Rabbi, educator, intellectual, and community leader, Leo Baeck (1873-1956) was one of the most important Jewish figures of prewar Germany. The publication of his 1905 Das Wesen des Judentums (The Essence of Judaism) established him as a major voice for liberal Judaism. He served as a chaplain to the German army during the First World War and in the years following, resisting the call of political Zionism, he expressed his commitment to the belief in a vibrant place for Jews in a new Germany. This hope was dashed with the rise of Nazism, and from 1933 on, and continuing even after his deportation to Theresienstadt, he worked tirelessly in his capacity as a leader of the German Jewish community to offer his coreligionists whatever practical, intellectual, and spiritual support remained possible. While others after the war worked to rebuild German Jewish life from the ashes, a disillusioned Baeck pronounced the effort misguided and spent the rest of his life in England. Yet his name is perhaps best-known today from the Leo Baeck Institutes in New York, London, Berlin, and Jerusalem dedicated to the preservation of the cultural heritage of German-speaking Jewry. Michael A. Meyer has written a biography that gives equal consideration to Leo Baeck's place as a courageous community leader and as one of the most significant Jewish religious thinkers of the twentieth century, comparable to such better-known figures as Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Abraham Joshua Heschel. According to Meyer, to understand Baeck fully, one must probe not only his thought and public activity but also his personality. Generally described as gentle and kind, he could also be combative when necessary, and a streak of puritanism and an outsized veneration for martyrdom ran through his psychological makeup. Drawing on a broad variety of sources, some coming to light only in recent years, but especially turning to Baeck's own writings, Meyer presents a complex and nuanced image of one of the most noteworthy personalities in the Jewish history of our age.

First published in German in 1905 as Das Wesen des Judentums, Leo Baeck’s The Essence of Judaism is perhaps the most widely read example of German Jewish scholarship in the 20th century. Written as a response to Adolf von Harnack’s lecturesDas Wesen des Christentums (The Essence of Christianity), the book seeks to both define the fundamental principles of Judaism, and contrast them with other religions. But by outlining Judaism’s essence, Baeck also shows how the different denominations within Judaism are bound together by fundamental commonalities. Translated into English in 1936, it quickly became a classic in the English-speaking world, and has since been gifted at Bar Mitzvahs and featured on synagogue reading lists. In a world of religious plurality, the book remains highly relevant today. “The analysis in this masterly volume is set on a high level of historical knowledge, integrity of thinking and religious insight... A life dedicated to religious study and profound spiritual pondering has gone into The Essence of Judaism... [Its] study... is, therefore, valuable not only for attaining a clearer understanding of Judaism but also for achieving a clearer understanding of the background of the great world religions of Christianity and Islam... In the definition of what he regards as the essence of Judaism, [Baeck] often points out wherein it differs from Christianity, Buddhism and other systems of religious teaching.” — David de Sola Pool, The New York Times “A mature product of German Jewish genius... This beautifully written book may best be described as the swan song of German Jewish scholarship.” — Jacob Agus, Jewish Social Studies “In Leo Baeck the pith of the man and the writer is dignity, Jewish dignity. As a host in his home, as a guest in other homes, as a preacher in his synagogue, and as the leader of German Jewry within Himmler’s concentration camps, he is and has remained the shining incarnation of those rarest gifts: dignity coupled not with sternness but with radiant warmth.” — David Baumgardt, Commentary Magazine “This work will give back to many faith in their Judaism and will awaken a desire to immerse further in its study... It is not one of the least merits of this book that it awakens the desire for further instruction and immersion in Jewish scholarship and Jewish life... This work is based on a comprehensive mastery of the biblical and postbiblical literature, draws on other religions, and from belief in the value and mission of Judaism, creates a vivid warmth.” — Heinemann, Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums “This is an unusually important book... Baeck considered himself a ‘liberal’ Jew, but the synagogues in which he preached in Berlin were, by American standards, ‘conservative’... yet after the War he taught at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, where ‘reform’ rabbis are trained. Baeck and the book under review bring home to us the utter inadequacy of such labels. It was of his essence to stand above factions.” — Kauffmann, Religious Education “[The book] presents us [...] with what may briefly, and not altogether inaptly, be described as Prolegomena to Judaism. Within a very moderate compass we have an able characterization of Judaism, an interesting and warm exposition of its leading ideas and peculiarities... Dr. Baeck writes with enthusiasm... The book as a whole is stimulating.” — Wolf, The Jewish Quarterly Review

Days of Sorrow and Pain, winner of the 1979 Pulitzer Prize in Biography, tells the story of Germany’s Jews under the Nazis and of one man’s valiant efforts to help them meet the horrors of the Hitler regime. Leonard Baker explores the disintegration of German society, the plight of German Jews and the philosophy of Leo Baeck which enabled him to guide his people in their struggle for survival. After Hitler came to power, German Jews formed the Reichsvertretung with Leo Baeck at its head. As Berlin’s leading Rabbi and one of the foremost Jewish theologians in the world, Baeck was the rallying point for all Jewish factions. He dealt secretly with emissaries from abroad to arrange for Jews to emigrate and saw to it that Jewish children received a religious education. Young men were trained for the rabbinate in Berlin as late as 1942. Leo Baeck chose to remain in Germany as long as there were still Jews there. He was arrested five times, once after writing a prayer to be read in all German synagogues reminding Jews that even “in this day of sorrow and pain,” they bowed only before God and never before man. After his last arrest in 1943 at the age of 69, Rabbi Baeck was sent to Theresienstadt where he hauled trash carts by day, and organized educational programs for his fellow inmates at night, consoling them, becoming one of their strengths. After the war, having survived the Holocaust, Baeck never sought revenge, but worked for reconciliation between Germans and Jews. He became a world leader of liberal Judaism and never doubted the ultimate triumph of good over evil nor underestimated the responsibility of the individual to bring about that triumph. “Only now, more than twenty years after Baeck’s death, has Leonard Baker, a writer on American political history, given us a full life story. Drawing on nearly a hundred interviews with persons who knew Baeck and supplementing these with a rich variety of printed and archival sources, he has succeeded in fashioning an intriguing portrait of the rabbi-scholar called upon to assume leadership in a time of crisis. The inherent drama of the subject together with Baker’s practiced writing skill has made for a book of broad popular interest. It has even been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for biography.” — Michael A. Meyer, American Jewish History “There are several outstanding reasons why this book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in biography. The evidence of extensive research and scholarship exists in one of the most complete oral and written bibliographies that is presently available on contemporary German Jewry. Baker’s writing style, journalistic at times, is free from conventional pedantry, but is satisfying enough for even the most stodgy academe. Furthermore, the historical flow of the text leaves little doubt that this is one serious author... Rabbi Baeck is shown as both the German as a Jew and the Jew as a German. Writing with an obvious appreciation for the role of the Jews in modern German history, Baker explains Baeck in the context of Reform Judaism...” — Michael W. Rubinoff, German Studies Review “Baker has written a marvelous account of Baeck’s long and remarkable life.” — Lew’s Author Blog “Baker tells Baeck’s story in relation to the history of the German Jews down to his death as an expatriate in England in the 1950s... Baker’s narrative is scholarly and simple in tone, as it should be; and although chiefly a study in Jewish history, it is also a study in historical tragedy and moral will...” — Kirkus Reviews

"A chilling reminder of Hitler’s twisted power." —BBC For readers of The Monuments Men and The Hare with Amber Eyes, the story of the Nazis' systematic pillaging of Europe's libraries, and the small team of heroic librarians now working to return the stolen books to their rightful owners. While the Nazi party was being condemned by much of the world for burning books, they were already hard at work perpetrating an even greater literary crime. Through extensive new research that included records saved by the Monuments Men themselves—Anders Rydell tells the untold story of Nazi book theft, as he himself joins the effort to return the stolen books. When the Nazi soldiers ransacked Europe’s libraries and bookshops, large and small, the books they stole were not burned. Instead, the Nazis began to compile a library of their own that they could use to wage an intellectual war on literature and history. In this secret war, the libraries of Jews, Communists, Liberal politicians, LGBT activists, Catholics, Freemasons, and many other opposition groups were appropriated for Nazi research, and used as an intellectual weapon against their owners. But when the war was over, most of the books were never returned. Instead many found their way into the public library system, where they remain to this day. Now, Rydell finds himself entrusted with one of these stolen volumes, setting out to return it to its rightful owner. It was passed to him by the small team of heroic librarians who have begun the monumental task of combing through Berlin’s public libraries to identify the looted books and reunite them with the families of their original owners. For those who lost relatives in the Holocaust, these books are often the only remaining possession of their relatives they have ever held. And as Rydell travels to return the volume he was given, he shows just how much a single book can mean to those who own it.

Written in real time, as the Nazis consolidated their power over the winter of 1933, The Oppermanns captures the fall of Weimar Germany through the eyes of one bourgeois Jewish family, shocked and paralyzed by an ideology they cannot comprehend. In the foment of Weimar-era Berlin, the Oppermann brothers represent tradition and stability. One brother oversees the furniture chain founded by their grandfather, one is an eminent surgeon, one a respected critic. They are rich, cultured, liberal, and public spirited, proud inheritors of the German enlightenment. They don’t see Hitler as a threat. Then, to their horror, the Nazis come to power, and the Oppermanns and their children are faced with the terrible decision of whether to adapt—if they can—flee, or try to fight. Written in 1933, nearly in real time, The Oppermanns captures the day-to-day vertigo of watching a liberal democracy fall apart. As Joshua Cohen writes in his introduction to this new edition, it is “one of the last masterpieces of German-Jewish culture.” Prescient and chilling, it has lost none of its power today.

Challenges the notion that Weimar Jews sought to be invisible or indistinguishable from other Germans by "passing" as non-Jews

Papers from the annual conference of the Abraham Geiger College.

A group of distinguished historians makes the first systematic attempt to compare the experiences of French and German Jews in the modern era. The cases of France and Germany have often been depicted as the dominant paradigms for understanding the processes of Jewish emancipation and acculturation in Western and Central Europe. In the French case, emancipation was achieved during the French Revolution, and it remained in place until 1940, when the Vichy regime came to power. In Germany, emancipation was a far more gradual and piecemeal process, and even after it was achieved in 1871, popular and governmental antisemitism persisted. The essays in this volume, while buttressing many traditional assumptions regarding these two paths of emancipation, simultaneously challenge many others, and thus force us to reconsider the larger processes of Jewish integration and acculturation.

Featuring essays by scholars of history, literature, television, and sociology, Rebuilding Jewish Life in Germany illuminates important aspects of Jewish life in Germany since 1949, including institution building, the internal dynamics and changing demographics of the Jewish community, and the central role of Jewish writers and public intellectuals.