Josef Kliersfeld

Josef Kliersfeld (born December 2, 1908 in Stettin ; † September 10, 1998 ), after 1949 Joseph Kalir , was a German rabbi and professor of religious studies.

Life

Josef Kliersfeld was born in Stettin in 1908 and moved with his parents to Hamborn ( Duisburg ). He dropped out of school for economic reasons, did a commercial apprenticeship, got involved in a Hamborner Hechaluz association and worked as a furniture seller. In 1930 he nevertheless passed the Abitur with his companion Hermann Ostfeld (who later became a rabbi in Göttingen). He studied economic history, modern history, philosophy and Semitic Studies in Berlin and Würzburg and in 1933 for his dissertation The attitude of Kaiser Wilhelm II to the labor movement and the Social Democrats in Würzburg doctorate . In 1935 he passed his rabbinical exam at the College for the Science of Judaism and was appointed rabbi in Bochum in 1936 as the successor to Moritz David .

In 1938, a friend of the National Socialists , Hans Wnuk, asked Kliersfeld to take a longer vacation in Switzerland in order to avoid the imminent reprisals by the National Socialists. In the same year he was arrested and taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . At the request of his wife Hilda bei Wnuk, he was released after six weeks and in February 1939 Kliersfeld emigrated to Palestine in the region of today's State of Israel . Together with his family, his daughter Shila was born in 1941 and lived there for 16 years. In 1949, one year after the establishment of the State of Israel, he changed his name to Joseph Kalir.

In 1955 he left Israel and went to Sweden with his wife. He was a rabbi in Gothenburg until 1957 and then traveled to Boston in the United States, where he became a professor at the Hebrew Teachers College at Brookline . From 1965 to 1980 he was a rabbi at the Beth Shalom Temple in Santa Ana and then went to California State University, Fullerton as a professor of religious studies .

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Benjamin J. Hubbard: Joseph Kalir 1908–1998. Professor of religious studies, emeritus. (PDF; 225 kB) California State University, Fullerton, 1995.
↑ Cf. Josef Kliersfeld, in: Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbiner, ed. by Michael Brocke and Julius Carlebach, part 2, volume 1, Munich 2009, p. 335f. as well as Harald Lordick, Polish Zionists in the Ruhr area, in: Barbian u. a., Jews in the Ruhr Area, Essen 1999, p. 533.
↑ ^a ^b Josef Kliersfeld. In: Günter Birkmann, Hartmut Stratmann, Thomas Kohlpoth: Consider who you are standing in front of. 300 synagogues and their history in Westphalia and Lippe. Klartext-Verlag, Essen 1998, ISBN 3-88474-661-8 .

Web links

Literature by and about Josef Kliersfeld in the catalog of the German National Library

personal data
SURNAME	Kliersfeld, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Kalir, Joseph (later name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German rabbi
DATE OF BIRTH	December 2, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH	Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH	September 10, 1998

[Hubbard_1995-1] Benjamin J. Hubbard: Joseph Kalir 1908–1998. Professor of religious studies, emeritus. (PDF; 225 kB) California State University, Fullerton, 1995.

[2] Cf. Josef Kliersfeld, in: Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbiner, ed. by Michael Brocke and Julius Carlebach, part 2, volume 1, Munich 2009, p. 335f. as well as Harald Lordick, Polish Zionists in the Ruhr area, in: Barbian u. a., Jews in the Ruhr Area, Essen 1999, p. 533.

[Birkmann_et_al_1998-3] Josef Kliersfeld. In: Günter Birkmann, Hartmut Stratmann, Thomas Kohlpoth: Consider who you are standing in front of. 300 synagogues and their history in Westphalia and Lippe. Klartext-Verlag, Essen 1998, ISBN 3-88474-661-8 .