Leo Baeck

Leo Baeck ( born on 23 May 1873 in Lissa, Posen Province, now Leszno, Poland, died on November 2, 1956 in London) was a rabbi, in his time the most important representative of the German Liberal Judaism and for years undisputed leadership figure and representative of the German Jewry.

Life

Leo Baeck grew up in Lissa (then Prussian province of Posen, now Leszno / Poland ), the son of Rabbi Dr. Samuel Baeck ( 1834-1912 ) and his wife Eva nee Placzek ( 1840-1926 ) with four sisters. He attended the Johann Amos Comenius school of his native town. After studying at the Rabbinical Seminary in Breslau, where he simultaneously studied philosophy at the University, he moved in 1894 to the Liberal Academy for the Science of Judaism in Berlin, where he besides philosophy of history and philosophy of religion occupied at the Friedrich- Wilhelms- University and May 1895 with Wilhelm Dilthey doctorate on Spinoza's first actions on Germany.

In 1895 he accepted a position of rabbi in Opole. There, his main work was the essence of Judaism, which appeared in 1905. In it, he sat down with the critical positions of the Protestant theologian Adolf von Harnack apart and opposed the presentation of Judaism as obsolete religion of law. In 1896 he married Nathalie Hamburg, the granddaughter of a rabbi colleagues. In Upper Silesia, Opole also the only child of the couple, Ruth, was born. From 1907 to 1912 he held office in Dusseldorf. In 1912 he was Gemeinderrabiner in Berlin (at the time was one of the Jewish community in Berlin about 150,000 members), where he worked as a lecturer from 1913 at the Academy of the Science of Judaism, until its closure by the Nazis on 19 July 1942.

At the First World War, Leo Baeck participated as a field rabbi. In the Weimar Republic, he became the most famous representative of German liberal Judaism and took on several representative offices in Jewish organizations. Thus he became in 1922 chairman of the General Association of Rabbis in Germany and was 1924-1937 President of the Grand Lodge of the German section of B'nai B'rith, which at that time comprised more than one hundred individual lodges. In 1925 Leo Baeck was chairman of the Central Welfare Office of Jews in Germany.

1933 Leo Baeck was president of the Reich Representation of German Jews, which was an umbrella organization of Jewish organizations and for whose guidance he to convey because of his skills was particularly suitable. The tasks of the Central Organization during the period of heaviest anti-Semitic persecution, ranging from humanitarian assistance to the impoverished Jewish population, education for driven students from schools to assist in the emigration. The Nazis withdrawn from 1939 other Jewish institutions to independence, created the Reich Association of Jews in Germany as a forced union and tried over the Gestapo to control their activities directly. Also under this pressure declined from Leo Baeck offers to emigrate and had contacts with the resistance group led by Carl Friedrich Goerdeler. 1943 Leo Baeck ( with the number: 187 894 ) deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, like most other representatives of the Reich Association, where he lived as a celebrity with special rights. The " Reich Association of Jews in Germany " was closed by the Gestapo.

In Theresienstadt was a member of the Leo Baeck Elders and took care of the most difficult conditions to the community, supported by Regina Jonas and Viktor Frankl. In addition, he initiated together with Professor Maximilian Adler from Prague and Professor Emil Utitz from Halle, a lecture series, which he began with a lecture on Plato. There is a list of his lecture topics (written in Sütterlinschrift ), are listed on the: Plato, Maimonides, Spinoza, Kant, Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, The Jewish religious philosophy of the Middle Ages, Jewish Mysticism of the Middle Ages, The problem of body and soul, The unity of life in body and soul, the meaning of History, historiography, the century of the destruction of the first to the second temple, the time of the Maccabees. As far as known, he held his last lecture entitled Galileo Galilei and the end of the Middle Ages on 23 December 1944.

Already in August 1943, Baeck had learned in Theresienstadt that Auschwitz was an extermination camp, but made ​​the decision not to tell his fellow prisoners. He survived ( severely abused his four sisters were in the ghetto perished ) the Holocaust and moved on 5 June 1945 after London. There he served as president in 1924, he co-founded the World Union for Progressive Judaism; an office to which he was elected in 1938 and he held until 1955. In 1947 he founded which was later named after him, " Institute for the Study of Judaism in Germany since the Enlightenment ." 1948 to 1953 he also took over a professorship at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.

He died on 2 November 1956 in London and is buried in Golders Green.

Quotes

"For us Jews in Germany a period of history has come to an end. Such comes to an end, whenever a hope, a faith, a confidence must be worn permanently to the grave. Our belief was that German and Jewish spirit on German soil meet and could be a blessing through their marriage. This was an illusion - the era of the Jews in Germany is over once and for all time. "

Awards

Honors

Many institutions bear his name in his honor: schools, lodges, synagogues and community centers in many countries around the world. Here are mentioned some important facilities.

Writings

Werkausgabe

  • Works. Edited by Albert H. Friedlander, Bertold rattling and Werner Licharz. In Auftr the Leo Baeck Institute, New York, Gütersloh Gütersloh Publishing House, 1998-2003 [ Special Edition: Gütersloh Gütersloh ET House, 2006]. Vol 1: The Essence of Judaism. In 1998.
  • Vol 2: This people. Jewish existence. In 1996.
  • Vol 3: Ways in Judaism. Essays and speeches. In 1997.
  • Vol 4: For three millennia. The Gospel as a record of the Jewish history., 2000.
  • Vol 5: After the Shoah - why are Jews in the world? Writings of the postwar period. , 2002.
  • Vol 6: letters, speeches, essays. , 2003.

Single fonts

  • The essence of Judaism. Nathansen & Lamb, Berlin 1905 (166 pp. ) ( writings of the Society for the Advancement of Jewish Studies ). The essence of Judaism. 6th edition 1960.

Lectures

  • Spirit and blood. Lecture delivered at the anniversary meeting of the Society for Free philosophy in Darmstadt on 25 November 1930 Philo -Verlag, Berlin, 1931. Gr. - 8vo. 14 S. orig paperback ( = morning series 9 letters).
  • The sense of history. Three lectures from the series Living West of the German Service of the London radio ( 5, 12 and 19 May 1946).
  • Maimonides, the man, his work and its impact. Lecture, at the commemoration of the 750th anniversary of the death of the great scholar Moses Maimonides on July 7, 1954 in Dusseldorf.
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