Moshe Bernstein — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Moshe Bernstein, Israeli painter, born in Poland, 1920-2006 Moshe Bernstein was born in Bereza, Poland. He graduated from Vilna Academy of Art in 1939. His family was wiped out in the Holocaust, but he survived the war and remained in Russia until 1947, when he attempted to immigrate illegally to the Land of Israel with Aliyah Bet. He ended up in a detention camp in Cyprus, where he remained until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. He fought in the War of Independence. Bernstein's art focused on his memories from the shtetl. In 1999, the Massuah Institute for the Study of the Holocaust awarded him a prize for his "documentation of a vanished world." He also illustrated volumes of Yiddish poetry and other books.

1935-1939 Art Academy of Vilna
1974 sculpture under Zeev Ben Zvi in Cyprus

From: Israel Museum