Joachim Prinz, Rebellious Rabbi: An Autobiography: The German and Early American Years

"Prinz's autobiography... enriches our understanding of the desperate but not yet hopeless life of German Jews in the German 1930s." —Forward

— Morton J. Merowitz

"[This] well-written and absorbing autobiography surpasses many scholarly monographs in providing an insightful portrayal of Jewish life in Germany between World War I and the early years of Nazi rule." —American Jewish Archives Journal, Vol. LXI, no. 1 (2009)

"Students of the German Jewish experience, the Holocaust, and American Jewish history, as well as rabbis and rabbinic students will all find Joachim Prinz, Rebellious Rabbi engaging and worthy of their consideration for many different reasons." —H-Net Reviews H-Judaic, October 2009

"The recently published Joachim Prinz, Rebellious Rabbi, edited and superby introduced by noted historian Michael A. Meyer, is a remarkable historical document with literary merit.... Written by a successful, confident senior rabbi in his "anecdotage", it illuminates the public life and private world of a leading Jewish figure of the twentieth century with refreshing clarity and honesty." —H-Net Reviews, October 2009

"Fascinating reading... a rare case where a public figure opens the doors widely to his private life... truly unique for the light it throws on the atmosphere among Jews in pre—Nazi and Nazi Germany." —Michael Brenner, author of After the Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Lives in Postwar Germany

"This is a work that should be in every large pubic, seminary, synagogue, and university collection." —Morton J. Merowitz, Association of Jewish Libraries Newsletter, septermber/october 2008

Autobiography is a tricky business. Is the life that one reconstructs through autobiographical memoir truly the life that was, or is it the fiction of the life one wants it to be? These are some of the challenges that editor Meyer (Jewish history, Hebrew Union Coll.) engages as the editor of this fine autobiography. Prinz was a dynamic and charismatic rabbi in Berlin before he was expelled by the Nazis in 1937. He came to the United States with sponsorship from Rabbi Stephen Wise and was an energetic spokesman for Zionism; he held important leadership positions in the World Jewish Congress as well as served as president of the American Jewish Congress. This first of a two-part memoir takes us through the early years of his American rabbinate at Temple B'nai Abraham in Newark, NJ, before ending in 1949 with the death of Stephen Wise. Most interesting during this time was his reaction to American Zionism, something very different from his own notion of what it meant to be an active and committed Zionist. A lucid and insightful introduction to the life of an influential and dynamic public figure. Recommended for libraries with Jewish studies collections.
—Herbert E. Shapiro Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information