Leo Baerwald

Leo Baerwald (born September 20, 1883 in Saaz , Kingdom of Bohemia , Austria-Hungary ; died April 8, 1970 in New York , United States ) was a German-Bohemian rabbi and author.

Live and act

Baerwald comes from a family of rabbis and Jewish scholars. He was the son of the Rabbi von Saaz, Aron Baerwald and his wife Fanny, nee. Lazarus, daughter of the Breslau seminary rabbi Leiser Lazarus. Baerwald attended the Wilhelmsgymnasium Munich in the St. Anna suburb of Munich until his Abitur in 1902 , where he was also a religion teacher for the Jewish students from 1910 to 1936. From 1902 he studied at the Jewish-Theological Seminary Fraenckel'sche Stiftung and at the Silesian Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Breslau. In 1905 he was at the Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangenwith the dissertation The Development of Lotzesche Psychologie to the Doctorate (Dr. phil.) PhD . From 1906 to 1911 he worked as an assistant teacher at Religious School I in Breslau. In 1911 he passed the rabbinical exam at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Rabbi Baerwald found his first job in February 1911 as a rabbinical substitute in his home community in Munich, where he quickly gained a high reputation. During the First World War , he was initially a reinforcement soldier in 1914 , then until December 1917 a field rabbi for the Bavarian soldiers during the stage inspection of the 6th Army on the Western Front. At the end of November 1918, he was unanimously elected rabbi by the Israelite religious community in Munich . Together with the Zionist Elias Straus and the long-time chairman Alfred Neumeyer, Baerwald had a decisive influence on the Jewish life of the community in the interwar period.

From 1918 until his departure from Germany in 1940 (even after the synagogue was destroyed) Leo Baerwald was rabbi of the old main synagogue in Munich . In November 1936 he founded the Jüdisches Lehrhaus and became chairman of its board of trustees. He was a member of the Free Jewish Association (Central Party).

Baerwald had already been resisting National Socialism since 1920 . In 1933 he was kidnapped by the SA and received death threats. In November 1938 he was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp , whereupon he decided to emigrate. In March 1940 he managed to emigrate to the USA. Before he emigrated, the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde München thanked him for his "blessings that they have received from you over three decades in worship and pastoral care in schools, welfare and administration".

Together with Rabbi Isaak Heilbronn, Baerwald founded the Congregation Beth Hillel in New York. He was the first rabbi of that Washington Heights ward from 1940 until his retirement in 1955 . The community consisted mainly of German-born Jewish emigrants from Munich and Nuremberg. From 1947 to 1949 Baerwald was President of the B'nai B'rith in New York. He was a member of the New York Board of Rabbis . He also worked as a minister for the Jewish Veterans Association . Although liberal, he tried to unite all Jewish tendencies. At Beth Hillel it was a matter of course that men and women sat separately and that there was no organ.

After his retirement he was a member of the Leo Baeck Institute and board member of the American Federation of Jews from Central Europe and Blue Card , a German-Jewish welfare organization in New York.

Awards

During the First World War Leo Baerwald was awarded the Bavarian Order of Military Merit 4th Class and (1916) the Iron Cross 2nd Class.

Baerwald was honored with the Bavarian Order of Merit in 1965 and, on his last visit to Munich in May 1969, was awarded the " Munich Glows " medal.

Works (selection)

• The development of Lotzean psychology. Koebner'schen Buchhandlung publishing house, Breslau 1905; Reprint z. E.g .: Kessinger Pub Co, 2010, ISBN 978-1-1688353-6-9 .
• Field letter. In: In the German Empire. Journal of the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith , Volume 20, Issue 10–12, Berlin 1914, pp. 389–392.
• The prophetic passage for the day of atonement. Isaiah 57, 14ff., 58. A greeting from the field rabbis to the Jewish comrades in the German army. Edited by the Association of German Jews, Berlin 1915, pp. 15-18.
• A field rabbi in shell fire. In: Israelitisches Familienblatt. Hamburg, January 21, 1915, p. 3.
• From my job. In: Israelitisches Familienblatt. Hamburg, March 31, 1915, p. 9.
• Jewish grave sites for the field. 1917.
• Order of divine services on the high holidays 5678. 1917.
• At escort. In: Bayerische Israelitische Gemeindezeitung. News bulletin of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde in Munich and the Association of Bavarian Israelitic Congregations. First year, issue 1, Munich 1925, p. 1 ( digitalized in compact memory ).
• The centenary of the University of Munich. Sermon. In: Bayerische Israelitische Gemeindezeitung. Second year, issue 12, Munich 1926, SS 308–310 ( digitized in compact memory ).
• The Jews in Munich from December 12th to 18th Century. 1928; reprinted in: Menorah. Jewish family journal for science, art and literature. Habrith-Verlags-Gesellschaft, sixth year, Vienna, Frankfurt am Main 1928, p. 660 ff. ( Digitized in compact memory ).
• Mexico. In: Central-Verein-Zeitung. Sheets for Germanness and Judaism. Organ of the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith eV Seventh year, issue 18, Mosse, Berlin 1928, p. 5 ( digitized in compact memory ).
• Our fallen comrades. Memorial book for the Munich Jews who died in the World War. Munich 1929; Digitized in the Freimann Collection .
• Judaism and Christianity. The Advent sermons of Cardinal von Faulhaber. In: Central-Verein-Zeitung. 12th year, issue 49, Mosse, Berlin 1933, p. 2 ( digitized in compact memory ).
• Sermon for the 50th anniversary of the synagogue in Munich, delivered in the synagogue in Munich on September 5, 1937 Erew Rosch-Haschonoh 5698. Israelitische Kultusgemeinde, Munich 1937.
• With Ludwig Feuchtwanger : Festgabe, 50 years of the main synagogue in Munich, 1887–1937. Israelitische Kultusgemeinde München, Munich 1937.
• Paul Lazarus. His life and work in Germany. Paul Lazarus Memorial Book, 1961, pp. 11–20.

Literature (selection)

• Annual report of the Jewish-theological seminar Fraenkel'scher Foundation. Breslau 1909, p. 4.
• General newspaper of Judaism . An impartial organ for all Jewish interests in politics, religion, literature, history, linguistics and fiction. Edited by Dr. Ludwig Philippson , 75th year, No. 16, Berlin 1911, supplement Der Gemeindebote p. 2, communication on resignation in Breslau ( digitized at Compact Memory ).
• The Israelite. A central organ for Orthodox Judaism. Edited by Marcus Lehmann , 59th year, no. 44, Mainz 1918, p. 5.
• Israelite family sheet. Hamburg, September 9, 1926 and October 11, 1933.
• Guido Kisch (Ed.): The Breslau seminar. Jewish theological seminar (Fraenckelscher Foundation) in Breslau 1854–1938. Memorial. Tübingen 1963, p. 407.
• Arnd Müller: History of the Jews in Nuremberg 1146-1945. Nuremberg 1968, p. 268.
• Baruch Z. Ophir and Falk Wiesemann (eds.): The Jewish communities in Bavaria 1918–1945. History and destruction. Munich 1979, pp. 34, 40, 43, 52, 212.
• Otto Dov Kulka and Eberhard Jäckel (eds.): The Jews in the secret Nazi mood reports 1933–1945. Düsseldorf 2004, pp. 78, 662.
• Richard Bauer and Michael Brenner (eds.): Jewish Munich. From the Middle Ages to the present. CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-4065497-9-3 , p. 145.
• Entry BAERWALD, Leo, Dr. In: Michael Brocke and Julius Carlebach (editors), edited by Katrin Nele Jansen with the assistance of Jörg H. Fehrs and Valentina Wiedner: Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbis. Part 2: The rabbis in the German Empire, 1871–1945. K G Saur, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-5982487-4-0 , p. 47 f.
• Christian Kraft: Ashkenaz in Jerusalem. The religious institutions of immigrants from Germany in the Jerusalem district of Rechavia (1933–2004). Transfer and Transformation. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-5255703-4-0 , p. 289 f.

Web links

• New Synagogue Foundation Berlin - Centrum Judaicum: Field rabbis in the German armed forces of the First World War. Exhibition July 5, 2009–29. August 2009
• Rabbi of Saaz
• Guide to the Papers of Leo Baerwald (1883-1970)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Annual report on the Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Munich 1901/02.
2. ↑ Richard Bauer , Michael Brenner (ed.): Jewish Munich. From the Middle Ages to the present. CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-4065497-9-3 , p. 145.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Leo Baerwald in the database of the project remembering of the Bavarian Teachers' Association
4. ↑ Christian Kraft: Ashkenaz in Jerusalem. The religious institutions of immigrants from Germany in the Jerusalem district of Rechavia (1933-2004). Transfer and Transformation. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-5255703-4-0 , p. 289 f.
5. ↑ Harry Herbert Tobies: Königsberg, Munich, Jerusalem: Jewish people and Jewish life over the centuries. H. Tobies, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-00-018721-6 , p. 82; limited preview in Google Book search