BERNSTEIN, BÉLA

BERNSTEIN, BÉLA (1868–1944), Hungarian Jewish historian. Bernstein was born in Várpalota; he graduated in 1892 from the Jewish Theological Seminary of Budapest, and received his doctorate in 1890 in Leipzig. He served as rabbi in Szombathely from 1892 to 1909 and then became rabbi in Nyiregyháza. He tried to introduce a uniform religious education in Hungary in 1901. Bernstein wrote works devoted to the history of the Jews in Hungary: Az 1848–49-iki magyar szabadságharc és a zsidók ("The 1848–49 Hungarian Revolution and the Jews" (1898), preface by Mór Jókai); "The History of the Jews in Vasmegye," in: Magyar Zsidó Szemle, vols. 30–32 (1913–15); and "Die Anfaenge der Judengemeinde in Nyiregyháza" in Semitic Studies in Memory of Immanuel Loew (1947). In his last years Bernstein worked on his memoirs. He was deported to Auschwitz by the Nazis in 1944 and died there. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Magyar Zsidó Szemle, 49 (1932), 235–8. (Alexander Scheiber)