BERNSTEIN, SIMON

BERNSTEIN, SIMON (1884–1962), journalist and Hebrew scholar. Bernstein was born in Latvia. From 1908 to 1911 he was Hebrew secretary of the Society for Spreading Enlightenment Among the Jews of Russia. In 1912 he joined the staff of the World Zionist Organization, being attached to the head office in Berlin until 1915, to the Copenhagen Bureau 1915–20, and to the London office 1921–22. In 1922 he settled in the United States, becoming editor of Dos Yiddishe Folk, organ of the Zionist Organization of America. He held this post until 1953. Bernstein was a prolific writer. Apart from his newspaper articles and Zionist pamphlets, he devoted himself to scholarly research, especially in the field of Hebrew poetry. He brought to light unpublished piyyutim of Spanish, Italian, and Byzantine poets; altogether he published over 3,000 such poems. Bernstein's major books are Be-Ḥazon ha-Dorot (1928), a volume of Hebrew essays; editions of Divan Rav Immanuel ben David Frances (1932); Divan Yehudah Aryeh mi-Modena (1932); Shirei Yehudah ha-Levi (1944), selected liturgical and secular poems; Divan Shelomo Da Piera (1942); Al Naharot Sefarad (1956), lamentations in the Sephardi rite on the destruction of Jerusalem and other calamities; and Shirei ha-Kodesh (1957), the collected liturgical poetry of Moses ibn Ezra.

bibliography:

J. Modlinger, Simon Bernstein (1949); M. Glenn, in: Or ha-Mizraḥ, 11 (April 1963), 40–42; A. Ben Ezra, ibid., 43–44; M. Schmelzer, in: Hadoar, 42 (1963), 195.