Abraham Moshe Bernstein Collection

Abraham Moshe Bernstein (Avrom-Moyshe Bernshteyn) was born in the village of Shatsk, in the Russian Minsk province (today Shatsk, Belarus) in 1866 (some sources vary on the year, possibly 1865), the sixth child of moderately well-to-do parents.¹ In 1870 he was sent to kheyder (a Jewish religious elementary school), where he experienced an autocratic, clamorous, and overwhelming environment, to the point that he became physically ill. ² A young student in the town’s beys-medresh (study house) in 1871, Abraham excelled in his studies, and displayed great vocal talent and musical aptitude while assisting his father, an amateur cantor, during religious services.³

In 1875, Bernstein left his hometown to attend the Yeshiva in Minsk, where he crossed paths with the famous khazn (cantor) Yisroel Minsker, a Ba'al Tefillah (the reader of prayers) known for his exemplary diction and sweet hazzanut (cantorial singing and chanting). Deeply inspired by the cantor’s brilliance, Bernstein joined Yisroel Minsker’s choir as a young chorister; however, the less refined behaviors and attitudes of the other choir members troubled him, and he subsequently left the choir. In 1876, he also suffered a great personal loss, the death of his beloved mother. ⁴

Having left the Minsk Yeshiva in 1879, he spent the next two years studying at the famous Mir Yeshiva in Poland (today Belarus). Greatly dissatisfied with the prevailing lack of idealism, musicality, style, and religious devotion in the hazzanut circles he encountered, he left the Mir Yeshiva and proceeded to search for a cantorial apprenticeship that would better suit his own high standards and expectations.⁵ In 1884 he arrived in Kovno (today Kaunas) and befriended the renowned Cantor Raphael Yehudah Rabinowitch of the Kovno Khor-shul (Choral Synagogue).⁶ Under Rabinowitch’s intensive tutelage and mentorship, Bernstein was appointed cantorial assistant and choir master.⁷ He attended a local music school in Kovno where he studied general music history and musical theory,⁸ while also focusing on Yiddish, Hebrew, German, and Russian literature. Around this time his compositional ambitions grew more serious, and he completed the musical settings to the songs “Am olam” (Eternal People) with text by Mordekhai Tzvi Mane, and “Zamd un shtern” (Sand and Stars), with text by Shmuel Frug.⁹

In 1888, Bernstein assumed the role of cantor at the choral synagogue Adas Yeshurun, in Bialystok (Białystok),¹⁰ and the following year worked as a choir master for the renowned Cantor Baruch Leib Rosowsky in the Great Choral Synagogue in Riga.¹¹ In 1891 (varying sources mark the year as 1893) he became the first cantor of the choral synagogue Taharat Hakodesh in Vilna (Vilnius),¹² and held that position for nearly thirty years. This was a period of great musical growth and development for Bernstein — he not only composed numerous cantorial pieces, but also published a substantial number of religious songs, children’s songs, and folk songs. He married Lina Ansell in 1893, and would eventually go on to father six children.

The turbulence of the German occupation of Vilna (1915-1918) did not impede Bernstein’s professional work and musical output. During this time, he conducted the famous Hazamir Choir (The Nightingale) in Vilna and the student choir of the professional training school for Jewish tradesmen, Hilf durkh arbet (Help Through Work). He also worked as the musical director of the Jewish musical organization and choir Bene asaf (The Sons of Assaf). Some of Bernstein’s compositional highlights of these years included: the musical setting of Y.L. Peretz’s dramatic poem Dos fremde khupe kleyd, (The Strange Wedding Gown) performed several times on local stages; music for S. Ansky’s poems “Mayn lid” (My Song) and “Der shnayderl” (The Tailor); publication of a collection of 150 Hebrew and Yiddish children’s songs, a solfege manual for children, and the song “Herzl’s yortsayt: troyer lid far a gemishtn khor un klavier” (Herzl’s yortsayt: mournful song for mixed choir and piano), with text by M. Shiva, published in a supplement to the weekly Zionist Vilna publication Unzer osed (Our Future). ¹³

In 1919 Bernstein became involved with the S. Ansky Jewish Historical Ethnographic Society in Vilna,¹⁴ the successor of the Society of Friends of Jewish Antiquity founded in 1913 by L.V. Frenkel and the Historic Commission founded by the Hevrah Mefitsei Haskalah. The Society’s purpose was to document the effects of the first World War on Jewish communities. Bernstein attended a meeting on February 23, 1919 and helped to devise the organization's musical goals and activities.¹⁵ That year he also published the music to the song “Tsum hemerl” (To the Little Hammer), with text by Abraham Reisen. On December 8, 1920, he attended a memorial evening for S. Ansky, where under his direction a choir performed his musical setting of Ansky’s poems “Mayn lid” (My Song) and “Der shnayderl” (The Tailor), as well as Lazare Saminsky’s setting of Ansky’s ”Di nakht” (The Night).

A significant shift in Bernstein’s musical career occurred in 1921 when he resigned from his thirty-year post as cantor at Taharat Hakodesh. Although his departure was a result of disagreements with gaboim (synagogal managerial heads) about musical direction, the congregation and Vilna community as a whole remained devoted to him. He taught music in Vilna Hebrew schools and in such secular institutions as the Mefitsei Haskalah school, where he structured special musical curricula. He organized a male choir at the Vilna Teachers’ Seminary, and continued to write musical criticism and articles for various publications, and even composed a children’s operetta titled Snow White, with text in Hebrew.

In 1927, under the auspices of the S. Ansky Jewish Historical-Ethnographic Society, Bernstein published what is considered one of his greatest works, the Muzikalisher pinkes, a collection of zemirot (Jewish hymns), and religious folk songs mainly of Hassidic origin. He also translated Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) and Shir Hashirim (Song of Songs) into Yiddish.

Abraham Moshe Bernstein died on June 16, 1932, in Vilna.

References

Bernstein, A.M. “Di muzik in vilne far der tsayt fun di okyupatsye” (Music in Vilna During the Time of the Occupation). In Pinkes far der geshikhte fun Vilne in di yorn fun milkhome un okyupatsie. Vilna: 1922.

Bernstein, A.M. “Yidishe shul muzik un r.y. rabinovitsh” (Jewish Synagogue Music and R.Y. Rabinowitch). Di khazonim-velt, no.7 (1934): 4-8.

Bernstein, A.M. “Vi azoy ikh bin gevorn dirigent bay rosovsky” (How I Became Rosowsky’s Choir Master). Di khazonim-velt, no. 10 (1934): 9.

Bernstein, Maier. “A.m. bernshtayn: zikhroynes iber mayn bruder” (A.M. Bernstein: Remembrances of My Brother). Di khazonim-velt, no.9 (1934):15-17.

“Fule reshime fun a.m. bernshtayns kompozitsies” (Complete List of the Musical Works of A.M. Bernstein). Di khazonim-velt, no. 7 (1934): 8-10.

Koss, Andrew N. “World War I and the Remaking of Jewish Vilna, 1914-1918.” PhD thesis. Stanford University, 2010. https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:wp368wc8732/Diss%20(2)-augmented.pdf

Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur (Biographical Dictionary of Modern Yiddish Literature). Vol. I. New York: 1956.

Leksikon fun der yidisher literatur (Biographical Dictionary of Jewish Literature). Vol I. Vilna: 1926.

Sherman, Pinkhos. “A.m. bernshtayn: tsu zayn tsveytn yortsayt” (A.M. Bernstein: On the Second Anniversary of His Death). Di khazonim-velt, no. 7 (1934): 1-3.

Shalit, Moshe. Preface. In Muzikalisher pinkas by A.M. Bernstein. Vol. I. Vilna: 1927.

Stolnitz, Nathan. Negine in yidishn lebn (Music in Jewish Life). Toronto: Morris Print, 1957.

Zaludkowski, Eliyahu. Kultur-treger fun der yidisher liturgye (Culture Bearers of the Jewish Liturgy). Detroit, Mich.: 1930.