Background
An apostate from Judaism, Bernard was born Hirsch Ber Hurwitz and hailed from Uman, Ukraine.
An apostate from Judaism, Bernard was born Hirsch Ber Hurwitz and hailed from Uman, Ukraine.
He died on 15 November 1857, aged 72. He is purported to have played chess with and read German stories before Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. In his "Biographical Notices of Some of the Most Distinguished Jewish Rabbies (sic) and Translations of Portions of Their Commentaries, and Other " (New York: Stanford and Swords, 1847), Samuel H. Turner, professor of Biblical Learning and Interpretation of Scripture at the General Theological Seminary, commends the pedagogic quality of Bernard"s work, writing: "The student will find this work very useful in facilitating the acquisition of Rabbinical Hebrew".