The Essence of Judaism

Leo Baeck

1922

Unity and Development

During the thousands of years of its history, Judaism has learned and experienced a good deal. In its people the commanding urge to think further, to struggle with ideas, has persisted through the centuries. Whether by choice or compulsion, Jews have taken many and diverse roads in this world, and their experiences have become…

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Creator Bio

Leo Baeck

1873–1956

The German Reform rabbi Leo Baeck was trained at the Breslau Rabbinical Seminary and the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin, as well as the Universities of Breslau and Berlin. He served as a rabbi in Germany and, from 1933, as head of the representative body of German Jewry. Despite entreaties to leave, he remained in the country, believing it was his duty to offer spiritual support to his fellow Jews during the horrors of the Nazi years. In 1943, he was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. He survived and settled in London after the war. He originally wrote The Essence of Judaism as a response to the Christian theologian Adolf von Harnack’s The Essence of Christianity.

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