Aaron Bernstein

Aaron David Bernstein (6 April 1812 – 12 February 1884) was a German Jewish author, reformer and scientist.

Biography

Aaron David Bernstein was born into a Jewish family in Danzig in 1812. He went to Berlin at the age of twenty, where, without any formal education, he immersed himself in the German language and literature. He soon began to write on a wide range of topics. For some years, he worked as an antiquarian book dealer in that city, but his literary pursuits absorbed most of his attention; eventually, he embraced writing as his full-time profession.

Among Bernstein's earliest publications were a translation of the Song of Songs—with critical notes and a bibliographical preface by Leopold Zunz—and Das junge Deutschland ('Young Germany'), which established his reputation as a writer among the literary critics of Berlin.

In the mid-19th century Bernstein took an active role in the movement for synagogue reform in Germany. He was the principal contributor to Wilhelm Freund's monthly periodical, Zur Judenfrage, published in Berlin from July 1843 to June 1844. On March 10, 1845, he was appointed to a committee tasked with formulating a plan for a "line of progress" in Jewish religious affairs. He was entrusted with the task of editing and refining the committee's Entwurf, and was one of the principal authors of the Aufruf that called for the establishment of a religious Reform movement among German Jews, published in Berlin newspapers in early April 1845. He co-authored the prayer book for the newly-organized Reform congregation in Berlin and, although he declined to assume the role of rabbi, he frequently conducted religious services in that capacity until a permanent rabbi was appointed. He was also the editor of the monthly periodical Reform-Zeitung: Organ für den Fortschritt im Judenthum, which appeared in Berlin in 1847.