19-year-old Blaze Bernstein, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, went missing after going to a park to hang out with a friend over winter break in Orange County, California. Image by Courtesy

By Aiden Pink January 7, 2018

A 19-year-old Jewish college student home in California on break has been missing since Tuesday, when he left his parents’ house to meet a friend and never returned.

Blaze Bernstein, a pre-med student at the University of Pennsylvania who contributed to the school’s literary magazine, left the house in Foothill Ranch in Orange County to go to a nearby park on Tuesday night.

The friend he was spending time with at the park told police that he went to the restroom, and when he came out, Bernstein had disappeared, Orange County sheriff’s department spokeswoman Carrie Braun told the Los Angeles Times.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

“We do not believe foul play was involved at this point, and the friend is only a witness, not a suspect or person of concern,” Braun said.

Search-and-rescue teams have scanned the park and adjacent canyon areas using rescue dogs and aerial searches using thermal imaging, but have yet to spot him.

Bernstein’s father, Gideon Bernstein, told the Times that his son left home without saying goodbye, leaving behind his keys, wallet and eyeglasses.

“He probably thought he didn’t need his wallet because he was just going to hang out in the park or whatever,” he told the New York Daily News.

Gideon Bernstein is the chairman of the board of the Jewish Community Foundation of Orange County.

A Facebook page has been set up with information about Blaze Bernstein and the search for him. Anyone with information is encouraged to call the Orange County Sheriff’s Department at (714) 647-7000.

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected]

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount