Max Ephraim

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Max Menachem Ephraim (born August 22, 1898 in Posen ; † August 25, 1942 in Babylon (New York) ) was the last rabbi of the Bad Kissingen district rabbinate from 1932 to 1938 .

Life

Max Ephraim was the son of the merchant Moritz Ephraim in Posen and his wife Mina. He first studied in 1915/16 or 1916/17 at the rabbinical seminary in Berlin and was drafted into the military during the First World War .

Ephraim was a rabbi in Burgpreppach before he succeeded Rabbi Drs in office at the end of September 1932, following a unanimous decision of the district communities. Seckel Bamberger competed in Bad Kissingen . At his inauguration, just four months before Hitler came to power , Bad Kissingen's Lord Mayor Dr. Max Pollwein on behalf of all the municipal authorities that he would be “supported in every direction” as the new rabbi . But immediately with the seizure of power in January 1933, the exclusion and disenfranchisement of the Jewish residents began in Bad Kissingen under the same mayor.

When Ephraim and city ​​councilor Nathan Bretzfelder , head of the Jewish community , wanted to see a Jewish lawyer in Schweinfurt about the arrest of eight Kissingen Jews, both were arrested and taken into protective custody. On March 19, 1933, the assigned district office Schweinfurt at the district office Bad Kissingen a "thorough search" including at district Rabbi Ephraim and impose binding instruction which letter and telegram barrier and to monitor the long-distance calls as "suspicion of capital shift abroad" consisted . The search was unsuccessful.

On November 10, 1938, Ephraim's apartment was searched again in his absence - again with no results. At the end of September, just a few weeks before the November pogroms of 1938 , he had canceled a trip to the USA, from which he never returned. He died on August 25, 1942, just three days after his 44th birthday, in Babylon, New York State, where he last worked at the Temple Beth Sholem .

Ephraim was married to Erna Wreschner (* 1900; † ?? in the USA), daughter of Leopold Wreschner , rabbi in Bad Homburg in front of the height . In early 1939 she followed her husband via Frankfurt am Main to New York City .

literature

  • Hans-Jürgen Beck, Rudolf Walter: Jewish life in Bad Kissingen. City of Bad Kissingen (ed.). Rötter Druck und Verlag, Bad Neustadt 1990, p. 30.
  • Esriel Hildesheimer , Mordechai Eliav: The Berlin Rabbinical Seminar 1873-1938. Its founding history - its students . Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-938485-46-0 , pp. 105-106.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Esriel Hildesheimer, Mordechai Eliav: Das Berliner Rabbinerseminar 1873-1938. Its founding history - its students . Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin 2008, p. 105.
  2. ^ Würzburg diocesan history sheets. S. 175, Hg .: Würzburger Diözesangeschichtsverein, Verlag Bistum, 2004.
  3. ^ Jewish life in Bad Kissingen. P. 31.
  4. ^ Jewish life in Bad Kissingen. P. 31.
  5. ^ American Jewish Year Book 1943/1944. Supplement, p. 384 ( digital copy ; PDF; 1.1 MB)
personal data
SURNAME Ephraim, Max
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ephraim, Max Menachem (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German clergyman, rabbi of the district rabbinate Bad Kissingen
DATE OF BIRTH August 22, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Poses
DATE OF DEATH August 25, 1942
Place of death Babylon (New York)