Monday, June 16, 2025

Rabbi Weinberg Documents in America

 



Rabbi Wilhelm Weinberg

Selected articles and writings in Jewish and general media since 1951 in the USA

Aufbau ( German -Jewish Paper) July 3, 1953

"The Essentials of Faith of Judaism" signed Wbg( Weinberg). Interpreting Judaism in a modern sense for German Jewish refugees in USA.







Comments on the significance of the State of Israel , ten years after independence, c. 1958. Local newspaper of East Liverpool, Ohio.











A tribute to Weinberg by Frederick Wohl, the president of the congregation, Beth Torah , Mt. Rainier, MD, a suburb of Washington, D.C. This was a congregation whose members mostly worked for the US government. One of the high school students in the congregation went on to become a Rabbi and served as a distinguished naval Chaplain, Rabbi Arnold  Resnicoff.





Summary of a lecture before the Exchange Club of Clarksburg, W Va, Dec. 15, 1963, Clarksburg Exponent and Telegram. It is on the nature of life under both Nazi and Soviet tyranny.



Essay on the need for prayer books that can inspire the contyemporary Jew. Needed: Prayers For Our Time, Jewish Spectator. 1964. This magazine was founded by Dr. Trude Weiss-Rosmarin, an early Jewish feminist intellectual .




Interview for local newspaper of Clarksburg, W Va, circa early June , 1967, at outbreak of Six Day War,
He goes into the ideology of Nasser and hatred of Israel and the West by the Arabs.






"Anti-Semitism is Based on New Factors, Not Religion", National Jewish Monthly, the journal of the Bnai Brith, 1967. His thesis was opposed by the mainstream Jewish organizations, as can be seen by the editors strong comments at the bottom of the page. However, Weinberg's position has become prooven over time.







"Streamlined Judaism", The Torch ( a Conservative movement magazine), 1968. On returning passion and feeling to Judaism



"Lack of Focus", Jewish Spectator, 1969. On the need to create connectedness of our Jews to the community and each other.  





Letters regarding settling in the US
 
First Resume in the USA






Declaration by Rabbi Dr Leo Baeck, head of the Lehranstalt ( Hochschule) fuer ide Wissenschaft des Judentums, recommending support for Rabbi Dr. Weinberg in pursuing original academic reseacrh on the theme of Jewish heretical thought. This reflects the inner struggle of Weinberg to reconcile ancient Jewish wisdom with contemporary rationalism.







The Jewish Community of Frankfurt Germany asked my father to return. He declined the honor, as noted in the letter below.March, 1968. He explains that his motivation to come to America was to provide his son with a positive Jewish environment and was at the time a student in college,




He enlarged on his reasons in this letter to Dr. Paul Arnsberg, author of 900 Jahre Muttergemeinde
( 900 Years of the Jewish Mother-community, Frankfurt AM). 





Eulogy for Rabbi Willaim Weinberg by son, Rabbi Norbert Weinberg, Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the Rabbinical Assembly , 1976 pp 302-304





Sunday, June 15, 2025

75th Year of the rebirth of the Jewish Community in Frankfurt Germany

An exhibit opened  Frankfurt, Germany in December, 2023,  on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the reestablishing of the Jewish community after the Holocaust.

 

As  you may know, my father, Rabbi Dr William, or Wilhelm at that time, served as the first State Rabbi of the region of Hesse, the environs of Frankfurt, when the community was reincorporated. This followed his service establishing adult education programs for the survivors in the Displaced Persons Camps in the Salzburg area of Austria.

Here is the invitation, which I share with you:


 

My father is featured prominently in the opening panels of the exhibit, that refer to the founding years ( and I get “honorable mention” for providing some of that material.









Here is the recording , broadcast over German radio, as my father lights the Eternal Lamp for the first time in the reconstructed Westend Synagog:

 https://1drv.ms/u/c/4cc0b4f08f8509c4/EcQJhY_wtMAggExlGQUAAAAB8bJrnCbXaGKsUH8g2IAKDg?e=JOH66E