Joachim Prinz (rabbi)

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Rabbi Joachim Prinz
Memorial plaque for the Berlin Temple of Peace
The organizers of the March on Washington met with President John F. Kennedy on August 28, 1963

Joachim Prinz (* 10. May 1902 in Bierdzany , district Opole ; † 30th September 1988 in Livingston, New Jersey ) was a German rabbi and Zionist (to 1948), who in the 1937 United States emigrated , deputy there chairman of the World Jewish Congress was and spoke alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. on August 28, 1963 at the March on Washington .

Life

Prinz was the son of an Opole textile merchant. In 1917 he joined the Zionist youth organization Blau-Weiß . After graduating from high school in Opole in 1921, he studied in Breslau, Berlin and at the University of Giessen ; here he was awarded a Dr. phil. doctorate (dissertation: On the concept of religious experience: A contribution to the theory of religion ). He received his ordination as a rabbi in 1925 from the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau . He married Lucie Horovitz, the daughter of one of his theological teachers. However, she died in 1931; in his second marriage he was married to Hilde Goldschmidt from 1932.

In 1926, Prinz was appointed rabbi at the association synagogue Peace Temple in Berlin ; the youngest rabbi in Berlin at the time soon acquired the reputation of a charismatic preacher and ardent Zionist.

Against the background of the worsening social situation towards the end of the Weimar Republic , which in some cases had devastating effects on the Jewish youth and the East Jewish immigrants, “who made up the Jewish proletariat in Germany”, “within the Jewish community and within the framework of the Central Welfare Office the German Jews the discussion about the refonn of Jewish social work “new food. Encouraged by Siddy Wronsky and Erich Stern , Prinz intervened in these discussions and addressed “the rabbi's tasks and qualifications for social work.” In particular, for the big cities he advocated the use of so-called social rabbis who are not limited to their tasks as community pastors should.

In the vicinity of the Jewish teaching house in Berlin, similar to Frankfurt am Main or Cologne, young Jews founded the Jewish Youth School in 1929. The background was the dissatisfaction with the teaching methods of the Berlin Jewish Adult Education Center . Prince was instrumental in setting up this school, which was also supposed to prepare people for emigration to Palestine ( Hachshara ).

In 1934, Prinz published the text Wir Juden , in which he took a radical position against the assimilation of Western European Jewry since the Enlightenment , which had led to a loss of substance , and propagated mass emigration from Germany. Hans-Joachim Schoeps replied with a reply: We German Jews. In 1935, Prince declared: It is the lot of the Jew: to be neighborless. Shortly thereafter, the parish council tried to reprimand him for his sermons and speeches, which were likely to provoke disputes and excitement among the audience .

In 1937 Rabbi Stephen Wise succeeded in allowing Joachim Prinz, who had meanwhile been arrested several times by the Gestapo , to enter the USA. Here, in 1939, Prince became rabbi of the Temple B'nai Abraham reform synagogue in Newark (New Jersey) , where he stayed until his retirement in 1977. However, he broke away from Zionism in 1948 because it achieved its goal with the establishment of the State of Israel.

He was involved in American Jewish organizations and was President of the American Jewish Congress from 1958 to 1966 . In that capacity, he was one of the organizers of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 and was one of the speakers at the main rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial where Martin Luther King, Jr, gave his famous " I Have a Dream " speech.

Prinz was also a board member of the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany .

Works

  • On the concept of religious experience. Wroclaw 1927
  • Heroes and Adventures of the Bible. Berlin-Charlottenburg: P. Baumann 1930
  • Jewish history. Berlin: Verlag für Kulturpolitik 1931 (2nd edition: Illustrated Jewish history. Berlin: Brandus 1933)
  • We Jews. Berlin: Reiss 1934 (Excerpts in: Christoph Schulte : Deutschtum und Judentum. A dispute among Jews in Germany . Stuttgart: Reclam 1993, Reclams Universal-Bibliothek ; No. 8899, ISBN 978-3-15-008899-9 )
  • The stories of the Bible. Berlin: Reiss Verl. 1934 (7 editions until 1937; new edition: Frankfurt am Main: Jüdischer Verlag bei Athenäum 1988)
  • Friday evening. Berlin: Brandus [1935]; Reprint: Zurich: Verl. Jüd. Book community 1954
  • The kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Berlin: Reiss 1936
  • Life in the ghetto. Berlin: Lion 1937
  • Prayers for the High Holidays. 1951
  • The Dilema of the Modern Jew. 1962
  • Popes from the Ghetto. 1966
  • The secret Jews. 1973

literature

Web links

Commons : Joachim Prinz (Rabbi)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joachim Prinz, Leader in Protests For Civil-Rights Causes, Dies at 86 New York Times, By GLENN FOWLER, Published: October 1, 1988. However, the place of birth is not Burkhardtsdorf in the Kingdom of Saxony, as stated in the obituary of the New York Times , but the similarly written Burkardsdorf near Opole in Upper Silesia
  2. ↑ See, for example, the memories of Ilse Perlman
  3. ^ A b Ludwig Liegle / Franz-Michael Konrad (eds.): Reform pedagogy in Palestine. Documents and interpretations of attempts at a 'new' education in the Jewish community of Palestine (1918-1948) , dipa-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1989, ISBN 3-7638-0809-4 , pp. 226–227
  4. ↑ Michael Brenner: Jewish Culture in the Weimar Republic , CH Beck, Munich, 2000, ISBN 3-406-46121-2 , p. 112
  5. ↑ In a speech Jewish situation - today , printed in: Jüdische Rundschau XL (1935), No. 31/32 of April 17, 1935; also in: Wolf Gruner (editor) The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945. Vol. 1: German Empire 1933–1937. Munich 2008, p. 426ff
  6. ↑ Jüdische Rundschau XL (1935), No. 43 of May 28, 1935 (digital version accessible via archive link ( Memento of the original of September 28, 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 note. ) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.compactmemory.de
  7. ↑ March on Washington photo Gallery ( Memento of the original from June 1, 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.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / afroamhistory.about.com
  8. ↑ transcript and mp3 of the speech
  9. ↑ Prinz and King in FAZ from August 26, 2013, page 7
personal data
SURNAME Prince, Joachim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American rabbi
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Bierdzan, Opole district
DATE OF DEATH September 30, 1988
Place of death Livingston, New Jersey