Bern fled to Russia with her daughter after the Nazi invasion of Poland; there she played with the "Bialistocker yidisher miniatur-teatr" (miniature revi-teater)[4] of Shimon Dzigan and Israel Shumacher.
[5] In 1949, after an incident in which she was accused of sending a thug to beat up theater critic Haim Gamzu, who had written a bad review of her performance, she emigrated to the United States.
Living in New York City, she and her husband operated the Village Theater, which ran Yiddish performances.
[citation needed] She died in 2010, and was buried at Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, Queens.
[7] Bern received an Obie Award in 1999, for her performance in Sweet Dreams (Zise khaloymes), at the Folksbiene.