H eadlines
Bernstein Continued from Page 1
Blaze Bernstein are still trying
to process what happened, and
continue to discover the ways
in which he remains present —
and absent — in their everyday
lives. The trial of Woodward
remains pending.

‘Remarkably Intelligent’
Bernstein was the old-
est of three siblings in Lake
Forest, Calif. His parents,
Gideon Bernstein and Jeanne
Pepper, met at the University of
California, Santa Barbara, where
she was preparing for a career
in law and he was studying to
enter the finance world. Blaze
was given his curious name as a
tribute to Blaise Pascal, an 18th
century French polymath.

Rabbi Arnold Rachlis of
University City Synagogue
knew Bernstein well. Pepper
had founded the precursor
to the preschool that would
eventually be created, and
Bernstein was in the first class.

Rachlis taught him during
confirmation, and watched
as Blaze worked as a madri-
ach for Sunday school classes.

“Blaze was a wonderful young
man,” he said. “Remarkably
intelligent.” For all the time he spent at
the synagogue — Pepper said
that he spent most Sundays of
his precollegiate life there —
Bernstein found it difficult to
form a sense of community.

Part of it had to do with his
sexual orientation. Bernstein
identified as gay from a young
age, but was terrified of how it
might affect people’s percep-
tion of him. Pepper, who now
works as a writer and activist,
wishes that more Jewish com-
munity centers were receptive
to people like Bernstein.

Arriving at Penn
Jamie-Lee Josselyn remem-
bered the first time she met
Bernstein. She is the associ-
ate director for recruitment
at the Center for Programs
in Contemporary Writing at
12 FEBRUARY 14, 2019
Penn, tasked with seeking
out gifted high school writ-
ers. Bernstein was a student of
the Orange County School for
the Arts in Santa Ana, which
boasts an exceptional creative
writing conservatory.

He was an exceptionally
strong writer, she said, the first
high school student to have
a piece accepted by the Penn
Review, a student literary mag-
azine. Besides that, she also
found out he was a whip-smart
biochemistry student, recruited
by that school within the uni-
versity as well. Suffice it to say,
the center put in word that they
wanted strong consideration for
Bernstein’s application. When
he arrived on campus the fol-
lowing year, Josselyn became
his academic adviser.

asking people to contact
him or his wife if they had
any information. Josselyn
received notice from a pro-
spective student at Bernstein’s
high school.

Marcus was
f loored;
Bernstein was notoriously sar-
castic, so much so that “you
often didn’t even know he was
making a joke,” according to
Josselyn. Would he be sarcastic
about this?
The answer was no, and for the
next few days, they all went about
their business with Bernstein on
their minds. His mother joined
Twitter, blasting out calls to see
if anyone knew anything about
where her son was.

It was too late. When
Bernstein was found on Jan. 10,
he had been dead for a week.

College Life
Amy Marcus struggled
to pick a favorite story about
Blaze. Was it when, in a manda-
tory meeting group for incom-
ing freshman that required
them all to watch Citizen
Kane, Bernstein was quick to
name and shame those who
had clearly shirked their duty?
Could it be when, suffering
from a concussion, she opened
her door to find him with an
armful of home-baked lemon
cookies and snickerdoodles,
ready to spend three hours
watching Judge Judy?
Perhaps most simply, it
could be when he introduced
himself for the first time. “This
kid introduces himself as Blaze
Bernstein, and I was like, that’s
a name, like, wow,” she remem-
bers. They lived in the same
freshman hall, and in the two
years they knew one another,
they’d become close friends.

“He was the quirkiest, cool-
est, kindest most caring person
that I’ve ever known, really,”
she said.

‘A Grand Farewell’
Rachlis, back in California,
oversaw two memorial ser-
vices, one for friends and fam-
ily and another for the general
public. Thousands of people
attended, he said. The wound
was deep, for him and for the
community. At Penn, a memorial ser-
vice was convened at the Kelly
Writers House, where Bernstein
had spent a lot of time cook-
ing and planning events for the
house. His friends and family
were determined that the service
reflect what they saw in Blaze.

Josselyn did her best to get her
hands on some fake LaCroix tat-
toos — Bernstein drank it like
water, and was even thinking
about getting a real LaCroix tat-
too — but alas, her payment
was swallowed up by the inter-
net, without a peep from the
seller. “I think it was a grand fare-
well,” Pepper said. “Truly a
memorial to a very sensitive, very
kind person who touched many,
many people in his short life.”
“It was this amazing celebra-
tion of life,” Marcus recalled.

Missing Everyone
heard that
Bernstein was missing in a
different way. Marcus saw
a Facebook post made on
Bernstein’s page by his father,
Blaze Bernstein with his grandmother, Regina Pepper
Fund, offered to aspiring writers
in need of financial assistance.

Winners meet his parents after
their acceptance. His family
also runs numerous charitable
foundations in his name back in
California, encouraging people
to “Blaze it Forward.”
The ways in which Bernstein
remains in the lives of the peo-
ple who knew him is perhaps
less tangible than those pro-
grams but no less real. Marcus
owns a blanket of his, gifted to
her by Pepper. She still reflex-
ively goes to text him. She does
the best she can with his snick-
erdoodle recipe, but “they never
come out as well as he used to
make them,” she reported.

Josselyn participated in the
Broad Street Run last year, and
raised money for Bernstein in
the process. The Edible Books
Contest at the Kelly Writers
House was held in his honor
‘I can still hear his voice’
this year, where students com-
Today, there is a scholar- pete in a potluck-pun compe-
ship for writers at Penn called tition (e.g. The Dough Also
the Blaze Bernstein Memorial Rises bread, The Gouda Earth
JEWISH EXPONENT
cheese). Bernstein’s parents
were judges, and proclaimed
a chewing gum head — Gum
Girl — as the “Blaziest.”
For Pepper, there was a
bizarre privilege in becoming
so acquainted with her son’s
life at Penn.

“I don’t think very many
people really understand who
their kids are and who the peo-
ple are that they spend a lot of
their time with when they go
away to school. I really didn’t
know very much about Blaze’s
private life,” she says. “These
are remarkable people.”
He remains in the “fiber of
[her] every day,” she said. Just
recently, she was going through
the pantry, remembering how
meticulously organized and
labeled everything was by her
son’s insistence.

“I can still hear his voice
in the back of my head,” she
said. l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
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