Lazar Behrmann was born to a Jewish family in Friedrichstadt, Courland (today Jaunjelgava, Latvia) in 1830.
He received his early education in the ḥeder and in the district school of his native town, where he began his vocation as private teacher.
[1] From 1869 to 1882 he was instructor in the Jewish religion at the Kolomenskaya Women's College in Saint Petersburg.
In 1879 he founded there the weekly Russian-Hebrew periodical Russki Yevrei, which he published and edited conjointly with Hirsch Rabinowitz [Wikidata] until 1883, and after that with Judah Leib Kantor [he; ru] to the end of 1884.
He was also the author of Osnovy Moiseyeva Zakona ('Fundamentals of the Mosaic Law'), a popular guide to Jewish jurisprudence, and of Sankt-Peterburgskiya Yevreiskiya Uchilishcha ('Jewish Schools in Saint Petersburg').