By Rebecca Shalomoff
Glancing underneath the advertisement in a 1957 edition of the Nassau Herald for her lost dog, Bernstein spotted a help wanted ad for part-time teaching at the Hebrew school of Temple Sinai in Lawrence.
Forty-five years later, she is being honored not just for her longevity but her incredible commitment as an educator and administrator at the temple's annual dinner-dance Sunday, April 28.
As a teacher and principal, Bernstein has focused on giving over the ethics of Judaism to the hundreds of children that have studied in the Temple Sinai Hebrew School. She teaches about the importance of giving, kindness, and respect for elders the ingredients for being a righteous individual.
In talking about her teaching style, Bernstein peppers her comments with quotes from Jewish sages like Hillel who said, Do unto others as you would have done unto you. And the rest is commentary'.
With her silver hair and black rimmed glasses framing pensive brown eyes, Bernstein is a sage in her own time. She caters lessons in Jewish studies to the specific needs and interests of her students. In so doing, she enables students to feel connected to their heritage and not alienated, as approaches to teaching religion can be.
I've gone through many generations of children, she said. And each generation had to be met on a different playing field.
And she does it with an edge. For her eighth grade class the only class she continues to teach when not handling administrative work for the Hebrew school and synagogue Bernstein recently taught them how to say kaddish (mourner's prayer) for a dog. When studying the holiday of Passover, she talked about Jewish slavery in the context of world slavery. And she shows her students the value of marrying in one's faith, while simultaneously supporting the intermarried.
My goal is for them to love Judaism, to feel at home in Judaism, she said. And to give them happy memories of being Jewish.
For Bernstein, who grew up as Audrey Rivkin in Far Rockaway, some of her fond memories of being Jewish include walking to Congregation Shaaray Tefila with her grandmother. Her grandmother, who lived with the family, was a practicing religious woman. Bernstein's father, on the other hand, was a devout atheist.
But there was never a problem between the two, she said. They didn't compete with each other. [My father] had his own ideas, but he didn't go into her kitchen.
At an early age, Bernstein learned about formulating one's own opinions on how to live while respecting different interpretations that she would later give over to her students and children.
As an educator at a Reform temple in a community with a growing Orthodox community, Bernstein said, I try hard to teach Reform Judaism and not prejudice to other forms.
Bernstein also kept her home for her children, Lynda and Robert, and their friends, as a place where ideas could be freely exchanged and explored.
More than thirty years later, I can still remember looking forward to the inevitable political debates over Mrs. Brackman's Friday night dinner table, and the care and respect she had for all of us, who felt like hippies at the forefront of a revolution, recalled Morgan Buddy Halperin, a student of Bernstein's who now lives in California.
Lynda and I went through a radical Sixties together, Robert said. Because of my mom's encouragement, our house was the place where all the kids came to hang out and plan protests. She let us have the freedom to explore our feelings.
It was Bernstein's commitment to her family that helped found the Temple Sinai Nursery School.
When Lynda's daughter Abigail turned 2-years-old, Grandma Audrey wanted to have a place where she could keep an eye on her. So she started the nursery school.
I think that for us as a family, we grew up with the best role model any two kids could have, Lynda said. A woman who absolutely loved the work she was doing and completely committed to her family as well.
