Solomon Schonfeld

Solomon Schonfeld in December 1945

Solomon Schonfeld (born February 21, 1912 in London ; † February 6, 1984 ibid) was a British Orthodox rabbi who was honored posthumously with the British Hero of the Holocaust award in 2013 .

Life

Schonfeld was the second son of Avigdor Schonfeld, the rabbi of the London Adath Yisroel Synagogue. After the early death of his father in 1930, he gave up the law degree he had begun and studied at Yeshivot in Nitra (now Slovakia) and Lithuania; then he did his doctorate in Königsberg . In 1933 he returned to Great Britain, where he succeeded his father as chairman of the Jewish Secondary Schools Movement . As rabbi of the Adath Yisroel Synagogue, he was elected chairman rabbi of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations .

From its founding in 1938 until 1948, he was the managing director of the Chief Rabbi's Religious Emergency Council (CRREC), chaired by his future father-in-law, Chief Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz . The CRREC, originally founded to support rabbis in the German Reich , organized, among other things, the departure of 500 rabbis and Torah students with their families to Shanghai and took care of 1,500 of the 10,000 children who fled on the Kindertransport in England . In Great Britain, the CRREC set up kosher kitchens and synagogues in the internment camps for the refugees.

In 1946, after the end of World War II, Schonfeld, dressed in a uniform he had bought himself, brought relief supplies for survivors to Bergen-Belsen . In the same year he traveled to Poland, where he chartered a ship to bring Jewish orphans to Britain.

As a successor to his father, Schonfeld expanded the Orthodox Jewish Secondary Schools Movement by founding additional schools, including Hasmonean High School , which he initially set up in 1944 as a grammar school for the children of Orthodox Holocaust refugees.

In 2013 Schonfeld was posthumously honored as the British Hero of the Holocaust ; the award was presented to his son at Lancaster House .

Publications

• Jewish Religious Education. A guide and handbook for use by teachers, group leaders and parents. National Council for Jewish Religious Education, London 1943.
• The Universal Bible. Being the Pentateuchal texts at first addressed to all nations. Torat B'nei No'ach. Teaching for the sons of Noah. Translation and notes by S. Schonfeld. Sidgwick & Jackson, London 1955.
• A new-old rendering of the Psalms. Uniby Press, London 1980.

literature

• David Kranzler and Gertrude Hirschler (eds.): Solomon Schonfeld: his page in history. Recollections of individuals saved by an extraordinary Orthodox Jewish rescue hero during the Holocaust era. Judaica Press, New York City 1982, ISBN 0910818460 .
• David Kranzler: Holocaust hero. The untold story and vignettes of Solomon Schonfeld, an extraordinary British Orthodox rabbi who rescued 4000 Jews during the Holocaust. KTAV Publishing House, Jersey City 2004, ISBN 0-88125-730-3 .
• Derek Taylor: Solomon Schonfeld: A Purpose in Life. Valentine Mitchell, London 2009, ISBN 978-0-85303-881-8 .
• Chanan Tomlin: Protest and Prayer. Rabbi Dr Solomon Schonfeld and orthodox Jewish responses in Britain to the Nazi persecution of Europe's Jews 1942–1945. Peter Lang, Oxford 2006, ISBN 978-3-03910-932-6 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Solomon Schonfeld in the bibliographic database WorldCat
• University of Southampton: MS 183 Papers of Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld (1912–84) (PDF; 56 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Eric Pickles MP (Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government): Speech: British Heroes of the Holocaust , accessed May 9, 2013.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} University of Southampton: MS 183 Papers of Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld (1912–84)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 56 kB)  
3. ^ Rebekka Göpfert: The Jewish Kindertransport from Germany to England 1938/39. History and Memory Campus, Frankfurt 1999 ISBN 3-593-36201-5 , p. 107, p. 152f
4. ↑ Emma Youle: Government honors Rabbi Dr Solomon Schonfeld for saving 3,500 lives in Holocaust. In: Hampstead & Highgate Express of April 11, 2013. ( online ).