Michael A. Meyer - Rabbi Leo Baeck: Living a Religious Imperative in Troubled Times

Rabbi Leo Baeck

JEWISH CULTURE AND CONTEXTS

Published in association with the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania

Series Editors: Shaul Magid, Francesca Trivellato, Steven Weitzman

A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.

RABBI LEO BAECK

Living a Religious Imperative in Troubled Times

Michael A. Meyer

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA

Publication of this volume was assisted by a grant from the Herbert D. Katz Publications Fund of the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.

Copyright 2021 University of Pennsylvania Press

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.

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University of Pennsylvania Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Control

Number: 2020004168

ISBN 978-0-8122-5256-9

To my friends at the Leo Baeck Institute in Jerusalem, London, New York, and Berlin

Contents

Preface

By August 1939, the German Jews situation had become desperate. Since Hitlers rise to power six years earlier, the civic equality they had so laboriously gained in the preceding century was being eroded bit by bit. In 1933, they were removed from all positions of power or influence in German society; two years later, with the Nuremberg Laws, they were reduced from the status of citizens to mere subjects of the state. Simultaneously, the Nazi regime, by taking over their property, was imposing a steadily worsening impoverishment. In November 1938, legal discrimination burst into a massive outbreak of violence as Jewish lives, synagogues, and private property were destroyed in a pogrom known as Kristallnacht (night of broken glass). Jews were now singled out by the names they were forced to take: Israel for men and boys; Sarah for women and girls. Initially, most German Jews tried to ride out the storm. Some were descendants of a long line of ancestors in the country, and they had chosen the familiar over the foreign. But now, almost everyone was looking for any avenue of escape, their efforts frustrated as countries that might have accepted persecuted Jews severely limited their immigration. Among those fortunate to find a refuge outside Germany were communal leaders and rabbis, who, understandably, chose to save their own lives and those of their families.

In 1939, Leo Baeckrabbi, scholar, and leader of the organized German Jewish communitywas engaged in multiple efforts to facilitate emigration, especially for the young. That August, on the eve of World War II, he visited close relatives who had received permission to settle in England. While in England, he was urged to accept offers allowing him to remain, joining his daughter and her family. A British university offered the scholarly rabbi an academic position, and the German Jewish refugee community was eager for his rabbinical leadership. But Baeck steadfastly refused the opportunity. Nor was it the only time that he was offered a position in Great Britain or the United States. In each instance, he demurred, for he believed that it was his responsibility to be the last Jew out of Germany. Despite the dangers, he would remain, attempting to do what he could to expedite the emigration as long as any Jews were still permitted to leave Germany and until the deportations to the East began. From then on, his principal task shifted to upholding morale and alleviating the suffering of those who no longer had any choice but to remain, while assisting those who went into hiding. In January 1943, Baeck was deported to the concentration-camp-like ghetto of Theresienstadt, where he continued to serve the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual needs of fellow Jews, along with some persecuted non-Jews, all of them confined in a way station on the road to death.

This same Leo Baeck was not only a tenacious keeper of his flock but also one of the most significant Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century, comparable with such better-known figures as Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Abraham Joshua Heschel. Today, it is his career as a courageous leader of his community in darkest times that is best known, though he has also received some attention as a religious thinker. What has been lacking is a study of Baeck that not only combines these two aspects of his life but explores how they interacted with each other in his own consciousness and his changing environment. The combination of active leadership with profound thought is rare; perhaps even more remarkable is a personal philosophy that so completely harmonizes public and private action. Unlike numerous prominent personalities in the humanities and the arts, whose personal lives do not reflect the essence of their accomplishments, Baeck integrated what he believed in with what he did. His faith in God implied the ineluctable acceptance of moral obligation in all areas of life. Fulfilling that obligation was, in his eyes, no less a requirement in difficult times than it was in calmer ones, even if the cost should be far greater. Admired by many, Baeck also had his detractors: although many lent him support, some sought to undermine his work. His decisions involving life and death were controversial both in his time and down to the present.

To fully understand Leo Baeck requires probing not only his thought and public activity but also his personalitya difficult endeavor, since Baeck rarely dwelled on himself. Though he was usually formal and restrained on the outside, his engagement with events could not fail to stir his inner life. Generally described as gentle and kind, when necessary he could also be combative. A streak of puritanism and an outsize veneration for martyrdom ran through his psychological makeup. This personal element must receive its due if one is to understand Leo Baeck. The integration of these perspectives is the task of this volume. Drawing upon a broad variety of sources (some coming to light only in recent years) and especially turning to his own writings, I attempt a more complex and nuanced image of one of the most noteworthy personalities in the Jewish history of our age.

For convenience in locating references to the Baeck publications mentioned in the notes, I have listed individual items (in italics for books; in quotation marks for articles) by date of original publication followed by their location in Werke, the six-volume edition of Leo Baecks works: Albert H. Friedlander et al., eds., Leo Baeck Werke (Gtersloh: Gtersloher Verlagshaus, 19962003). At various points, especially for a portion of , I have drawn upon my essay Jewish Scholarship and Religious Commitment: Their Relative Roles in the Writings of Rabbi Leo Baeck, Daat: A Journal of Jewish Philosophy & Kabbalah 88 (2019): 127143.

Chapter 1