JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

Deadlines (1961), Watch That Word (1962), More Language That
Needs Watching (1962), The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide
to English Usage (1965), Bernstein’s Reverse Dictionary (1975),
and Dos, Don’ts & Maybes of English Usage (1977).
BERNSTEIN, THERESA (1890–2002), U.S. artist. Born in
Philadelphia to cultured immigrant parents, Bernstein showed
an interest in art as a child. She took some classes at the Pennsylvania
Academy of Fine Arts and earned a degree at the
Philadelphia School of Design for Women. By 1912 she was
living in New York City, where she briefly studied at the Art
Students League with William Merritt Chase. In these early
years she painted in an Ashcan style, influenced by John Sloan
and other artists of the period who depicted the everyday life
of the city in dark tones. New York Street (1912) and Waiting
Room: Employment Office (1917) exemplify Bernstein’s realist
tendency of this period. She had her first solo exhibition at
the Milch Gallery in New York City in 1919, the same year that
she married the artist William Meyerowitz.
An expressionist technique pervades Bernstein’s work in
the 1920s and 1930s, during which time she added jazz musicians
to her large repertoire, a subject naturally in accord with
her new style and her lifelong love of music. Beginning in the
1920s, she spent summers in Gloucester with her husband.
These vacations produced paintings of beaches, harbors, and
fish. In the 1930s she continued painting a wide range of subjects,
including portraits, still lifes, and beach scenes. Under
the auspices of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal
Art Project, Bernstein created a mural, The First Orchestra in
Americas (1938), for the Manheim, Pennsylvania Treasury Department.
While many artists in the 1930s joined the Communist
Party, Bernstein’s political consciousness centered around
Zionism. Although Zionist Meeting, New York (1923) comes
from an earlier period, the subject matter indicates her political
sympathies.
Bernstein’s Jewish identity was reinforced by her husband,
the son of a cantor. Prayer (1938), Bernstein’s most obviously
religious canvas, shows the energy of the worshippers through
a gestural brushstroke. After the establishment of the State of
Israel, Bernstein and Meyerowitz visited there 13 times during
a 30-year period. In her 1991 autobiography Bernstein devotes
a full chapter to her experiences in Israel and her attraction to
the land, of which she painted several canvases. She also published
a journal dedicated to her Israeli trips in 1994.
Bibliography: T. Bernstein, Theresa Bernstein (1985); P.M.
Burnham, “Theresa Bernstein,” in: Woman’s Art Journal, 9:2 (1989),
22–27; T.B. Meyerowitz, The Journal (1991); T.B. Meyerowitz, Israeli
Journal (1994).
[Samantha Baskind (2nd ed.)]
BERNSTEIN, ZALMAN CHAIM (1927–1999), U.S. businessman
and philanthropist. Zalman Bernstein, or, as he was
known for most of his 72 years, Sanford C. Bernstein, was born
in New York City to middle class parents. He enlisted at 18 in
the Navy, seeing service in World War II. After graduating
bernstein, zvi hirsch
from New York University where he majored in economics,
he was accepted by Harvard Business School and earned his
M.B.A. He then spent three years in France, working with the
Marshall Plan, becoming fluent in French, and marrying the
first of his three wives. Upon returning to the United States,
he worked at several security firms and in 1967 launched Sanford
C. Bernstein & Co. by placing full-paged advertisements
in major newspapers containing a single word in bold type,
“Bernstein.” Investors were attracted by a reputation for integrity,
reliance on careful research, prudent risk-taking and successful
results. Though strongly opinionated, he tolerated and
even welcomed and respected contrary views. At his death, his
company was a respected name on Wall Street, managing more
than $80 billion for 25,000 private and institutional clients.
The turning point in Bernstein’s Jewish life came with
the passing of his father in 1977. Though then scarcely able
to read Hebrew, he was determined to say kaddish, which
led him to Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan and Rabbi
Shlomo Riskin, who was a major influence in his Jewish development.
In 1984, collaborating with two friends more knowledgeable
about Jewish life, he established the Avi Chai Foundation
which became the prime focus of his philanthropy.
In his lifetime, he contributed hundreds of millions of dollars
to the foundation as well as Jewish causes in Israel and
the United States. Avi Chai’s mission was predicated on the
teachings of Rabbi Abraham I. Kook, which Bernstein understood
superficially, yet with a sincerity that ran deep. The
Kookian principles that he embraced are an encompassing
attachment to the land of Israel, recognition of the Covenant
between God and Abraham as an eternal legacy of the Jewish
people, and a commitment to Judaism’s religious heritage
that includes mutual understanding and sensitivity among
Jews of different religious backgrounds and commitments
to observance.
Originally functioning in North America, by the early
1990s Avi Chai expanded into Israel where Bernstein in his
later years became a citizen and made his home. In Israel, he
developed other notable philanthropic initiatives. In North
America, day school education has been the major beneficiary
of Avi Chai support. Projects have included widespread innovations
in Hebrew language instruction and Judaica curriculum
as well as a program, unmatched in scope, to encourage
new day school construction through interest-free loans. In
Israel, the goal of promoting mutual understanding has been
manifested by a network of programs known as Tzav Pius.
He died in 1999 and left nearly his entire substantial estate
to charity. Bernstein provided instructions that he not
be eulogized and that no facility or project be named in his
memory. He arranged in his life, with characteristic determination,
to be buried in Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives, near
the grave of Rabbi Kook.
[Marvin Schick (2nd ed.)]
BERNSTEIN, ZVI HIRSCH (1846–1907), publisher, editor,
and pioneer of the Yiddish and Hebrew press in the United
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 485