Albert H. Friedlander

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Albert Hoschander Friedlander (born May 10, 1927 in Berlin - July 8, 2004 ) was a rabbi and scholar.

Life

Friedlander was born as the son of textile merchant Alex Friedlander (d. 1955) and Sali Friedlander (d. 1965) in Berlin, where he spent the first twelve years of childhood. In 1933, he and his siblings first experienced hostility at school and on several occasions escaped only slightly worse persecution. The November pogroms of 1938 finally brought the parents to the conclusion that they should force the family to emigrate. This was then also achieved in early 1939, first to Cuba and finally to the USA. In Vicksburg , Mississippi joined Albert Friedlander his schooling from. Thanks to his good intellectual and athletic achievements, Albert received a scholarship to study religious studies, history and Jewish studies, which he began at the University of Chicago , while he also worked in all kinds of part-time jobs.

Albert H. Friedlander completed his rabbi studies in 1952 at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, then became a rabbi in Fort Smith, Arkansas , and then in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where a synagogue was to be built. He later moved to the positions of student rabbi at Columbia University and as a rabbi in East Hampton, NY, in order to be able to work on his dissertation Leo Baeck: Teacher of Theresienstadt , with which he earned his PhD in 1956. In 1961 he married Evelyn Philipp and they have three children. In 1966 Albert H. Friedlander accepted the call as liberal rabbi in London, where he worked first in the Wembley parish and from 1971 in the Westminster Synagogue. From 1975 to 1995 he was Vice President of the World Union for Progressive Judaism .

Friedlander died in London on July 8, 2004 and was buried in Hoop Lane Cemetery in Golders Green , London .

Act

The scientific work of Albert H. Friedlander can be divided into three main areas: Without a doubt he is the most important interpreter and also the successor of Leo Baeck , the leading figure of liberal Judaism in Germany. Leo Baeck carried the suffering of the German Jews into the most difficult period of persecution: he survived in the Theresienstadt concentration camp . Despite this period of suffering, Leo Baeck was one of the first to reopen the Christian-Jewish dialogue in Germany after the war. With his book Leo Baeck: Teacher of Theresienstadt and with the Leo Baeck work edition, Albert H. Friedlander has made permanent access to the life and work of this important German-Jewish thinker in six volumes. A second topic revolves around the historical and religious-philosophical reappraisal of the Shoah. Above all, the books Out of the Whirlwind: The Literature of the Holocaust (1968, 1996), The End of the Night: Jewish and Christian Thinkers after the Shoah (1995) and, together with Elie Wiesel, The Six Days of Destruction (1988) to call. Albert H. Friedlander is concerned with contemplating and coping with the experience of our recent history so that a Shoah in Europe is no longer possible. Third, Friedlander's efforts to promote Christian-Jewish dialogue tie in with this. From 1979 until his death he was active as a Jewish dialogue partner at all church conventions in Germany, but also in dialogue with the Anglican Church in England. These include, above all, the books Ein Stripe Gold (1989; 1991) and Riders Toward the Dawn: from Pessimism to Tempered Optimism (1993).

Teaching

Rabbi Friedlander worked at Leo Baeck College in London from 1967 and was principal of this most important teaching institute for progressive Judaism in Europe from 1982. He taught as a visiting professor in Atlanta, Berlin, Wuppertal, Basel and Potsdam, and was twice a Martin Buber visiting professor at the University of Frankfurt am Main. In 1999 he was appointed to the Franz Rosenzweig visiting professorship at the University of Kassel. In 1997 he was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin.

Honors

Fonts

  • Early Reform Judaism in Germany: An Introduction , two parts, 1954–55
  • Reform Judaism in America: The Pittsburgh Platform , 1958
  • Leo Baeck: Teacher of Theresienstadt (1968), 1991, ISBN 0879513934
  • Leo Baeck. Life and Teaching (1973), 1990, ISBN 3-459-01855-0 .
  • The silence of Christians and humanity. Existence in God after Auschwitz , 1980
  • Reconciliation with history , according to with Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt, 1985
  • The Six Days of Destruction , according to with Elie Wiesel, 1988
  • A Stripe of Gold - Towards Reconciliation , 1989
  • A Thread of Gold: Journeys towards Reconciliation , 1990
  • The six days of creation and destruction. A Book of Hope , 1992, ISBN 3-451-22596-4
  • Riders Towards The Dawn , 1993.
  • From the flood to paradise , according to with Walter Homolka, 1993
  • The Gate to Perfection , with Walter Homolka, 1994, ISBN 3-534-80147-4
  • The End of the Night: Jewish and Christian Thinkers after the Holocaust , 1995
  • From Darkness towards the Light: The Human Predicament. The Annual Sacks Lecture , 1999
  • Autobiographical thoughts. In: Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik (Ed.): Confrontations with the destroyed Jewish heritage. Franz Rosenzweig guest lectures (1999–2005) . Kassel 2004, ISBN 3-89958-044-3

Web links

Individual evidence


personal data
SURNAME Friedlander, Albert H.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Friedlander, Albert Hoschander (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American rabbi and representative of liberal Judaism
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH July 8, 2004
Place of death London