Herman Hedwig Bernard

Herman Hedwig Bernard (1785–1857) was an English Hebraist (a specialist in Jewish, Hebrew and Hebraic studies), for many years a Hebrew teacher in the University of Cambridge. He died on 15 November 1857, aged 72. An apostate from Judaism, Bernard was born Hirsch Ber Hurwitz and hailed from Uman, Ukraine. 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 Works" (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".