 He was the son of Jacob Gera, a boarding house keeper at Mainz, and an elder brother of Adolphus Bernays.After having finished his studies at the University of Würzburg, in which city he had been also a disciple of the Talmudist Rabbi Abraham Bing, he went to Munich as private tutor in the house of Herr von Hirsch, and afterward lived at Mainz as a private scholar.In 1821 he was elected chief rabbi of the German-Jewish community in Hamburg, to fill a position where a man of strictly Orthodox views but of modern education was wanted as head of the congregation.