Isaac Bernays

Isaac Bernays (/bərˈneɪz/; German: [bɛɐ̯ˈnaɪs]; 29 September 1792, Weisenau – 1 May 1849, Hamburg) was chief rabbi in Hamburg.

Bernays was born in Weisenau (now part of Mainz). 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, in which city he had been also a disciple of the Talmudist Rabbi Abraham Bing, he went to Munich 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, and wished to be called "clerical functionary" or "Chakam," as the usual titles, "moreh Tzedek" or "rabbi" were commonly employed by leaders of the Reform Movement, and as such were negated.

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, and was buried in the Grindel cemetery.

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