Moshe Bernstein, poet and painter, was born in the town of Kartuz Bereza, Poland in 1920. There he studied in the Talmud Torah and in the Tarbut school. From his childhood he demonstrated his talent in painting, elocution, and song. After finishing his studies, he traveled to Warsaw to study art. He also participated in the choir under the direction of Davidovitz, in the great synagogue Klomatzke with the main liturgical singer Moshe Kosovetzky, and he also worked as distributor of the Yiddish newspaper Moment in the suburbs of Warsaw. In 1935 He studied at the Art Academy of Vilna until war broke out in 1939. He returned home and from there he went to Bialystok, an important Jewish center of culture and art. When the Germans required the Jews of Byalistok to be gathered into a ghetto, he escaped to Russia and wandered around suffering hunger and want until he arrived in Russia to a kolhoz, in the city of Saratov. There he worked as a painter for a large manufacturing company. In 1945 when the war ended, he returned to Poland and entered a farm for future emigrants to Israel. He began to wander together with refugees, in Germany and Italy, and from there he traveled on the ship Hatikva to Israel together with illegal immigrants. upon arrival at the coast of Israel, the ship was captured by the British, and they were sent to the island of Cyprus. There they remained in detention camps for two years.
In August 1948, he arrived in Israel and mobilized into the Israel defense army. For this service he was honored with the "Order of the Independence". He lived for several years in the Kibbutz Ein Harod and there started a family, becoming the father of two daughters. He continued his studies with the Sculptor Zeev Ben Zvi. In 1949 he presented he paintings for the first time in an exhibition of immigrant painters in Tel Aviv. since then his works have been presented in many exhibitions, both in Israel, as well as in Europe and South America.
Moshe Bernshtein, who lost his parents and his whole world in the Holocaust, writes and paints about the shtetl (Jewish small town) which is no more. One of Israel's pillars of Yiddish culture, Bernstein has been associated with the Yiddishpiel theater. His paintings and drawings are exhibited in Israel and overseas. He has been granted many awards including in 1980 the City Medal, Tel Aviv. Yitzhak Artzi, who purchased one of the paintings for permanent display in the Shalom Aleichem House, said "Shalom Aleichem painted the shtetl with words. Moshele describes the shtetl on canvas. He paints our anguish."
The writer and poet Aba Kovner wrote about the works of Moshe Bernshtein: "Under the deep celestial sky of Israel, innocent people ask: who is Jewish? Observe the interior of the figures that appear in the illustrations of Moishele, and you will find the answer. Who takes on his backs a house, who keeps in his eyes that observe far away in time and space the reverential fear and the sadness, who locks in his eyes the light of the lost back streets, the light of the bereavement tears, and the light of the hope? Something warm and vibrant of a Jewish home that is finished but not silenced, flows and rises in his works".
