Leo Baeck

For more information on Leo Baeck, visit Britannica.com.

Leo Baeck (1873-1956) - rabbi, teacher, hero of the concentration camps, and Jewish leader - represented in his life and writings the drama, tragedy, and hopefulness of modern Judaism.

Leo Baeck was born May 23, 1873, in Lissa, a city in the Prussian province of Posen where his father was an Orthodox rabbi. There he received both a traditional Jewish education and secular training in the Lissa Gymnasium. He continued this dual interest in Judaism and secular thought through his studies at the Orthodox seminary Judische-Theologisches Seminar, the University of Breslau, the Berlin Hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums (a liberal Jewish seminary), and the Friedrich Wilhelm University. In 1897 he received a rabbinical degree from the Hochschule and a doctorate from the University of Berlin.

Baeck's rabbinical experience included that of a traditional synagogue in the town of Oppeln, Silesia, and of the larger synagogue in Dusseldorf. Finally he was elected senior rabbi of the autonomous Jewish community of Berlin, a post which he held from 1912 until 1943 when he was deported by the Nazis to the concentration camp at Theresienstadt. He was a noted teacher, rabbi, and preacher, respected by Jew and non-Jew alike.

His reputation was built not only upon his scholarship but also upon his concern for the entire Jewish community. He was active in civic organizations like B'nai Brith and also in the Zionist movement, which was unusual for a German rabbi of his time. He was also known and respected by Christian leaders after the publication of his first book, The Essence of Judaism (1905), which responded to a critique of Judaism offered in Adolf von Harnack's book What is Christianity.

The Nazi Years and Their Aftermath

Baeck's reputation was sorely tried during the Nazi years. He served as leader of the council of German Jews established by Hitler in 1933 and later in Theresienstadt served as head of the Aeltestenrat, a council of elders which was more a facade of Jewish autonomy than an actually independent body. Baeck has been criticized for his cooperation with the Nazis in their attempts to mask their atrocities with the appearance of justice. Nevertheless Baeck was able to utilize these positions to promote prayers of protest and to mobilize Jewish learning as a means of resistance to the Nazi effort to dehumanize the Jews.

After World War II Baeck went to London, and in 1953 he became a British citizen. While continuing his educational activities in England he also served on the faculty of the Reform Seminary, the Hebrew Union College, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He thus became associated with the Liberal Movement in Judaism, and the Liberal Jewish seminary in London is named after him. During this time he also travelled to Israel, lecturing at the Hebrew University.

His Thought

Baeck's thought had three central concerns: Jewish ethics, Judaism and Christianity, and the Jewish people. These are represented by three major works. His first book, The Essence of Judaism, began as an exposition on the continuity of Jewish thinking from the Bible through the great rabbinic teachers. By the time it was revised and expanded in 1922 Baeck had developed a three-fold understanding of Judaism. Jewish religion, he contended, is made up of, first, prophetic universalism, proclaiming God's unity to humanity; second, an optimistic and dynamic faith in God, in oneself, in others, and in humanity as a whole; and third, the historical task of the Jewish people as God's emissary to the world.

In each section of his book Baeck weaves quotations from the Bible and later Jewish writings into a compressed compendium of Jewish thinking. The first section gives primacy to the religious experience, the second to ethics, and the third to history. The book comprises a sketch of Judaism richly studded with authentic Jewish texts.

Baeck's various essays on Christianity explore the differences among the rabbis, Jesus, Paul, and the later church (his earliest writings on Christianity date from 1922; see in English Judaism and Christianity, 1958). Judaism, he contended, is a classical religion, by which he meant a religious tradition seeking a positive, active social life, while Christianity is a romantic religion, a tradition that is inward looking. This contention stimulated considerable controversy among German biblical scholars (see Krister Stendal's introduction to Baeck's The Pharisees and Other Essays, 1947).

Baeck continually emphasized the Jewish people as a cultural and historical group. His final work, This People Israel (1955, and in English translation 1964), captures the sweep and majesty of Jewish history while revealing his commitment to the Jewish people. The book, which began as an exposition of the greatness of biblical Judaism, was written in 1938 and destroyed by the Nazis. The rest of the book was composed while in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The first half covers biblical history, giving insightful summaries of such perplexing problems as the levitical laws. The second half follows Jewish culture in its various incarnations in Europe, whether under Muslim or Christian domination, and into the modern world, including mention of all the major trends in Jewish thought and social development. The book concludes with an affirmation of the Jewish task.

Further Reading

A short introduction to Baeck's life and thought by a colleague and disciple can be found in Fritz Bamberger, Leo Baeck: The Man and the Idea (1958). An interesting, if laudatory, biography by one of Baeck's American students after World War II is Albert H. Friedlander, Leo Baeck: Teacher of Theresienstadt (1959). Leonard Baker's Days of Pain and Sorrow: Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews (1978) presents a well researched, critical, and scholarly analysis of Baeck's life in its German context. Useful information is also included in the introductions to the English translations of Baeck's writings. Walter Kaufmann's remarks in Leo Baeck, Judaism and Christianity, translated with an introduction by Walter Kaufmann (1958), are particularly illuminating.

Additional Sources

Baker, Leonard, Days of sorrow and pain: Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews, New York: Macmillan, 1978.

In his communal leadership, Baeck served as president of the representative body of German Jewry---the Reichswertretung ---and as president of the General Association of German Rabbis. Though not a Zionist in the political sense, he recognized the importance of building a strong Jewish community in Palestine as a step forward in the renaissance of Jewish life.

With Hitler's rise to power in 1933, Baeck dedicated his efforts to defending the rights of the Jews in the face of Nazi persecution. He was arrested and interrogated in Gestapo headquarters several times, and with each successive arrest his personal position became more dangerous. Yet he refused many invitations from Jewish communities and institutions outside Germany, feeling a strong obligation to remain with his endangered community and to minister to their spiritual needs as long as there were Jews remaining in Germany. In 1943 he was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. There he set an example of great moral courage and saintliness as he tirelessly worked to strengthen the morale of his fellow inmates, lecturing on Judaism and encouraging them in all ways possible to keep alive their hope, faith, and humanity. After the war, he moved to London and became head of the World Union for Progressive Judaism.

Baeck wrote on the philosophy and history of religion. His best known work was Das Wesen des Judentums ("The Essence of Judaism," 1936). His philosophy at first stressed the rationalism of Judaism and his expositions of the Jewish faith appear rather apologetic. With the growing influence of the Jewish national movement and the vigorous revival of Jewish life in Palestine, his views were modified. Like Hermann Cohen, Baeck emphasized Judaism as a system of ethical monotheism in which the obligations of man toward man and moral and ethical values are central. The ritual laws are not unimportant, but their purpose is to guide one toward the ethical life. Ultimately, the challenge facing the Jew is to redeem the world from evil through the values of justice and love. Israel is the Chosen People in the sense that God's purpose is for Israel to be loyal to its mission to help mankind by upholding the ultimate ethical values in life.

Baeck also wrote on Christianity, and here he offers a strongly critical assessment of what he calls the "romantic" Christian religion---one very different from the "classical" earthly religion of Judaism, which sees its daily purpose as making this world a better place for all men. His work on the Pharisees (English translation, 1947) was a pioneering effort to counteract the New Testament bias against and misrepresentation of this important school of rabbinic thought.

Baeck studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau and the College for Judaic Studies in Berlin. He was ordained a rabbi in 1897 and led congregations in Oppeln, Dusseldorf, and Berlin. He also taught in the Reform rabbinical seminary. During World War I Baeck served as a chaplain.

Baeck was a creative scholar who published articles on many Jewish subjects. Although he considered himself a non-Zionist, he took a stand against a group of German rabbis who opposed Zionism and served on several Zionist committees. He was a leader of many German Jewish organizations, such as the General Association of German Rabbis, of which he was elected chairman in 1922.

When Hitler came to power in 1933, Baeck was made president of an umbrella German Jewish organization called the Reich Representation of German Jews. He thus acted as the official representative of all German Jewry. He was deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto in 1943 where he served as a member of the Jewish camp leadership. His spiritual inspiration greatly boosted the morale of the other inmates. After the war, Baeck moved to London, where he pursued teaching, research, and communal work.

Quotes:

"A minority is always compelled to think. That is the blessing of being in the minority."

Leo Baeck
Denomination	Reform
Born	23 May 1873(1873-05-23) Lissa
Died	2 November 1956 (aged 83) London, England
Spouse	Natalie Hamburger

Judaism portal

Leo Baeck (23 May 1873 – 2 November 1956) was a 20th century German-Polish-Jewish Rabbi, scholar, and a leader of Progressive Judaism.

Contents 1 Life 1.1 Criticism 1.2 Post-war Life and Work 2 References 3 External links 3.1 Institutions named in honor of Leo Baeck 3.2 Sources

Life

German stamp, 1957
for 1st anniversary of the death of Leo Baeck

Baeck was born in Lissa (Leszno) (then in the German Province of Posen, now in Poland), the son of Rabbi Samuel Baeck, and began his education at the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau in 1894. He also studied philosophy in Berlin with Wilhelm Dilthey, served as a rabbi in Oppeln, Düsseldorf, and Berlin, and taught at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (Higher Institute for Jewish Studies). In 1905 Baeck published The Essence of Judaism, in response to Adolf von Harnack's The Essence of Christianity. This book, which interpreted and valorized Judaism through a prism of Neo-Kantianism tempered with religious existentialism, made him a famous proponent for the Jewish people and their faith. During World War I, Baeck was an army chaplain in the German Imperial Army. In 1933, after the Nazis seized power, Baeck worked to defend the Jewish community as president of the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden, an umbrella organization that united German Jewry from 1933-1938. After the Reichsvertretung was disbanded during the November Pogrom, the Nazis reassembled the council's members under the government controlled Reichsvereinigung.

Criticism

His tenure was not free from criticism, as some regarded his decision to cooperate with the murderous Nazis as foolish, as Jews provided an orderly way to be brought to their own deaths, and Jews even helped apprehend other Jews.

Leo Baeck headed this organization as its president until his deportation in January 1943

On 27 January 1943, he was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. After the camp was liberated by the Russians in May 1945, he became the Jewish figure head as the Elder of the Jews.

Leo Baeck did not play a decisive role in the Jewish administration of the ghetto until its last days. Yet he never ceased to be a symbol to and a leader of the Jews imprisoned in Theresienstadt. In Berlin, he had been a leader of the German Jews; in Theresienstadt, he became a spiritual leader and symbol, leader to thousands of Jews from all parts of Nazi-occupied Europe.

Up until his deportation, numerous American institutions offered to help him escape the war and immigrate to America. Leo Baeck refused to abandon his community in the camps and declined the offers.

Post-war Life and Work

After the war, Baeck relocated to London, where he accepted the Presidency of the North Western Reform Synagogue in Temple Fortune. He taught at Hebrew Union College in America, and eventually became Chairman of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. It was during this time he published his second great work, This People Israel, which he partially penned during his imprisonment by the Nazis.

In 1955, the Leo Baeck Institute for the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry was established, and Baeck was the first international president of this institute. The asteroid 100047 Leobaeck is named in his honour, as is Leo Baeck College, the Reform/Progressive rabbinical college in London.

He died on 2 November 1956, in London, England and has seven living descendants, a granddaughter, a great-grandson, and five great-great-grandchildren (four great-great-grandsons and one great-great-granddaughter.) His daughter and great-grandson are deceased.

References

• Baker, Leonard (1982) Hirt der Verfolgten : Leo Baeck im Dritten Reich. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. ISBN 3-12-930760-5 (German);
• Baker, Leonard (1978) Days of sorrow and pain : Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-506340-5 ;
• Neimark, Anne E. (1986) One man's valor : Leo Baeck and the Holocaust E.P. Dutton, New York, ISBN 0-525-67175-7 (for juvenile audience);
• Friedlander, Albert H.: Teacher of Theresienstadt, Overlook Press; Reprint (July 1991), ISBN 0879513934 (10), ISBN 978-0879513931 (13)

External links

• Guide to the Papers of Leo Baeck
• Leo Baeck at Find-A-Grave
• Akiba Ernst Simon and Yehoyada Amir (1972, 2006), Leo Baeck, from Encyclopedia Judaica; via Jewish Virtual Library
• Leo Baeck, Jewish Philosopher and Bridge Between the Rationalists and the Existentialists, JewishGates, via archive.org

Institutions named in honor of Leo Baeck

• Leo Baeck College - rabbinical school in London
• Leo Baeck Education Center - junior high and high school in Haifa, Israel
• Leo Baeck Centre for Progressive Judaism, Melbourne - Synagogue and Community Centre
• Leo Baeck Day School - Preschool to Grade 8 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Leo Baeck Old Age Home, Herbartstrasse, Berlin, Germany
• Leo Baeck Institut
  • Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem
  • Leo Baeck Institute London
  • Leo Baeck Institute New York
• Leo Baeck Foundation- foundation with the help of Leo Baeck's family to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Leo Baeck's yahrzeit: to foster rabbinic training and interreligious dialogue .
• Leo Baeck Temple Reform congregation in West Los Angeles, CA

Sources

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)