Joseph Asher

Joseph Asher (born January 7, 1921 in Heilbronn ; † May 29, 1990 ) was a German-American rabbi who became known for his services in the reconciliation between Jews and Germans after the Holocaust and his support for the American civil rights movement . He was Chief Rabbi of the Emanu-El Congregation in San Francisco for 19 years .

family

Joseph Asher was born as Joseph Ansbacher on January 7, 1921 in Heilbronn . He changed his last name in early 1947.

He belonged to the sixth generation of rabbis in his family. His father, Jonas Ansbacher (1880–1967), was an Orthodox rabbi who had written a doctoral thesis at the University of Erlangen on a thesis by an Arab from the 13th century. His father was ordained by Rabbi Solomon Breuer and he was a follower of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch , founder of the "Torah im Derech Eretz". Joseph Asher gave up his ancestors' Orthodox Judaism and became a rabbi of Reform Judaism .

education

When his father received his position as rabbi of the ancient Israelite community, the Ansbacher family moved to Wiesbaden in 1925 , where Joseph attended grammar school. When the Nazis took power in January 1933, he was only one of seven Jews out of 600 students and the only Jew in his class. He was harassed for three years and subjected to anti-Semitic slurs carved on his desk. Other students sang songs calling for the murder of Jews. In 1936 most of the Jewish students were excluded from many public schools, whereupon his parents sent him to the Talmud Torah School in Hamburg , which was directed by Rabbi Joseph Carlebach . He graduated from school in the spring of 1938. Martin Buber was among the regular guest lecturers in the senior year .

Due to the worsening situation of the Jews in Germany, the family applied for a visa in 1933 in order to leave the country if necessary. His family sent Joseph to a rabbinical seminary in London after he finished school . He went to the Etz Chaim Yeshiva School and the London School of Jewish Studies. After the war, he completed his studies at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati , Ohio. His semichah referred to him as a member of a long tradition of rabbis in his family.

National Socialism

During the November pogroms on November 9, 1938, his father's synagogue in Wiesbaden was desecrated and temporarily closed. On the way to the train station he was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Buchenwald for 10 weeks . He was released after he had promised to leave Germany immediately with his visa. His parents arrived in London as refugees in February 1939.

After the British defeat at the Battle of Dunkirk , a wave of xenophobia against German refugees swept through Britain. Most of the German Jews and those persecuted politically were arrested. His father was interned on the Isle of Man . Joseph was taken to an internment camp in Huyton and a short time later taken to the troop ship HMT Dunera , on which there were 2,000 other people persecuted by National Socialism. The ship started for Australia on July 10, 1940 . He described the conditions on the 57-day journey as terrible and sadistic because British guards struck several times with rifle butts and looted the travelers' belongings. It was the most terrible experience in his life. After the emaciated prisoners arrived in Sydney, they were taken to an internment camp until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines in December 1941.

The prisoners were allowed to enroll in the Australian Army. Asher took this opportunity and served as a military rabbi . He met his wife Fae in Australia.

Career as a rabbi

After his discharge from the military, he served at the Melbourne Liberal Synagogue as an assistant to Rabbi Hermann Sanger. Sanger helped Jewish refugees move to Australia. Asher moved to the United States in 1947 and served in various synagogues in Olean, New York; Sarasota , Florida and finally Tuscaloosa , Alabama from 1956 to 1958. He served as rabbi at Temple Emmanuel in Greensboro, North Carolina from 1958 to 1968, and in the Emanu-El Congregation in San Francisco from 1967 until his retirement in 1986 emeritus rabbi.

German-Jewish Relations after the Holocaust

In London, Joseph Asher became friends with Lily Montagu, CBE , who served in the World Union for Progressive Judaism . In 1947 she recommended him to Leo Baeck , the president of the organization, to act as ambassador to investigate the situation of Jews in various German cities during the post-war period. For six weeks he examined the situation of displaced persons , including an extended stay in Bergen-Belsen . Everywhere he found destruction and despair. He later wrote:

"A human eye cannot understand the horrors I saw."

- Joseph Asher

In 1955 a trip to Germany gave him the idea of ​​reorienting German-Jewish relations. In 1961, motivated by worldwide attention to the Eichmann trial in Israel, he began to speak publicly about the Holocaust and future relations between Germany and the Jews.

Asher visited Germany again in 1964 at the invitation of the German government. He saw what the German education system taught students about Jews. He attended his old grammar school and also the Max Planck Institute and met with people in charge of the German education system. He described his experience in an article he wrote for Look magazine, entitled "A rabbi asks, isn't it time we forgive the Germans?"

Although this article attracted numerous critics, the mayor of Berlin Willy Brandt and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations reacted positively. In 1965, Rabbi Asher led a group of four German-speaking rabbis to meet with 8,000 German teachers in training and helped develop teaching in Germany about the Holocaust.

In an interview with the newspaper Aufbau on March 11, 1966, he explained the background to his work in Germany:

“A new generation is growing up that have not committed the horrific crimes and for which they cannot be held responsible. The only good we can do is to familiarize them with the Jews, their teachings, peculiarities and history, which they did not have the opportunity to do "

- Joseph Asher

A year later he repeatedly visited Jewish students at various German universities and later became a visiting professor at the Church University in Berlin . He served on the international committee for teachers to design a memorial at the Wannsee Villa , where the National Socialist regime planned the final solution in 1942 .

In 1980 he was called to the Holocaust Memorial Council, established by the US Congress, to plan the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum . The museum opened in Washington DC in 1993 three years after his death.

Civil rights movement

In 1958 he became a rabbi at Temple Emanuel in Greensboro , North Carolina. On February 1, 1960, the Greensboro sit-ins began, an attempt to end racial segregation at the lunch table of a branch of the FW Woolworth Company. He was one of only two local white clergymen who assisted black community leaders and black clergy on issues of tolerance and racial segregation.

The sit-in movement spread throughout the southern states, leading to progress in many communities in terms of racial segregation and political pressure on the government. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 made public segregation illegal. As a rabbi in the deep south, he did not hesitate to speak out against racial discrimination in the workplace, even if the employers were Jewish.

Rabbi Asher was concerned about militant extremism. In San Francisco, he declined to share a desk with Racist Secretary Jim Jones , who himself died in a mass suicide in Jonestown.

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Rabbi Asher supported the cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians. He participated in Breira, an organization that proposed the introduction of special conditions for Israeli territories prior to the Yom Kippur War . He also served as an advisor to Friends of Peace Now and the New Israel Fund . His support for these organizations led to severe criticism and accusations of anti-Zionism.

Death and legacy

Rabbi Asher died of prostate cancer on May 29, 1990.

In honor of Joseph Asher and his life's work, a commemorative publication was produced by Moses Rischin and his son Rabbi Raphael Asher on the occasion of his death and published in 1991. The name of the book is: The Jewish legacy and the German Conscience (German: The Jewish legacy and the German conscience ) and contains essays by 23 scholars, including: Gunther Plaut , David Ellenson, David G. Dalin, Immanuel Jakobovits, Jakob Josef Petuchowski , Paul R. Mendes-Flohr and Gerhard Weinberg . Elie Wiesel wrote the afterword.

His successor in the Emanu-El Congregation in San Francisco, Robert Kirschner, wrote of Rabbi Asher:

"Driven by the characteristics of German Jews, whose generation was the last living witness: dignity, seriousness, well-read and a unique elegance."

- Robert Kirschner

The historian Fred Rosenbaum wrote:

"His deep erudition, his European manners, and most of all his personal integrity brought stability to many communities in a tumultuous world."

- Fred Rosenbaum

His son, Rabbi Raphael W. Asher, is the Chief Rabbi in the B'nai Tikvah Ward in Walnut Creek , California.

The Emanu-El congregation in San Francisco holds an annual commemorative reading, usually with a scholar, who continues Rabbi Asher's life's work on Germany and the Jews.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Raphael Asher, edited by Moses Rischin and Raphael Asher: In My Father's House . In: The Judah L. Magnes Museum (Ed.): The Jewish Legacy & the German Conscience . , Berkeley, CA1991, p. Page 41.
2. ↑ Ansbacher, Jonas: The sections about the spirits and wonderful creatures from Qazwînî's Kosmographie, Erlangen, Univ., Diss., 1905.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Joseph Asher, edited by Moses Rischin and Raphael Asher: An Incomprehensible Puzzlement . In: The Judah L. Magnes Museum (Ed.): The Jewish Legacy & the German Conscience . , Berkeley, CA1991, pp. 26-37.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Robert Kirschner, edited by Moses Rischin and Raphael Asher: A Singular Elegance . In: The Judah L. Magnes Museum (Ed.): The Jewish Legacy & the German Conscience . , Berkeley, CA1991, pp. Pages 48-50.
5. ^ ^{A b c} Fred Rosenbaum: Visions of reform: Congregation Emanu-El and the Jews of San Francisco, 1849-1999 . Judah L. Magnes Museum, Berkeley, CA 2000, ISBN 9780943376691 , pp. 253-293 .
6. ^ Rabbi Joseph Asher, Synagogue Leader, 69 . In: The New York Times , June 3, 1990. Retrieved October 15, 2010. 
7. ↑ ^{a b} Moses Rischin , edited by Moses Rischin and Raphael Asher: The German Imperative and the Jewish Response . In: The Judah L. Magnes Museum (Ed.): The Jewish Legacy & the German Conscience . , Berkeley, CA1991, pp. Pages 3 - 6.
8. ↑ Joseph Asher: A Rabbi Asks: Isn't It Time We Forgave the Germans? . In: Cowles Magazines (ed.): Look magazine . April 20, 1965.
9. ^ Asher, Joseph, 1921-1990 - Biography . Civil Rights Digital Library. September 16, 2010. Retrieved October 15, 2010.
10. ↑ Joseph Puder: The New Israel Fund: A New Fund for Israel's Enemies (PDF; 343 kB) Archived from the original on October 25, 2010. Information: 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. Retrieved October 15, 2010. 
11. ^ Elie Wiesel , edited by Moses Rischin and Raphael Asher: On Memory and Reconciliation . In: The Judah L. Magnes Museum (Ed.): The Jewish Legacy & the German Conscience . , Berkeley, CA1991, pp. Pages 327-331.
12. ^ Rabbi Asher Memorial Lectures . The Congregation Emanu-El, San Francisco. Archived from the original on October 23, 2010. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 15, 2010.