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Isaac Bernays ( , , ; 29 September 1792 – 1 May 1849) was
Chief Rabbi Chief Rabbi ( he, רב ראשי ''Rav Rashi'') is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities. Since 1911, through a ...
in
Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...
.


Life

Bernays was born in Weisenau (now part of
Mainz Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-west, with Ma ...
). He was the son of Jacob Gera, a boarding house keeper at Mainz, and an elder brother of Adolphus Bernays. After having finished his studies at the
University of Würzburg The Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg (also referred to as the University of Würzburg, in German ''Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg'') is a public research university in Würzburg, Germany. The University of Würzburg is one of ...
, in which city he had been also a disciple of the Talmudist Rabbi Abraham Bing, he went to
Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...
as private tutor in the house of Herr von Hirsch, and afterward lived at Mainz as a private scholar. In 1821 he was elected chief rabbi of the German-Jewish community in Hamburg, to fill a position where a man of strictly Orthodox views but of modern education was wanted as head of the congregation. After personal negotiations with Lazarus Riesser, who went to see him in Mainz, Bernays accepted the office on characteristic terms; namely, that all the religious and educational institutions of the community were to be placed under his personal direction; he wanted to be responsible to the government only. Besides this he required a fixed salary, independent of incidental revenues. The community assigned to him the title "clerical functionary" or " Ḥakham," as the usual titles, instead of the traditional "moreh tzedek" or "rabbi". In 1822 he began the reform of the Talmud Torah school, where the poorer children of the community had until then been taught Hebrew and arithmetic. He added lessons in German, natural science, geography, and history as important parts of the curriculum, and by 1827 what had formerly been merely a religious class had been changed to a good elementary public school. The council of the community wanted to take a greater part in the supervision of the course of instruction, and in consequence of differences with the Chakam resulting from these claims, they withdrew the subvention of the school in 1830; but through the intervention of the senate of Hamburg this was again granted in 1832, though Bernays was denied the presidential seat he had till then occupied in the council of the school and was made instead "ephorus" of the school. In 1849 he died suddenly of
apoplexy Apoplexy () is rupture of an internal organ and the accompanying symptoms. The term formerly referred to what is now called a stroke. Nowadays, health care professionals do not use the term, but instead specify the anatomic location of the bleedi ...
, and was buried in the Grindel cemetery.


Influence

Bernays possessed wide philosophical views, a rare knowledge of the Bible, ''
Midrash ''Midrash'' (;"midrash"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.
he, מִדְרָשׁ; ...
'', and ''
Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...
'', and an admirable flow of language: he was indeed a born orator. He was the first Orthodox German rabbi who introduced the German sermon into the service, and who tried to interpret the old Jewish feeling in modern form and to preserve the ancestral creed even in cultured circles. His antagonists were therefore to be found in the ranks of the "mainstream" ultra-Orthodoxy as well as among the radical Reformers of the Hamburg Temple, the
Reform Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement ...
synagogue founded in 1818, against whose new prayer-book Bernays had pronounced an anathema in 1841. By lectures on the Psalms, on Judah ha-Levi's
Kuzari The ''Kuzari'', full title ''Book of Refutation and Proof on Behalf of the Despised Religion'' ( ar, كتاب الحجة والدليل في نصرة الدين الذليل: ''Kitâb al-ḥujja wa'l-dalîl fi naṣr al-dîn al-dhalîl''), also k ...
etc., he tried to strengthen and to deepen the religious life of the community, the institutions of which he supervised very carefully. His influence was felt in the Hamburg community, where Jewish traditions and the study of Jewish literature are often found united with modern education. Bernays left no literary works. A small anonymous essay, "Der Bibelsche Orient"—of great linguistic learning and original and wide historical views on Judaism—was supposed to have been written by him in early years; but he denied the authorship, and never in later life showed any conformity with the views of the little book. Bernays' best known pupil was
Samson Raphael Hirsch Samson Raphael Hirsch (; June 20, 1808 – December 31, 1888) was a German Orthodox rabbi best known as the intellectual founder of the ''Torah im Derech Eretz'' school of contemporary Orthodox Judaism. Occasionally termed ''neo-Orthodoxy'', hi ...
, the founder of ''
neo-Orthodoxy In Christianity, Neo-orthodoxy or Neoorthodoxy, also known as theology of crisis and dialectical theology, was a theological movement developed in the aftermath of the First World War. The movement was largely a reaction against doctrines o ...
''.


Family

Of his sons, the philologist
Jacob Bernays Jacob Bernays (11 September 182426 May 1881) was a German philologist and philosophical writer. Life Jacob Bernays was born in Hamburg to Jewish parents. His father, Isaac Bernays (1792–1849) was a man of wide culture and the first orthodox Ger ...
, professor and chief librarian at the University of Bonn, kept faithful to the religious views of his father, while the literary historian
Michael Bernays Michael Bernays (27 November 183425 February 1897) was a German literary historian, and an important Goethe and Shakespeare scholar. Life He was born in Hamburg. His father, Isaac Bernays, died when he was fourteen years old. His adjustments w ...
, who was only fourteen years old on his father's death, was converted to Christianity. One of his sons, Louis Bernays is mentioned in the annals of the Jewish Community of Baden, Switzerland, as one of its ten founders in the year 1859. Bernays' son Berman (1826–1879), who was also faithful to the religious views of his father, raised his daughter
Martha Bernays Martha Bernays ( , ; 26 July 1861 – 2 November 1951) was the wife of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Bernays was the second daughter of Emmeline and Berman Bernays. Her paternal grandfather Isaac Bernays was a Chief Rabbi of Hamburg. Ba ...
(1861–1951) in the Jewish faith, but she later joined her husband
Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...
in his religious antipathy. In her late years, she returned to the Jewish tradition. A grandson of the Freuds was painter Lucian Freud, who married Kathleen Epstein, the natural daughter of sculptor Sir
Jacob Epstein Sir Jacob Epstein (10 November 1880 – 21 August 1959) was an American-British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British subject in 1911. He often produce ...
. A brother of Lucian was Clement Freud, the father of Emma Freud and Matthew Freud.
Edward Bernays Edward Louis Bernays ( , ; November 22, 1891 − March 9, 1995) was an American theorist, considered a pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, and referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations". His best-known ca ...
, one of the founders of modern
public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. ...
, was his great-grandson.


See also

*
Bernays family The Bernays family has its recent origins in the town of Groß-Gerau in the German state of Hesse, where the patriarch of the family, Rabbiner Beer Neustädtel (also known as Baer Lazarus) lived with his family. Two of his sons, Isaac, born in 1742 ...
* Freud family


References

*Haarbleicher, Zwei Epochen aus der Geschichte der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde zu Hamburg, Hamburg, 1867. *T. Goldschmidt, The Talmud Torah School Under the Chacham, Bernays (inedited)


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bernays, Isaac 1792 births 1849 deaths 19th-century German rabbis Rabbis from Mainz People from the Electorate of Mainz University of Würzburg alumni Rabbis from Hamburg Bernays family