Isaak Emil Lichtigfeld
(Jizhak) Isaak Emil Lichtigfeld (born March 6, 1894 in Burschtyn in Eastern Galicia; died December 24, 1967 in Frankfurt am Main , buried according to his will on January 4, 1968 in Jerusalem in the Sanhedria cemetery), was from 1954 to 1967 worked as the State Rabbi of Hesse in Frankfurt am Main. He succeeded Zwi Harry Levy, who served in Frankfurt from 1952 to 1954.
biography
Education and professional
Lichtigfeld studied law in Germany before the First World War and became a member of the Association of Jewish Academics as a student . He took part in the fighting for Langemark near Ypres as a war volunteer , was wounded twice and promoted to lieutenant in the German army. In 1922 he established himself as a lawyer at the Düsseldorf Regional Court and ran a law firm with his brother Leo . In 1929 he moved to Cologne to enable his children to attend the Jewish Jawne high school .
After 1933
After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists in January 1933, Emil Lichtigfeld was initially allowed to continue practicing as a lawyer as a front- line fighter in the First World War . At the end of 1933 he emigrated to London and decided to become a rabbi. In his admission to the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court , he substituted his brother Leo, for which the brothers were defamed in National Socialist publications.
After the outbreak of war he worked as a rabbi in a community affiliated with the United Synagogue.
In 1946 he went to Germany with the British Army as a representative of the Chief Rabbinate Council . Here he became the religious advisor to the illegal exodus immigrants. He then went to the refugee camp in Cyprus . In mid-1948, after the establishment of the State of Israel , he returned to London and continued his religious and political activities there.
Rabbis in Frankfurt and Germany
In 1954 Lichtigfeld was appointed rabbi to the Frankfurt am Main Jewish Community , where there was a not yet fully integrated Eastern Jewish majority. Here he built a community life as a unitary community of traditional Orthodox character; There were again six places of prayer in Frankfurt and the infrastructure necessary for the religious interests of the community: Jewish cemetery , Kaschruth , teaching centers, youth education, religious instruction. As a result of his efforts, a school was re-established in 1966, which was named after him after his death. Since 2006, the I. E. Lichtigfeld School has been back in Philanthropin . It was the first German Jewish school after World War II .
Lichtigfeld was also the chairman of the German rabbinical conference as well as the state rabbi of Hesse. He became a Zionist and a militant Jewish national. On the occasion of his 70th birthday, the British government awarded him the OBE, the Order of the British Empire .
Because Lichtigfeld felt increasingly overburdened in his dual function as state and community rabbi, the community appointed Sigmund Szobel as the second community rabbi in 1963. After Lichtigfeld's death in 1968 he was the sole parish rabbi.
Worth knowing
The small Jewish museum in the Michelstadt synagogue , in Michelstadt in the Odenwald , is named after Isaak Emil Lichtigfeld.
literature
- Paul Arnsberg : Chronicle of the Rabbis in Frankfurt am Main , Verlag Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main, 2nd edition 2002, ISBN 3-7829-0531-8
- Andreas Brämer : The Frankfurt rabbinate after 1945. In: Who builds a house wants to stay. 50 years of the Jewish community in Frankfurt a. M. Beginnings and the present. Frankfurt a. M. 1998, pp. 122-127.
- Julius Carlebach / Andreas Brämer: Continuity or New Beginning? Isaac Emil Lichtigfeld as Rabbi in Frankfurt and Hessen, 1954-1967 , in: Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 42 (1997), pp. 275-302
Web links
- Literature by and about Isaak Emil Lichtigfeld in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lichtigfeld, Isaak Emil |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Lichtigfeld, Isaac Emil; Lichtigfeld, Jizhak Emil |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | rabbi |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 6, 1894 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Burschtyn , Galicia |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 24, 1967 |
| Place of death | Frankfurt am Main |