(Yosef Yehuda) Lerner, was a 19th-century Russian Jewish intellectual, writer, and critic.
Originally a maskil—a propagator of the Haskala, or "Jewish Enlightenment"—he became a pioneer in the fields of Yiddish theater and folklore, as well as literary criticism.
[2] In his later years, he converted to Christianity and wrote a book denouncing Jews (Adler, 1999, p. 200).
Lerner was born in Berdichev (today Berdychiv), Kiev Governorate, then in the Russian Empire.
He was the first to present Yiddish-language productions of Karl Gutzkow's Uriel Acosta and Eugène Scribe's La Juive.