IN MEMORIAM

ALBERT FRIEDLANDER

Albert Hoschander Friedlander, : born Berlin 10 May 1927; ordained rabbi 1952; Rabbi, United Hebrew Congregation, Fort Smith, Arkansas 1952–56; Rabbi, Temple B’nai Brith, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania 1956–61; Religious Counsellor, Columbia University 1961–66; Founder Rabbi, Jewish Center of the Hamptons, East Hampton, New York 1961–66; Rabbi, Wembley Liberal 1966–71; Lecturer, College 1967–71, Director 1971–82, Dean 1982–2004; Senior Rabbi, Westminster Synagogue 1971–97 (Rabbi Emeritus); Editor, European 1982–2004; OBE 2001; President, Council of Christians and 2003–04; married 1961 Evelyn Philipp (three daughters); died London 8 July 2004.

For Daddy, 11th July 2004

Some years ago, Albert was scheduled to give a paper at a conference. At the last minute, he was unable to be present, and Rabbi Colin Eimer came to the podium to read the paper on his behalf. ‘Think of me as if I were Albert!’ he said. [Colin Eimer holds up the paper close to his eyes.] None of us can be Albert. Who was Albert Hoschander Friedlander? a loving son ... brother ... adoring husband ... father ... colleague, teacher and friend. Traditionally, a eulogiser tries to offer a taste of the nature of these relationships. All weekend I have been trying to create a fitting tribute – wise and witty, erudite and excellent. Last night I realised that this was not for me. It is certainly the rabbinic thing to do, yet you already know those aspects of him. I stand here today, not as Rabbi Friedlander, Jr. – ha-rav ha- k’tanah, as he called me in his e-mails. I speak here today not of ha-rav ha-

EUROPEAN JUDAISM VOLUME 37 No. 2 AUTUMN ’04 103 In Memoriam gadol, as I addressed him in mine. Rather it is Ariel here, telling you some things about Daddy. I don’t know if any of you knew him as a man of passion. He spoke so softly. I, too, am often hard to hear. There is, however, something about standing amid several thousand people that enables us to scream and shout. A couple of years ago his beloved Queens Park Rangers played a pre-season game against a team from Stamford Bridge. We beat them! And my favourite memory is after QPR scored the winner. Surrounded by hundreds of sweaty, smelly Superhoops, we jumped in the air and, nose to nose, with utter passion and joy, screamed ‘GOOOOOAL!!!!!’ As for his favourite memory of me, I think it would be a toss-up between our standing nose to nose on the bima at Temple Emanu-El in New York City, while he blessed me at my Ordination; and the day I gave the ball back to the England captain on live national television! We, and later Noam, were and are football mad. I was talking on the phone to Mummy when he picked up the extension and shouted, ‘The Greeks have won!’ Those were the last words I ever heard him say. There are so many things I’d like to tell you about Daddy. His favourite films included Gunga Din, “The Colonel’s got to know!”, Beau Geste, and Oklahoma. His favourite cartoon strip was Peanuts. The Simpsons was one of his favourite television shows. He loved to read spy novels, murder mysteries and Harry Potter. He had a fine collection of Glenn Miller and Nina Simone records. When I was young, I would set my alarm for 1 a.m., when he had finished working at his desk, and we would play chess together. When I went away for my first school journey, he wrote to me that Gollum had been seen near my hotel, and I should report back whether or not I had been able to hold on to the Ring. Daddy was able to relate to so many people in so many ways and on so many levels. I believe that the is here to teach us about relationships: with ourselves, our families; the ones we love, the ones we hate; friends, enemies, strangers, the earth … and the more we develop those relationships, and the more flexible we become, the closer we are to encountering God. A defining moment in our relationship occurred twelve years ago, after I had come out to my parents on the telephone from Israel. Daddy came to see me in . We walked along the railway tracks together and he said, ‘Precious, I always had a picture of how your life was going to be. But it’s not going to be like that. I guess I’ll have to change my picture.’ None of us can be Albert, but we may strive to be like him. I end with lines from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem ‘Ulysses’. Daddy quoted it at many funerals, but really saw it as an expression of his own experience and dreams. I hear him talking to me when Ulysses says:

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This is my son, mine own Telemachus, To whom I leave the scepter and the isle Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil This labour, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and through soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

I cannot be Albert. None of us can. What is possible, however, is for each of us to take the beam of his light in which we stood, and turn to shine it upon each other and the world around us. On Thursday, Elie Wiesel told me that ‘your father’s life was a gift from God to the Jewish people’. If we use that gift well, all of us – Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist, , Xian, Freethinker, Pagan too – then surely his memory will be for a blessing. keyn yehi ratson

Ariel J. Friedlander

At the moment I have been thinking a lot about my father’s comings and goings. He was always on the go. We think of him with his quiet, modest demeanour and yet one always knew when he had arrived. How he would burst through the front door with a joyful call ‘ Shalom everybody!’ when he returned home from synagogue. As a child, I would rush to meet him at the door when he had officiated at a wedding. He never forgot and always produced a slightly tired-looking piece of wedding cake from the bottom of his jacket pocket, which I promptly devoured. We had to share him with the community and in those early years I spent many nocturnal hours standing at the foot of my parents’ bed, just watching them sleep, grateful to have them home and to myself for a few hours. One favourite memory: At 6.15 p.m. on a Friday evening, he would sometimes come to me and say ‘Give me three topics’ and I would try to think of the three most disparate and sometimes ridiculous ideas. He would then jump in the shower. By 6.30 p.m. he had started the synagogue service and would give the most brilliant sermon, making sense of my random thoughts. Such an agility of mind, sense of fun, and excitement for every new challenge and encounter. The last time I saw him was when he came to visit in Berlin last week. He stayed the night with us and it was an Albertian

EUROPEAN JUDAISM VOLUME 37 No. 2 AUTUMN ’04 105 In Memoriam morning. Although I had cleared every surface in the room where he was sleeping, he woke us up by smashing his water glass on the bedside table. As we left the house, I caught him as he tripped in the street. I said to my husband, ‘I really don’t understand how Daddy makes it through it a day.’ But then I remembered how he danced the hora at my wedding with such lightness and grace, yes, grace, and I was reminded that God and the universe were on his side. We escorted him that morning to a friend’s house. As we said our last goodbyes at the door, I sensed his mood of exhilaration, glowing excitement and even impatience to start the adventure which lay ahead that day. Off he went, with a huge smile. A few weeks ago, he was also in Berlin to conduct the funeral of a dear friend. He told me afterwards that he had felt tired and that by some chance, there was a chair at the graveside. He said: ‘I was so very, very tired and so I sat down. But then there were so many important people there that I had to get up to shake their hand. But then, well, everyone’s important, so I just stayed standing up.’ He gave everyone he met this sense that they were important to him. It often infuriated us that we had to share him with all of you, but somehow he had enough love to go around. In my flat last week, I was already in bed and heard this sweet, gentle voice calling out ‘leyl menucha’ (have a peaceful night). I wish my tired and lovely father ‘menucha’ and that he can now finally rest. Leyl menucha abbale.

Michal Friedlander Ben-Hur

Our father. Who art in Heaven. Hallowed be his name. There are those who might think that slightly inappropriate, but my father’s speciality was interfaith dialogue and his name should be hallowed. He was, of course, your rabbi, but he was also my father. Our father. The man I would ring at all hours of the day to ask a question, either of faith, or just some general knowledge question. Though it has to be said, my mother was a useful source of information too. All of you know about his spirituality, I don’t need to tell you about that. I need to tell you about my father. The man I loved and the man who adored me. He taught me to play poker at six, hearts at seven, gin at eight. I could never beat him. He was so frustrating; he won so many matchsticks, our betting stakes, he could have started a fantastic fire. My claim to fame is that I was babysat by Playboy Bunnies at the Playboy mansion when I was nine. He loved his time there, playing pool, having a swim, catching up with his old

106 EUROPEAN JUDAISM VOLUME 37 No. 2 AUTUMN ’04 Albert H. Friedlander college friend Victor. He watched ‘Sex and The City’, he liked Miranda, he understood the concept of skinny jeans. How many men do? He might have been a religious leader but he was in touch with popular culture. A rarity. He did anything and everything I ever wanted. An essay for university? He’d help out. Though, I have to say, he didn’t do too well and brought my grade down at one stage. He was far too intellectual for my professors. Simplicity would have worked but he was far too clever. Nevertheless, with that intellectual brain he still made sure (along with Ariel) that I supported Queen’s Park Rangers. Damn it. Couldn’t we have picked a team that was more successful? Still, as someone recently said to me, both QPR and my father have been promoted to a higher place. We all loved him. I’m looking at you all right now, and there, in the front pew, I see his sister Dorrit, my two sisters and my mother. He was the only man among us and we truly loved him. He, in turn, loved us. Every night before he went to sleep, he always made sure he told my mother that he loved her. He would send me an email every night telling me he loved me too. And he did. He loved me as much as I loved him. I know all of you loved him too and, if all of you, here today, want to honour his memory and do something for him, then it should be to honour my mother. My fear is that, while everyone has been so wonderful and kind over the last few days, it will come to an end. I’m imploring you to please continue your support. We need you. I can’t look after my mother on my own. I won’t be able to do it. We’re the only two here in London and my fear is that people are never concerned when it comes to the widow. Widows have a terrible time in our society; they just disappear, they’re abandoned. I need people to care and to continue caring. I need people to be there because we’ll all miss him, especially my mother. He died the day before their forty-third wedding anniversary. That’s what I’m asking of you here, this afternoon. Please don’t go away. Please look after my mother. Please, all of you, stay in touch. Thank you.

Noam Friedlander

Rabbi and Colleague

One of the last books that the Jews in 1930s Germany were allowed to produce was a slim encyclopaedia of German–Jewish life called the Philo-Lexikon. It could not say much for obvious reasons, but it does detail the German–Jewish achievement before the Nazis brought a golden age of Jewish intellect to a close. It gives, almost without comment, a dazzling list of Jewish scholars,

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Nobel prizewinners, , scientists, doctors, poets, artists, writers and thinkers. It is a roll-call of German and European culture. It is awesome to consider the treasure that was scattered, lost, the people murdered. Rabbi was one of the last living links between that murdered civilization and the humbler European Jewish community that gradually began to replace it after . He left Berlin after Kristallnacht, in 1939, aged twelve. His family escaped to the United States via Cuba, and after attending the University of Chicago he was ordained in Cincinnati. He spent fourteen years as a rabbi in the US, the last five as founder Rabbi of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons, before coming to England in 1966. He became Senior Rabbi at Westminster Synagogue in London in 1971. His name is surrounded by titles and honours. He was the author of Leo Baeck’s biography, Dean of the post-war in London, a visiting professor at German and American universities, a member of a prestigious think-tank in Berlin, spokesman on Jewish theology on British and German radio and television, Rabbi Emeritus of Westminster Synagogue, a President of the Council of Christians and Jews, honoured with the Order of Merit, modern Germany’s greatest honour, and appointed OBE in his adopted country for his interfaith work. But he was more than all his honours because he was one of the kindest human beings I have ever known. He was forever reconciling, never allowing prejudice to distort his feeling for ordinary people and their problems. He tried to help, not to judge or batter people with his own superior learning. I think it is the students who will miss him most, especially those studying for the rabbinate. In every one of them, Friedlander saw something valuable and he fought for them through all the committees. He wanted them to have their chance. They loved him because they knew instinctively that he was on their side. They could tell him their truth and he would not use it against them. He gave them his time and attention and the service of his formidable intellect. Albert Friedlander loved life, loved everything that life produced, literature, music, books and sport. His great love was Queen’s Park Rangers, of which he became a kind of a mascot. He rejoiced when QPR went up a league. I got to know him well when I was Convener of our religious court, our Beth Din, and he was one of its judges, often its chairman. Now Albert knew the problems and formalities of Jewish canon law but, perhaps because of his experience as a youngster in Nazi Berlin, he appreciated how tough life was on everybody in our time and he thought the task of religion was to lighten people’s loads not increase them. So he never ‘put on the style’ with people who came to our court. I learnt a lot watching him draw out of them their difficulties and life experiences – especially from the shy, the frightened, the

108 EUROPEAN JUDAISM VOLUME 37 No. 2 AUTUMN ’04 Albert H. Friedlander people who couldn’t express themselves and the nervous. He led our clients to work out their own solution together with him and the other rabbis. He never imposed or was sarcastic. Albert, being a convivial chap, liked being popular, but this did not prevent him from being unpopular when duty called for it. I worked with him in the 1960s when we set up the Standing Conference for Jewish–Christian–Moslem Understanding in Europe. This took place during Israeli–Arab hostilities and the atmosphere was explosive. It got even worse when we were invaded by the German student New Left who compared the war to Auschwitz. Half the Christians and all the Jews marched out in a huff, leaving Albert and me to listen and then reconcile and explain. As their emotions went off the boil, some of the hotheads left and tea and cake made their appearance. It was very difficult but our fragile organisation was able to survive it. On a personal level, I am indebted to Albert Friedlander. When my partner and I nearly gave up because our backgrounds were too various, it was Albert who told me not to stand on my dignity but write another letter and he posted it himself to make sure it went off. I owe my last twenty years of happiness to that letter. Not many rabbis are prepared to help two grey and gay oldies to happiness. Here I must add a ‘thank you’ to Evelyn, Albert’s wife. Together they formed a team. She had to drive him everywhere because his sight was no longer up to driving. She also set up a permanent travelling exhibition of German–Jewish communal and family life. This provides the life-setting and complement to Albert’s theology. She too, in her own right, has been honoured by Germany with the Order of Merit. Their three daughters, meanwhile, have taken over their parents’ aims and interests. Ariel is a rabbi in America, ordained in the same college as Albert. Michal is part of the team that works to commemorate the history of German Jewry in the new Jewish Museum in Berlin. Noam is a television journalist, biographer and sometime sports writer, which recalls a part of Albert’s past I never witnessed: his student days when he was an athlete and Mississippi state champion for the mile. I have some problems with Albert Friedlander. What did he do with his own anger and bitterness from his childhood and adolescence in Nazi Berlin? Only once did it surface and I was shocked by how much he had suffered. I interviewed him for a BBC programme in which he told me about the Czech Scrolls of the Law, which Nazis were collecting for an anti-Semitic museum in Prague. They had been taken from the burnt-down and communities who had died in the gas chambers. I suddenly saw tears streaming down Albert’s face. He told me of the humiliations he and his family had suffered before they got to America and of the time when he and his father

EUROPEAN JUDAISM VOLUME 37 No. 2 AUTUMN ’04 109 In Memoriam wandered around the local Berlin trains without their Jewish identity badges because they had been tipped off that the Gestapo had come for them at their flat. For a long time we sat together in silence holding hands. I would not have become a reasonable and decent human being like him after such an experience. I would have been poisoned by my own bitterness. It was not always easy working with Albert Friedlander because he liked saying yes to things, not no, and quite often he said too many yeses and was left racing against time to fulfil one engagement too many. So his life was hectic, flying from one continent to another and working late into the night writing articles, books and sketches. I suppose this is the problem great rabbis have. Albert and I agreed that we were both out of shape and needed exercise. We decided since we lived at opposite ends of Hyde Park to run through the park before breakfast and then meet in the centre, duly exercised, and have breakfast together. It didn’t work. The phone calls started early and never let up. In desperation, wearing my running shorts, I took a taxi to where we should meet. I arrived just in time to see Albert getting out of another taxi in his running shorts. We sighed. I think Albert had been working out some songs for Donald Swann through the night. (He collaborated not only with Swann, on The Five Scrolls, 1975, but also with Malcolm Williamson, on Wedding Song, 1981, as ‘a gift from the Jewish community and the Master of the Queen’s Music’ for the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales.) Albert Friedlander was for more than twenty years the editor of the journal European Judaism – and a loyal contributor, too, to The Independent, writing obituaries for friends including the impresario Louis Benjamin, the artist Leonard Baskin, the historian Rabbi Jacob Rader Marcus, the theologian Professor Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt, Rabbi (‘probably the most beloved rabbi in Great Britain’) and, most recently, the biblical scholar Hyam Maccoby and the editor of Encounter, Melvin J. Lasky. His many books include Out of the Whirlwind: A Reader of Holocaust Literature (1968), The Six Days of Destruction (with Elie Wiesel, 1988), A Thread of Gold: Journeys Towards Reconciliation (1990) and Riders Towards the Dawn: From Ultimate Suffering to Tempered Hope (1993). For me the greatest of them is Leo Baeck: Teacher of Theresienstadt (1968), his biography of Baeck, who became Chief Rabbi in Germany just as Hitler became Führer. I think he had the saddest job in the world. But he was a saint as well as a scholar. In London in 1939 at the beginning of September, he abruptly left because he had to get back to Germany before the border was closed and war was declared. He would remain with the remnants of his community until the end. In 1942 he was taken to Theresienstadt and was only saved by an administrative blip. When the Russians liberated Theresienstadt,

110 EUROPEAN JUDAISM VOLUME 37 No. 2 AUTUMN ’04 Albert H. Friedlander they handed over the guards to the prisoners. It was Baeck who stopped them from being slaughtered: they must have a fair trial. Baeck was one of the first rabbis who returned to Germany. He never repudiated German culture and learning – only the Nazi aberration. I think Albert Friedlander would have thought the same. Both were well suited, as this great biography shows. Both were religiously liberal Jews in an illiberal time.

Lionel Blue

Reprinted by permission from The Independent, Obituaries, 10 July 2004

We share pity and love, exasperation and anger, predication and the knowledge of something, which lies just beyond our reach, that ‘point of points’ of stammering vision at the gate of death, the momentary glimpse which informs all of our quest. And then each separate vision re-enforces our own contribution. Albert Friedlander on Franz Rosenzweig Albert Friedlander, Morenu – our teacher, has reached beyond that ‘point of points’. Front-rider towards the Dawn during all of his life, he has now entered the gate of death into clear vision. Meeting Albert Friedlander was always a special occasion, not because of the special preparations or expectations one may have had, but because of that ‘knowledge of something which lies just beyond our reach’, since it indeed informed all of his quest. He knew only too well, that the fulfilment of vision in life would end our quest once and forever, would destroy ‘our own contribution’ as part of a reality, which surpasses human imagination. It would be wrong, to understand this as a form of mysticism: on the contrary, Albert was in his own way a very practical man, but a man, who intensely lived the moment, in a dimension of time, which at all times is connected to eternity. It was as if he dwelt in prayer, speaking often breathlessly in a voice different from the every day, open to the desires of the heart of each and everyone who crossed his path and stopped to hear and see. Paradoxically one cannot describe him as a ‘man of religious dialogue’ in the classical sense, since the agenda of his conversation was not preconceived, prescribed in a theological sense. It was rather original, unexpected, always on cue, hence his immense sense of humour. Hearing him speak, I sometimes had the feeling that the words were speaking through him, to be ordered into a siddur. Liturgy is frozen theology. Beliefs which have risen out of life experiences have been patterned into an ordered arrangement – a siddur –

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in which their daily repetition re-enforces the teachings of the past. They become an experience of their professors, who make the formula of the past a description of the present. Yet each generation encounters new events, which fight their way into the liturgy and bring with them new thoughts about the relationship between humanity and God. The new thought demands inclusion into the authoritative texts in which this dialogue between the finite and the Infinite takes place.1 Albert Friedlander was keenly aware of ‘the new thought’ demanding to enter into the dialogue between the finite and the infinite as each generation lives at the crossroads of Time and Eternity and even more so each individual of History and Biography. He knew that language is a trap: one has the feeling of communication pouring thoughts into words, mulling over endless scripts of how to express the inexpressible being left to interpreting one’s own words. So he spoke texts, you had to listen carefully to his words to understand their meaning, which became apparent in speaking, in catching the meaning of things, in passing, as a matter of fact, not in the ordinary sense of the word, but literarily: the matter of the fact on hand and its meaning for now and for ever. The interpretation of the present changes not only the future, but pulls the entire chain of the past in its wake, by the quality of its ‘newness’, of not having been conceived until this very day, this very occasion as the substance of the fact. As a Rider towards the Dawn, Albert knew the importance of being a Night’s Watchman. A chassidic parable will illustrate this:

The Dubner Maggid taught: Prayer is not a device to arouse God, to make him aware of us and our needs. God is always aware. The true purpose of prayer is to arouse us, to keep us aware of our obligations – towards our community, our people, our God, and even towards ourselves. The Maggid gave this illustration: In the shtetl, the night watchman walks the streets and every hour calls out the time. The purpose of ‘calling out’ is not to awaken the residents in the middle of the night. The purpose is to indicate that he, the watchman, is alert, tending to his tasks and has not fallen asleep. Prayer is a means of keeping us spiritually alert and moral awake.2

So Albert spoke texts, in the knowledge perhaps, that the advantages of writing the fact is, that it can be read more than once: not simultaneously with its production, but at a different time and place, changing the context of the content in a most radical way. The chronological difference breaks the power of language. In fact, the text is powerless when the reader takes possession of it. The author, as master of the original, fades into the background, as he appears through the eyes of the reader, trying perhaps to take a last glimpse, force his presence into a reality he no longer controls. When writing about my encounters with Albert Friedlander, this sense of subtle, but at the same time

112 EUROPEAN JUDAISM VOLUME 37 No. 2 AUTUMN ’04 Albert H. Friedlander strong presence, is still with me. It is not a sense of a rabbinic authority or even one of mere guidance: it is rather a presence, which allows the absence to gain meaning, separate of intention, allowing freedom of action. This quality of communicating freedom, which characterized his approach to life and tradition, allowed for renewal. Suddenly, by way of silent pauses, which Albert allowed in his conversation with people, a transformation takes place. It can be compared to a biological process of grafting, whereby both the root and the grafted plant change their substance. When considering this kind of dialogue in the light of historical processes from religious or cultural perspectives, these observations, which live on quite vividly in my memory, gain importance. It is no longer possible to merely reconstruct the past context of things: it is crucial to involve the present, whereby both the present and the past change each other mutually. Suddenly, the past takes on an active role in shaping the present. No longer does it lie dormant to be discovered in archaeological digs or religious prescription and custom. It is ever anew to be discovered, to be brought back to life: Intrinsically bound up with the reality of what we call Life, the place where History and Biography cross, moments, which are most felt in prayer, since prayer reminds us that we are, as we have seen, the watchman of the world, ‘… a means to keep us spiritually alert and morally awake’. Albert Friedlander understood the perplexities of our times that rules are made to be broken at times, but that at the same time, the right reasons for doing things differently had to be found. I experienced this wise generosity of spirit, when I approached him with the request to officiate at my official inauguration in Vienna, as the first woman Rabbi of Austria. As the ceremony was to take place in one of the most distinctive and beautiful places in my city of birth, the Prunksaal of the Nationalbibliothek (National Library), with walls lined to the ceiling with the treasures of European culture, things had to be done right. As I, as an ‘unorthodox orthodox’ woman, had received a private ordination for the rabbinate in Jerusalem, Rabbi Albert Friedlander, as a formal representative of the Reform Movement, could not really lead the inauguration. So, to avoid embarrassment all around, we decided that I would come up with a suggestion for a liturgy. For me, it was clear from the beginning, that it had to be a ritual, which was not a formal prayer service, but still included the Shema Prayer at its centre, with a reading from the Torah, some psalms, some songs sung by human voices, but also a violin and a flute, classical musical instruments, which would accompany the procession. More than anything else, I felt that this should not be a ‘Jewish Service’, with participants and spectators, those who are counted in the (prayer group) and those who, for whatever reason, are not included: everybody present should pray there together the ancient

EUROPEAN JUDAISM VOLUME 37 No. 2 AUTUMN ’04 113 In Memoriam words of the bible, to bring the words of the prophets from the sources into the present, words, which are the very foundation of European humanism, a heritage, which was so tragically broken in the heart of Europe, in Vienna. In a historical hall, full of books, shaped by the prophetic and humanistic spirit, there, at this very place, the tikkun (repair/restoration) should take place, not as an outer act of restoration of the cultural treasures, but through a re-binding to their origin, as a common basis, a remembering and a renewal in one. And what would be a better image for this than the picture of a grandmother with her granddaughter. Me as the grandmother, who had to flee as a young child to Holland, where I survived the war in hiding, and my twelve-year-old granddaughter, born and grown up in Jerusalem, named Arielle after this city, for whom the age-old prophetic words are her mother tongue, reading Isaiah, chapter 62: ‘Because of Zion I will not be silent, and because of Jerusalem, I will not withhold …’. So, in a long procession led by the flute, we brought not the new Rabbi, but the Torah into the Prunksaal, which turned for that hour into a house of prayer for all present and Rabbi Albert Friedlander, may he rest in peace, was the one, who recited the Shema Prayer, the prayer on the lips of the millions of Jews, men, women and children, who went to their death in Europe … and I could answer, with full heart: ‘Emet ve-emuna kol zot …’ – All this is true … This is a moment in which one senses not only the entire burden of , but also the quality of miracle, the miracle of freedom: in spite of all, the Jewish people lives on – am yisrael chai. It is a moment, where all reckoning stops, and some, I am sure, have looked on from above and smiled … It is a moment made unforgettable by Albert Friedlander witnessing with us the power of tradition, which binds all Jews together and where all denominational disputes are superfluous and fade away. In Albert Friedlander’s words on common prayer: Prayers are needed to link our concern with that of the Mitmensch. And religious services are needed to bring up expression before the altar, to assert our experiences as a people, and to re-encounter God who is not only found in silence but also in speech.3 The last time, I met Albert Friedlander was in February of this year at the Rosenzweig-conference in Kassel, when we had breakfast together on the last day and where he chuckled a bit about all the scholarly and academic discussions. For him, the remark he had made on Franz Rosenzweig at the first Rosenzweig-conference in Kassel in the year 1986, equally applied to him: Rosenzweig would not have reached for a book. But the Book of Books would have spoken through him in life. And he would have prayed for the redemption.4

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Thank you, Albert, for remaining a Watchman until the end and for paving for us the way towards the Dawn.

Eveline Goodman-Thau

Notes

1. Albert Friedlander, ‘Siddur, Machsor and the Shoa: Contemporary Responses to the Catastrophe’, in: Remembering for the Future, Working Papers and Addenda Volume I, Jews and Christians during and after the Holocaust, Pergamon Press, Oxford 1989, p. 939. 2. The New Machzor, Bridgeport; CT, The Prayer Book Press of Media Judaica 1978, p. 698. 3. Albert Friedlander, ‘Siddur, Machsor and the Shoa: Contemporary Responses to the Catastrophe’, o.c., p. 947. 4. Der Philosoph Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929), Bd. 1 – Die Herausforderung jüdischen Lernens, ed. Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik, Freiburg/München: Karl Alber Verlag, p. 250.

At the age of 11, Albert Friedlander fled Berlin with his family, via Cuba, to the United States. The son of a devout Jewish mother and an atheist Jewish father, he was old enough to experience the trauma of exclusion and exile. That, in a remarkably positive way, was to shape and colour the rest of his life. Now, aged 77, he has died of heart failure; only a few days before, he had presided at the ordination of five new rabbis at the St John’s Wood Liberal Synagogue in north London. He lived to the full to the end, writing – as he did with brilliance – even on his last day, terribly tired, yet still good humoured and joking on his death-bed. Albert was the kindest and wisest of my colleagues. How could that be – I, a Christian priest, he a rabbi? Yet given our parallel lives and his liberality of soul and spirit, how could it not be? One of his dreams will not be fulfilled (and the fault is more mine than his): that we should write a joint autobiography, Jewish chapter alternating with Christian chapter, showing the underlying unity. It was Albert, together with Dr Una Kroll, that pioneer of women’s ministry in the church, who presided at the blessing of my own Jewish–Christian marriage. It was Albert’s joy to ordain many women into the rabbinate, into which one of his three daughters has followed. He was, in all things, an inspiring reconciler. If he condemned anything – and condemnation did not come easily to him – then it was the self-righteousness common to every kind of fundamentalism.

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The unity of all things under God was of the essence of Albert’s theology. His life was a living demonstration that loving opponents is not a Christian prerogative. The concept of tolerance does less than justice to his proactive readiness to understand those of other faiths and none. If denunciation is one of the signs of a prophet, then prophet he was not, but none the less a committed lover of justice for all. Of his many passions, the dialogue between Judaism, Christianity and Islam was probably closest to his heart. Having arrived on the last refugee ship to reach Cuba, Albert was then fostered by a family in Mississippi. Only last year did he discover that his foster father was still alive. A reunion followed. Like many intellectuals, he felt alone in his youth. He read widely, and loved long-distance running. He was proud of his four-and-a-half minute mile, and, at three miles, was state champion of Mississippi. He studied at the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, and was ordained in 1952. At a World Union for Progressive Judaism conference in Scotland in 1959, he met Evelyn Philipp. The day after his death would have been their forty- third wedding anniversary; their life together was a partnership of both the heart and the intellect. Following posts as rabbi in Arkansas and Pennsylvania, Albert, shy, yet with a compelling sense of humour, was, from 1961 to 1966, a popular chaplain at Columbia University, New York. He was very much part of the social ferment, marching for civil rights with Martin Luther King. After arriving in Britain, he was, for four years from 1966, rabbi at the Wembley Liberal Synagogue and a lecturer at Leo Baeck College, the only European training ground for liberal rabbis. From 1971, he was director, then dean, of the college, and senior rabbi of the Westminster Synagogue, where he remained, from 1997 until his death, as rabbi emeritus. Albert’s doctorates and numerous visiting professorships do not begin to describe his achievements. He was a sought-after teacher and speaker throughout the English-speaking world, and, in recent years, even more so in Germany. The measure of his ability to forgive – though never to forget – was his rediscovered love of the German intellectual tradition to which he was heir. He spoke and wrote fluently in his mother tongue, by no means common among the children of Jewish refugees. His greatest single achievement was to rescue for a new generation the life of Leo Baeck, the leader of progressive German Jewry and a Holocaust survivor. Albert’s fine biography, published in 1968, and the editing of Baeck’s writings greatly enrich our understanding of modern German Jewry and the significance of its virtual destruction. Albert was also one of the very few Jewish theologians who related closely to the German churches. He was almost adopted as an honorary Christian, so

116 EUROPEAN JUDAISM VOLUME 37 No. 2 AUTUMN ’04 Albert H. Friedlander often was he welcomed as a preacher and teacher. Not all Jews can understand that. But for many young Germans who have learnt to love Judaism, the reason can be found in Albert and his winning personality. For many years, thousands of mainly young people hung on Albert’s words at the Protestant church congresses, the Kirchentage. For their contribution to Anglo-German relations, both he and Evelyn were awarded Germany’s highest honour, the Cross of Merit. It was for his contribution to inter-religious understanding that Albert was awarded the OBE in 2001. He was chairman of the British branch of the World Conference on Religion and Peace (1990–94), committed to the Three Faiths Forum, and a president of the Conference of Christians and Jews. He was also a skilled communicator, writing for the broadsheets and broadcasting on radio and television in Britain and Germany. He was a popular guest on talk-shows, where his lighter side came to the fore. Nothing was allowed to get in the way of his passion for Queen’s Park Rangers. He taught his daughter Noam to play poker when she was five, and was hard to beat at chess. He could not stand intellectual snobbery, and demolished it with sardonic humour. But Albert was not lacking in a degree of undisguised vanity. He liked to be liked. He enjoyed his human closeness with people of every kind and class, but was not a little proud of his pastoral intimacy with some of the great and the good. Accompanying Jacqueline du Pré in the last, tragic phase of her life meant a great deal to him, as did his closeness to his gay colleague , who credits him with helping to save his relationship with his partner. He counted as his friends the critic George Steiner, poet Paul Celan and writer Elie Wiesel. As pastor, he was a patient listener who never judged. This month sees the 60th anniversary of the attempt to kill Hitler, on July 20 1944. The conspirators failed and were executed. On the official commemoration of their deaths 20 years ago, Albert was chosen to give the main address. This is how he ended it: “As the teaches, to save one life is, as it were, to save the existence of the whole world. But our world needs to be saved every day. Every day, we must resist what is evil, lest we become guilty of new disasters. And every day needs to be a day on which to remember, a day of love, a day to express our common humanity. Every day.” Albert was, as expresses it, a mensch, a human being. Evelyn and his daughters survive him.

Paul Oestreicher

Reprinted by permission from The Guardian, Obituaries, 10 July 2004

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Dear Friends We have heard many wonderful tributes paid to our dear Albert, who was our teacher, mentor, friend, confidant and most of all the most gentle and kind human being. He was able to overcome the handicap of not seeing by his vision and wisdom, which he shared without fear of jealousy. He led us and dealt with our spiritual and intellectual needs. In his own inimitable way he called himself the Junior Rabbi at Westminster Synagogue and reminded me just last week that when I retire he would like to apply for the position of the Senior Rabbi. Alas, it is not to be. But the way of the world and God’s ways are a mysterious journey and Albert was the one who was able to explain these in a way that even a little child would understand. Yes, he was able to speak to all, young and old, healthy and ill, sad and happy, busy and bored. Whenever he sat down opposite or next to someone his or her life has taken on a different meaning, somehow life became more bearable and negotiable. At one point in the last Purim spiel at Westminster Synagogue, we in the audience heard a big bang and someone shouted ‘Ouch!’ When one of the characters in the play asked what this was, the answer came back: ‘well, Albert dropped a name again’. Yes, he liked that, but what we must remember is, that all wanted to be in his presence, because rays of hope, beauty and calmness emanated from his personality. Albert lived as he died, giving no one any trouble except on some occasions, when, for example, he got lost on the transatlantic flights from here to America while visiting his beloved sister Dorrit. Yes, Albert died as he lived, for while he loved his food, his sandwiches and cakes, he disliked hospital food, flowers in different vases on the hospital table or indeed fruits; and so he spared us, and himself, all of that. Albert did not like to be a burden or give an opportunity for someone to even hint that he was a burden. He wanted to help and not to be helped, because he passionately cared, rather than wanting to be cared for. His intellectual prowess and knowledge of literature and poetry were, par excellence, incredible and admirable. Even in the throes of a heart attack he was able to joke and managed a smile when I assured him of his Senior Rabbi’s presence. Evelyn told me how much he managed to put a smile on her face even in the midst of a hospital setting and treatment. Westminster Synagogue’s first Rabbi, Rabbi Reinhart, kept and built the community, organised it and instilled deep passion for the Jewish and general community. Rabbi Friedlander, not unlike Reinhart, was a poet and philosopher but Albert took the love of humanity and compassion even closer to God, showing incredible passion for the preservation of humanity,

118 EUROPEAN JUDAISM VOLUME 37 No. 2 AUTUMN ’04 Albert H. Friedlander showing always sympathy, understanding and menschlichkeit to us and the world around us. I did not know Rabbi Reinhart, only what I heard and read, but I knew Albert as my teacher, mentor, supporter, critic but most of all a mensch – a human being whose example I wanted to follow and combine with the practicalities of life, to continue if at all possible in the traditions and teachings of these two great rabbis. In his lecture entitled ‘Passion and Counter Passion’, delivered this year on the twenty-first of June, as a response to Mel Gibson’s film, which I did not attend (as my son and I were representing him at another of his passions – watching football in Lisbon) he again reiterated what we should know and remember him by in the years to come; that is, that we must never condemn and never attack, but plead with humanity, so that the world will recognise and see justice, mercy and compassion instead of violence and brutality. Albert taught us to try to change little by little as he could see in all of us goodness and kindness, the sparkle of God. In his lecture he quoted from Ecclesiastes, which he translated with such sensitivity: ‘Dor holech, v’dor ba; v’haolam omedet la-ad’; ‘One generation goes, and another one comes; but the earth abideth forever.’ So, what word of comfort can we offer to his devoted wife Evelyn, who shared his life just one day short of forty-three years, to his loving daughters, to Dorrit, Daniel, Mark, family, friends, colleagues, community, the Jews of the world and the people in various countries who grew to love and admire him? Indeed, what words of comfort? Surely that no one who has ever met him will forget him, for he was one of the Lamed Vavnik’s thirty-six righteous who walk the earth unrecognised. Yes, indeed, one rabbi goes and another comes but Albert’s memory shall abide for ever. We cry out to the Almighty, why have you taken him to Yourself? I think I know: when Albert felt great pain on the Wednesday afternoon we experienced a great storm, wind and rain, but when he died, at almost one a.m. on Thursday morning, warmth and calm enveloped at least this part of the world. We are grateful that he did not lose his memory or wit or consciousness – he was there right to the end. My son, at whose Bar Albert was the rabbi just three months ago, said ‘Daddy I will miss him, he was a great man and loved by everybody and that is really something.’ Albert, we will miss you very much, your love and everything you stood for, your memory will be cherished and may this be a comfort to us all.

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Zichrono Tzadik Livracha – The memory of the righteous shall be a blessing. Amen.

Rabbi Thomas Salamon

Rabbi Professor Albert Friedlander had the moral strength which comes of a great humility. He was a gentle man. I remember him from my childhood in my grandparents’ house, where they shared the history of those rabbis who fled Germany and revisited in a spirit of reconciliation. I remember how he held and blessed my firstborn child, named after my grandfather. I recall how he insisted that, before driving him home, I give the dog a proper walk. He was a loving man, who brooked no discrimination against anyone. He adored his family; his wife and three daughters were the centre of his existence. He had a wonderful zest for life, a compelling sense of humour, a gift for dropping names (with an affection that made it all right) and a passion for Queens Park Rangers. He was a master of European culture and a lover of beauty. Among the works of art on the walls of the family home are a portrait of him by Kitaj and the manuscript of a poem by his friend Paul Celan. He supported and consoled Jacqueline du Pré. He wrote of his intellectual mentor and companion, George Steiner, his rabbi, Leo Baeck and his rebbe, Elie Wiesel.1 That he was treasured in such circles bespeaks his great learning and his profound sense of history, but above all his encompassing humanity. ‘I am able to address to you’, he said to an illustrious gathering in Berlin on the fortieth commemoration of the July plot against Hitler, ‘only because I understand your suffering. I must continue to speak because we encounter one another not only within suffering but also within history’. It was perhaps in this dialogue between history and suffering, God and humanity, that Rabbi Friedlander made his greatest contribution. It wasn’t that he gave answers, although he did bring healing and hope. It was the journey he undertook with intellect and heart, a journey that engaged him with the great theologians, artists and politicians of the day. I, like countless others, will miss Albert’s gentle voice, his moral courage and his love.

Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg

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Note

1. Albert H. Friedlander, Riders Towards The Dawn, London, Constable, 1993, p. 12.

My friend, teacher and fellow soccer-obsessive, Albert, was a quietly spoken and huggable man. In many ways he was unsuited to the stresses and challenges of the Progressive Rabbinate in Britain. Yet he was one of the great figures of British religious life in the second half of the twentieth century. The Progressive Rabbinate took on the overwhelming demands of pastoral work. Albert took those responsibilities seriously, even though they were not what had drawn this witness to the terrible events of Kristallnacht to the rabbinate. Day and night, year in year out, Albert gave his abundant warmth and compassion to congregants in Wembley and Westminster. To be a Progressive Rabbi after the Shoah was to engage directly with the most challenging questions of faith within a section of the community for whom those challenges could not be answered with the old formulae. Albert was a Jewish scholar in the tradition of Jewish scholarship at difficult times. In his writing, in his preaching, in his broadcasting, the most urgent issues of faith and doubt were what he addressed. His prose, learning, insight and soul spoke to me and to his scores of devoted students at Leo Baeck College. I have never seen so many pupils at a teacher’s funeral. As a Progressive Rabbi chained to Germany and the Shoah, Albert led the Jewish response to Christianity – seeking reconciliation, not superficially but through painstaking thought and compassionate dialogue. Few people knew post-Holocaust Christian theology better than Albert. To bear all three roles with equal commitment and conviction was to make demands of himself that all too many seemed to take for granted and few realised was extraordinary. Albert never felt fully appreciated because he wasn’t. He yearned for something that was denied him. As happens all too frequently, we only realise too late that our lives have been touched by an extraordinary and remarkable human being – a pastor, teacher, theologian and tsaddik every bit as God-driven as the great rabbis of the past.

Rabbi Tony Bayfield

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‘Still waters run deep.’ Albert was a quiet man. He was not argumentative or political. He was like the disciples of Aaron who sought peace, perhaps because he was among the first interpreters of the Holocaust. That event put all human ambitions into a different perspective. Albert was always the one who tried to achieve reconciliation between his warring colleagues. Like his close friend Hugo Gryn, he was non- confrontational. He was a listener. Like him, too, he met difficulties in his own life with a dignity, a humility and a sense of humour which turned away wrath and won sympathy. He had the gift to appeal to and activate the best in all whose lives he touched.

Sidney Brichto

As director of studies, Rabbi Friedlander provided a gentle rabbinic spirit to the Leo Baeck College ethos, and influenced a generation of rabbis in the German-Jewish intellectual tradition he had learned from his teacher, Rabbi Leo Baeck. As biographer of Rabbi Baeck, he was the foremost expert in teaching his legacy of scholarship and response to the Shoah. He taught a regular theology seminar at the college and co-edited the college’s academic journal, European Judaism. Fortunately, his former students occupy positions across the globe, continuing to teach his message of hope, reconciliation and tolerance in a fractured world.

Michael Shire

Tributes have been pouring in from Christian leaders of all denominations for Rabbi Friedlander, an engaged and highly valued joint president [of the Council of Christians and Jews], who engendered real affection. We remember his commitment and spiritual support, and his ability to engage so openly with difficult issues, such as post-Shoah forgiveness. His writings were clear, uncompromising and of inestimable value.

Jane Clements

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