Isaac Bernays

Isaac Bernays ( ; ; 29 September 1792 – 1 May 1849) was Chief Rabbi in Hamburg.

Life Bernays was born in Weisenau (now part of Mainz). He was the son of Jacob Gera, a boarding housekeeper at Mainz, and an elder brother of Adolphus Bernays. After having finished his studies at the University of Würzburg, in which city he had been also a disciple of the Talmudist Rabbi Abraham Bing, he went to Munich as private tutor in the house of Herr von Hirsch and afterward lived at Mainz as a private scholar. In 1821, he was elected chief rabbi of the German-Jewish community in Hamburg, to fill a position where a man of strictly Orthodox views but of modern education was wanted as head of the congregation. After personal negotiations with Lazarus Riesser, who went to see him in Mainz, Bernays accepted the office on characteristic terms; namely, that all the religious and educational institutions of the community were to be placed under his personal direction; he wanted to be responsible to the government only. Besides this he required a fixed salary, independent of incidental revenues. The community assigned to him the title "clerical functionary" or "Ḥakham," instead of the usual traditional titles, "moreh tzedek" or "rabbi". One of his sons, Louis Bernays is mentioned in the annals of the Jewish Community of Baden, Switzerland, as one of its ten founders in the year 1859.

Bernays' son Berman (1826–1879), who was also faithful to the religious views of his father, raised his daughter Martha Bernays (1861–1951) in the Jewish faith, but she later joined her husband Sigmund Freud in his religious antipathy. In her late years, she returned to the Jewish tradition.

A grandson of the Freuds was painter Lucian Freud, who married Kathleen Epstein, the natural daughter of sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein. A brother of Lucian was Clement Freud, the father of Emma Freud and Matthew Freud.

Edward Bernays, one of the founders of modern public relations, was his great-grandson.