Report by Rabbi Steven S. Schwarzschild for The World Union for Progressive Judaism

Abstract

Upon my instigation Rabbi Klein, liaison officer of the Synagogue Council of America to the American High Commissioner for Germany in Bad Nauheim, as a neutral and disinterested person, called a conference of all the rabbis working in Jewish communities in Germany to Frankfurt on 6 December 1949. Present were Rabbi Wilhelm Weinberg of Frankfurt, Rabbi Aron Ohrenstein of Munich, Professor Avigdor of Regensburg, a recent Eastern European repatriate from Israel who used to represent the radical wing of the Revisionist Party in Central Europe and who has been elected rabbi of the D.P. Jewish Community in Regensburg, and myself. Due to the absence of rabbis there, the British Zone was not represented. At the preparatory meeting in Frankfurt a rabbinical association was formed and incorporated whose first temporary executive secretary is Rabbi Weinberg. The German and American press in this country paid considerable notice to the meeting, despite behind the scenes machinations against it on the part of radical Zionist and D.P. groups which feared additional support which might be derived from it for what they consider an undesirable perpetuation of the Jewish Community in Germany.