Erwin shield

Erwin Schild (born March 9, 1920 in Cologne-Mülheim ) is a German-Canadian Judaist , Semitist and conservative rabbi .

Live and act

After graduating from high school in 1938, Erwin Schild attended the Israelite Teacher Training Institute in Würzburg . Due to the events of November 9, 1938 ( Reichspogromnacht ), however, he had to break off his training because the facility was destroyed and its members were arrested. Schild came to the Dachau concentration camp . From there he managed to flee and emigrate to England between December 1938 and January 1939 . In 1939 he began studying rabbi in London, but in 1940 he was interned in England as a so-called hostile foreigner and deported to Canada , where he remained interned as a German and later as a refugee. However, he was able to continue his rabbinical studies in the camp. After his release in 1942, he studied at the Yeshiva Torah Chaim in Toronto. He was ordained a rabbi in 1947 . At the same time, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Semitic studies from the University of Toronto in 1947 , which was followed by a Master’s degree a year later .

As a rabbi of the Adath Israel Congregation in Toronto , Schild worked in congregation work from 1947 until his retirement in 1989, but still kept in touch with academia. From 1950 to 1952 he taught Hebrew , Arabic and Aramaic at the University of Toronto . In 1975 Erwin Schild received an honorary doctorate from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York . Erwin Schild took on numerous honorary positions and was honored on December 2, 1981 with the " Human Relations Award " of the Canadian section of the Council of Christians and Jews . In that year he came back to Germany for the first time since his escape, in order to campaign for an understanding between Christians and Jews with lectures, encounters and discussions in communities, schools and universities. At the Institute for Catholic Theology at the University of Osnabrück, Erwin Schild repeatedly participated in interreligious courses in the training of religion teachers between 1998 and 2005.

Honors

On May 25, 2000, the University of Osnabrück, together with his important Christian interlocutor, Hans Hermann Henrix , awarded him an honorary doctorate. Also in 2000 he received the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany.

On May 30, 2001, the Governor General of Canada made him Member of the Order of Canada .

Works

• "Shield of Achilles". Encounters with the publisher Hermann Herder . Edited by Manuel Herder. Herder, Freiburg [2013]
• World through My Window. 1992
  • The world through my window. Insights and guidance from a Canadian rabbi of German origin for life in our time. Translated by Paul Gerhard Aring. Scriba, Cologne 1996
• The Very Narrow Bridge. 2001
• And Miles to Go before I Sleep. 2012
• The Crazy Angel. 2017

Web links

• Literature by and about Erwin Schild in the catalog of the German National Library
• Memory book for the prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp - names instead of numbers - Erwin Schild