Felix F. Carlebach

Felix Falk Carlebach (born April 15, 1911 in Lübeck , † January 23, 2008 in Manchester ) was a German-British rabbi and honorary citizen of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck .

Life

Felix F. Carlebach belonged to a Jewish German family that produced a number of important rabbis. He was the son of the banker Simson Carlebach (1875-1942) and his wife Resi, née Graupe. His grandfather Salomon Carlebach (1845-1919), married to Esther Carlebach, born Adler (1853-1920), had already been a rabbi in Lübeck. His uncle Joseph Carlebach was chief rabbi in Hamburg. Felix F. Carlebach's younger brother Ephraim became a rabbi in Montreal, Canada. In addition to Ephraim and Felix, the banking couple Simson and Resi Carlebach had their son Salomon and their daughter Esther.

Felix F. Carlebach visited the Katharineum in Lübeck . After graduating from high school in 1929, he studied theology at Jewish teachers' seminars and music at the Cologne University of Music . From 1934 until his emigration in 1939 he taught music at the Higher Israelite School in Leipzig, which his uncle, the rabbi Ephraim Carlebach (1879-1936), had founded in 1912. He was deputy director of the school and took over its management after his uncle emigrated to the British mandate of Palestine in 1935. Felix Carlebach did not work as a rabbi in Germany, but only after his emigration.

He married the teacher Babette Kohn (died 1991) in Cologne in 1936. The couple had three daughters, Judith, Sulamith and Naomi.

Felix F. Carlebach's parents and his uncle Joseph Zwi Carlebach (1883–1942) with wife Charlotte, née Preuss, and their four youngest children Salomon (* August 17, 1925), Ruth (* 1926), Noemi (* 1927) and Sara (* 1928) were deported to the Jungfernhof camp near Riga on December 6, 1941 , and murdered in the nearby Biķernieki forest on March 26, 1942 , after the camp was liquidated in March 1942. Only Felix F. Carlebach's cousin Salomon survived and later became a rabbi in New York.

Felix F. Carlebach and his wife Babette emigrated to England in 1939 with the help of the English chief rabbi Josef Hertz . About it he said: The fact that my wife and I were saved is one of the greatest fortunes of my life. He became a rabbi in Manchester out of necessity : the world war had broken out, all colleagues were drafted into the army as war rabbis , and jobs became vacant here overnight. They just put me in there. In Manchester he represented a colleague who was appointed as a war rabbi at the Southgate United Synagogue from 1939 to 1947 . In 1954 he passed his master's degree from Victoria University Manchester . From 1947 until he retired in 1984, he was rabbi of the South Manchester Synagogue .

In 1985 Felix F. Carlebach visited his hometown Lübeck for the first time since 1939. The visit was brought about by the journalist Albrecht Schreiber , who was then working for the Lübecker Nachrichten , and who in his publications often dealt with the history of the Jews in Lübeck. Schreiber traveled with his wife on his own initiative to Carlebach, with whom a friendly relationship had developed in the meantime. After his return and corresponding coverage of the visit in the Lübecker Nachrichten, Lübeck remembered his obligations to former residents of the Jewish religion and, in turn, contacted the rabbi. Carlebach described his reaction and the consequences as follows: brotherhood, after the atrocities of the past. That was a very difficult question. (...) I brought it up and through the mayor and our old school I established excellent relationships with the authorities in Lübeck. During his stay in Lübeck he attended the Katharineum, his former grammar school, and there met twelve of his former classmates whom he had not seen since 1939. We fell around our necks and said: “That must never happen again,” reported Carlebach.

In 1987 the city of Lübeck offered Felix F. Carlebach honorary citizenship. It was awarded to him on September 17, 1987 at a ceremony in the town hall of the historic Lübeck town hall . Carlebach became the 19th honorary citizen of the Hanseatic city. In the letter of honorary citizenship it says: In a sincere effort to reconcile with their Jewish fellow citizens, who were inflicted unspeakably in the years from 1933 to 1945 under Nazi tyranny, the citizens of Lübeck awarded Rabbi Felix by a resolution of June 11, 1987 at the suggestion of the Senate F. Carlebach, MA, Right and Dignity of Honorary Citizen of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck.

When an arson attack was carried out on the Lübeck synagogue on March 25, 1994 , which resulted in property damage, Carlebach stuck to his conciliatory stance and stated that only an anteroom was affected. He had received all the newspaper clippings from Germany.

On the occasion of Felix F. Carlebach's 90th birthday, a delegation from Lübeck traveled to Manchester in 2001 with the former mayor Robert Knüppel , during whose term of office Carlebach had been granted honorary citizenship, and brought the congratulations from the city and the Evangelical Lutheran parish. Carlebach assured him that his thoughts and memories were often in Lübeck, even if he could no longer visit his hometown because of his old age.

The congregation of the South Manchester Synagogue honored Felix F. Carlebach's services as a rabbi with a plaque at the entrance to their new building, which was completed in 2002 and unveiled in April 2003 by the British heir to the throne, Prince Charles . He also planted a tree in honor of Carlebach. The Hallé Orchestra, the oldest existing English symphony orchestra founded in Manchester in 1558, honored Carlebach every year with a special concert, the program of which he was allowed to choose.

Felix F. Carlebach was a member of the board of trustees of the Ephraim Carlebach Foundation, founded in Leipzig in 1992.

The approximately 5.5 hectare Carlebach Park in the new Lübeck university district was named after the entire Carlebach rabbi family.

literature

• Press and Information Office of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (ed.): Ceremony on the occasion of the award of honorary citizenship of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck to Rabbi Felix F. Carlebach on September 17, 1987 in the citizenship hall of the Lübeck town hall . Hanseatic City of Lübeck, City Council and Senate, Lübeck 1987
• Peter Guttkuhn: "I have to share my bread". Felix F. Carlebach became an honorary citizen of Lübeck . In: General Jewish weekly newspaper. 42nd vol. 48. Bonn, November 27, 1987.
• Sabine Niemann (editor): The Carlebachs, a family of rabbis from Germany , Ephraim Carlebach Foundation (ed.). Dölling and Galitz. Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-926174-99-4

Web links

• Felix F. Carlebach on the side of the Katharineum in Lübeck

Individual evidence

1. ^ Page of the Katharineum
2. ↑ Kerstin Plowinski: A personality. The honorary citizen of Lübeck Felix Carlebach died in Manchester. Jüdische Allgemeine , February 7, 2008, accessed April 6, 2015 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b} Sabine Niemann: The Carlebachs, a family of rabbis from Germany , page 69
4. ↑ Carlebach was probably mistaken about who initiated the contact when he said: I came back to Lübeck through Albrecht Schreiber, who was led by the mayor of Lübeck Dr. Knüppel had received the order to look for a survivor of the Carlebach family. He had heard from me and the mayor said to him: "Come and see him in Manchester, see if he is willing to join hands with us, to cross a bridge that I am ready to build for him." In: Sabine Niemann: The Carlebachs, a rabbi family from Germany , page 71
5. ↑ ^{a b} Sabine Niemann: The Carlebachs, a family of rabbis from Germany , page 71
6. ↑ Lübecker Stadtzeitung ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ City newspaper Lübeck ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ^ Page of the South Manchester Synagogue ( Memento of the original from October 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) 
9. ↑ Page of the Hallé Orchestra ( Memento of the original of April 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) 
10. ^ Sabine Niemann: The Carlebachs, a rabbi family from Germany , page 77
11. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 

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