BERNSTEIN Origin of surname

INBAR

Surnames derive from one of many different origins. Sometimes there may be more than one explanation for the same name.

This family name is derived from inbar, the Hebrew term for “amber”. Inbar could be a Hebraization of the Ashkenazi family names Bernstein and its many spelling variants (literarily “amber”, in German) and Burstyn and its spelling variants (literarily “amber”, in Yiddish).

This name belongs to a group of modern Hebrew surnames adopted in the 20th century by Jewish immigrants or their descendants as part of shaping their new Israeli identity.

Distinguished bearers of the family name Inbar include the Israeli Lt.Col. Ben Zion “Bentz” Inbar (1914-2005), the commander of the Haganah troops that captured Haifa during Israel War of Independence (1948) and whose original family name was Bernstein.

Peretz Fritz Bernstein (1890-1971), Zionist, editor and politician, born in Meiningen, Germany. He engaged in business in Rotterdam from 1915 to 1935. From 1924 to 1930 he was a member of the executive of the Dutch Zionist Federation and from 1930 to 1934 was its president. He also edited the Dutch Zionist weekly. Settling in Erets Israel in 1936, Bernstein was active in the General Zionist party of which he became president. From 1937 to 1946 he edited the daily Ha-Boker and in 1947-48 headed the Zionist Executive's Department of Trade and Industry. A General Zionist (later Liberal) member of the Knesset from its inception until 1965, he served as minister of commerce and industry, 1948-49 and 1952-55.

Bela Bernstein (1868-1944), rabbi and historian, born in Varpalota, Hungary (then part of Austria-Hungary). He studied at the Budapest Rabbinical Seminary and at Leipzig University. He was rabbi in Szombathely from 1892 to 1909 and then in Nyiregyhaza. In 1901 he tried to introduce a uniform religious education in Hungary. Bernstein's writings were on Hungarian Jewish history. In 1944 he was deported by the Nazis to his death in Auschwitz.

Jaime Bernstein (1917-1988), psychologist. He was Professor of Psychology and Educational Psychology at the Universities of Del Littoral and Buenos Aires, Argentina. At the University of Del Littoral he organized Argentine's the first courses in psychology and researched the possible uses of psychometric and educational experimentation. He became a member of the National Academy of Education. He organized the first courses for teachers in the Buenos Aires area in Educational Psychology and Guidance with the aim of improving "class homogenization". Berstein wrote papers on The Building of Psychometric instruments and Conduct Clinics. Similarly, he was responsible for instituting the first Vocational Guidance Department at the University of Buenos Aires.

Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932), German social democratic theoretician politician, founder of evolutionary socialism which challenged orthodox Marxist doctrines, born in Berlin, Germany, the son of a Jewish train driver.

In 1872 he joined the "Eisenachers", a political party with Marxist tendencies. When in 1878 Bismarck's anti-socialist legislation was enacted by the Reichstag he was forced into exile. He went to live in Zurich, Switzerland. Ten years later he moved to London, England, where he met up with Friedrich Engels and other socialist leaders. Between 1880 and 1890 Bernstein was the editor of the socialist journal "Sozialdemokrat", he was one of the authors of the "Erfurt Programme" which foresaw the imminent collapse of capitalism and the need to substitute it by socialist ownership of the means of production. He and his friends, however, believed that this would come about by workers' participation in the political processes, not by revolution.

After the ban on his returning to Germany was lifted, Bernstein went back home in 1901 and was elected to the Reichstag in 1902. He was a member of the German parliament until 1918. He opposed World War I and in 1917 he was one of the founders of the USPD, which united anti-war socialists such as himself, and revolutionary Marxists. In 1919, however, Bernstein rejoined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and again sat in the Reichstag from 1920 to 1928.

His most important work was "Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus" ("The Premises of Socialism"), published in London in1899, in which he pointed that many of Marx's predictions regarding the death of capitalism were not coming true and that the ownership of capital, instead of becoming more and more centralised, was in fact becoming more diffuse. Bernstein was convinced that socialism would be achieved through capitalism as workers gained more and more rights and so the justification for revolution lessened. He also argued that trade protectionism did not help a country overcome its economic difficulties. Inevitably his views were considered heretical by orthodox communists, but many other socialists supported him.

He left the Jewish community because the party disapproved of any religious activity and affiliation. During World War I, however, he came under the influence of the leaders of Po'alei Zion, including Zalman Shazar, and began to understand the special situation of the Jews. In his "Die Aufgaben Der Juden im Weltkrieg" ("The Tasks of the Jews in the World War") he wrote that the Jews, because of their dispersion and universalist views, should become the pioneers of internationalism. In the late 1920s he came to support the idea of a Jewish national home in Palestine.

B. Elvin (born Elvin Bernstein) (b.1927), writer, journalist, literary critic and editor of literary magazines, born in Moinesti, Romania. He attended the Cultura Jewish high school in Bucharest. During the Holocaust he was taken to forced labor. After the war he graduated from the Faculty of Philology of the University of Bucharest. He joined the Romanian Communist Party in 1946, but was expelled from the party in 1953 which led to a period during which he had difficulty finding a new job. His literary activity started in 1944 and continued as a journalist at the literary magazins Contemporanul, Gazeta literară, Luceafărul, and Viaţa românească. In 1948 he published under the pen name Mircea Slavu the novella Armă vicleană (“Cunning Weapon”) and in 1955 he published a critical study of Geo Bogza. Following the suppression of the Hungarian anti-Communist uprising of 1956, he wrote a book on Anatole France that was directed against fanaticism and against intolerance. The book published in 1957, provoked outrage among the ruling Communist leaders, who demanded its removal from the shops. In July 1958 he was fired and forbidden to work in the press. The literary magazine Gazeta literară occasionally published his articles. B.Elvin returned to regular work with the help of Alexandru Mirodan. From 1961 he became literary secretary at the Comedy Theater and at the National Theater in Bucharest.

His books and essays include Anatol France (1957), Modernitatea clasicului I. L. Caragiale (“Modernity of the classic IL Caragiale”, 1967), Teatrul si interogatia tragica, Dialogul neintrerupt al teatrului in secolul XX (“Theater and tragic interrogation, the uninterrupted dialogue of theater in the twentieth century”, 1973), and seven novels, including In continuare (“Next”, 1982), Patru si un absent (“Four and One Absent”, 1988), Numaratoarea inversa (“Reverse Counting”, 1997). He was an editor at the Tineretului Publishing House. E.S.P.L.A., and Viata Romaneasca. He was accredited for life as member of the Jury of Dramatic Chroniclers in Berlin.

B.Elvin is the nephew of Mordechai (Motel) Bernstein (1862-1934), one of the founders of the town of Rosh Pina in Israel.

Mordechai (Motel) Bernstein (1862-1934), farmer, Zionist, one of the founders of Rosh Pina colony and a judge, born in Moinesti, Romania. He studied in a heder and later in a yeshiva and was a great scholar of the Torah. He joined Hibbat Zion movement and the Tzeirei Zion organization, which was founded by his future brother-in-law, David Shub. Bernstein was instrumental in organizing the emigration movement of Romanian Jews to the Land of Israel. In 1882 he immigrated with his wife Ada (Eka) Bernstein and their children to the Land of Israel and was one of the founders of Rosh Pina colony in the Upper Galillee. His home became a gathering place, discussions and decision-making of the inhabitants of the colony and during many years he was a member of the Colony Committee and for some time acted as its chairman. Bernstein was the first hazzan (cantor) in Rosh Pina and since he was known as a talmid hacham, many asked for his advice on issues of halakhah. He was among the founders of the first Hebrew Magistrate's Court in Israel and served as a judge in Rosh Pina during the British Mandate period.

Brody

A town in Lvov district, Ukraine.

Brody was in Poland until 1772; in Austria, 1772-1919; and in Poland, 1919-39. After WW2 it was annexed by the Soviet Union and since 1991 is part of Ukraine. 

An organized Jewish community existed in Brody by the end of the 16th century. In 1648 approximately 400 Jewish families are recorded. The Jewish quarter was destroyed by fire in 1696. Subsequently the overlords of Brody, the Sobieskis, granted the Jews a charter (1699) permitting them to reside in all parts of the town, to engage in all branches of commerce and crafts, and to distill beer, brandy, and mead in return for an annual payment; the communal buildings, including the hospital and the homes of the rabbi and cantor, were exempted from the house tax. The Jews gradually replaced the Armenian commercial element in Brody until by the middle of the 18th century trade was concentrated in Jewish hands. The Jewish artisans in Brody - cordmakers, weavers, and metal-smiths - achieved a wide reputation and exported their products. The Potockis, who subsequently controlled Brody, continued to support the Jews; in 1742 they compelled merchants living on their other estates to attend the Brody fairs.

In 1664 the Jewish community of Brody joined with the communities in Zholkva and Buchach to attain independence from the communal jurisdiction of Lvov, which had extended its authority over the outlying communities. At the session of the provincial Council of Russia held at the time, Brody obtained two seats out of seven, and in 1740 the Brody delegate, Dov Babad, was elected parnas (administrator of a Jewish community) of the provincial council. For generations a few powerful families controlled the Brody community, among them the Babad, Shatzkes, Perles, Rapaport, Brociner, Bick, Chajes, Rabinowicz, and Bernstein families.

In 1742 the Bishop of Lutsk challenged the Brody Jews to a public religious disputation in the synagogue. As he refused to recognize the rights of the representatives of the congregation, the physician Abraham Uziel and the dayyan Joshua Laszczower, to participate in the debate, the community leaders invited the surrounding settlements to choose alternative disputants. When the group assembled in Brody, however, it was disbanded by Count Potocki, who arrested several of the Brody communal leaders.

The community in Brody vigorously opposed the Frankist movement, which found supporters in the area in the middle of the 18th century. Brody was the meeting place of the assembly which excommunicated the Frankists in 1756. A rabbinical assembly convening in Brody in 1772 excommunicated the followers of chasidism, and chasidic works were burned there. In these struggles the circle formed by the Brody Klaus joined the Talmudic scholars and mystics as protagonists of orthodoxy.

During the 1768-72 wars in Poland, the Jews of Brody were ordered to provision the armies passing through the town.

The Jewish economic position deteriorated considerably as a result, and to save the community from ruin the overlords of the town granted it a loan. After the annexation of Galicia including Brody by Austria in 1772, the lot of the Jewish merchants improved. They were exempted from payment of customs dues on all merchandise in transit through the empire. The guilds of Jewish innkeepers, bakers, and flour dealers, were supported by the central authorities in Vienna, in compelling the lord of the town to reduce the taxes. Brody had the status of a free city between 1779 and 1880. After 1880 many Jewish wholesale merchants living in Brody moved to other towns with which they had business connections. A group of Brody Jews had already settled in Odessa and founded a synagogue there.

In 1756 there were 7,191 Jews living in Brody; in 1779, 8,867 (over half the total population); in 1826, 16,315 (89%); in 1910, 12,188; and in 1921, 7,202.

Appointed before 1664, Isaac Krakover (from “Cracow”), who was the progenitor of the Babad family (end of the 17th century); Eleazar Roke'ach; and Aryeh Loeb Teomim. In the 19th century Solomon Kluger exerted a wide influence. The last rabbi of the community was Moses Steinberg (1929-42).

The Jews of Brody, who often traveled to Germany, helped to diffuse the philosophy of the Berlin enlightenment (haskalah) movement in Galicia. Some of its earliest adherents living in Brody were Israel B. Moses Ha-Levi of Zamosc Menachem Lefin, Jacob Samuel Bick, and Nachman Krochmal. The community opened a realschule in 1815 where teaching was in German. Among maskilim residing in Brody in the middle of the 19th century were Dov Ber Blumenfeld, Isaac Erter, and Joshua Heschel Schorr, who published the Hebrew periodical He-chalutz (The Pioneer) in Brody between 1852 and 1889. Other noted personalities from Brody were the literary historian Marcus Landau, the orientalist Jacob Goldenthal, the writer Leo Herzberg- Fraenkel, and his son Sigmund Herzberg-Fraenkel, the historian. A folk choir, the " Broder Singers," was founded by Berl (Margolis) Broder. Baruch Werber and his son Jacob edited the Hebrew weekly Ivri Anokhi (also, Ivri) in Brody between 1865 and 1890. As a border town, Brody often served as a point of assembly for the masses of Jewish refugees from the Russian pogroms, intending to emigrate to America or to western Europe.

Throughout the period of Austrian sovereignty, Brody returned Jewish deputies to the parliament in Vienna. In 1907 the president of the Galician Zionists, Adolf Stand, was elected as deputy; however, he was maneuvered out of office in 1911 as a result of government pressure and political manipulation by the assimilationist Henrik Kolisher. After Brody reverted to Poland in 1919, Jewish communal life was revived under the leadership of Leon Kalir.

There were approximately 10,000 Jews in Brody when World War II broke out. This area came under Soviet occupation following the partition of Poland in 1939. The town fell to the Germans in July 1941, at which time the Germans set up a Judenrat headed by Dr. Abraham Glasberg. Persecution of the Jews began immediately, and several hundred were murdered by the Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators.

Among the victims were 250 Jewish intellectuals. A ghetto was established in January 1942 for the 6,500 remaining Jews of Brody, who were joined later on in September 1942 by some 3,000 refugees from the neighboring towns and villages. The unbearable conditions in the ghetto, lack of fuel and foodstuffs, led to the decline of the ghetto population at a rate of 40-50 daily. In the hopes of better chances for survival, a few Jews managed to get into work camps in the vicinity by bribing the guards. Typhoid fever, claiming several hundred victims, broke out in the ghetto which was completely sealed off from contact with the outside.

Mass extermination of the Brody community began with the deportations to Belzec death camp of several thousand Jews on September 19-21, 1942, followed by several thousand more on November 2. The ghetto and labor camp for Jews were finally liquidated on May 1, 1943, when the surviving 2,500 Jews were deported to Majdanek.

During the Russian occupation and particularly after the Nazis invaded Russia, large numbers of young Jews from Brody joined the Soviet army. By the end of 1942 a fighting unit Zob, consisting of young Jews of all political trends was formed in the ghetto, and led by Jakub Linder, Samuel Weiler, and Solomon Halbersztadt. The Zob was divided into an urban unit which prepared for armed resistance within the ghetto, and a unit which trained small groups for partisan operations in the neighboring forests. The Jewish fighting organization maintained contacts with the non-Jewish resistance. So far as is known no Jewish community was reconstituted in Brody after World War II.