army and navy religious activities of the Jewish
Welfare Board, a position he held until 1946. He was responsible
for supervising the 300 rabbis of all denominations
serving in the U.S. Armed forces. His service propelled him
into national Jewish life. He served as a member of the Zionist
Emergency Council and helped form the American Christian
Palestine Committee. In 1946 he returned to his congregation
in Rochester, only to leave again when he was appointed by
President Truman as Jewish adviser to U.S. Army commanders
in Europe (1946–47), where he played a significant role
at the time in alleviating the conditions of Holocaust survivors
and making conditions in the Displaced Persons camps
less deplorable. In his non-military role, he assisted in moving
Jews from Russian-occupied Poland to American-occupied
Germany, working directly with *Beriḥah. In 1947 he
returned to Rochester once again. He was president of the
Central Conference of American Rabbis (1950–52). He was
chairman (1954–68), and subsequently honorary chairman,
of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, then in its
formative years. He was the author of What the Jews Believe
(1951), which grew out of a series of articles published in Life
Magazine. He also wrote Rabbis at War (1971), an account
of his war years and the service of his colleagues to 600,000
American Jews who served in World War II.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 483