Joachim Prinz

Joachim Prinz (May 10, 1902 – September 30, 1988) was a German-American rabbi who was outspoken against Nazism and became a Zionist leader. As a young rabbi in Berlin, he was forced to confront the rise of Nazism, and eventually emigrated to the United States in 1937. There he became vice-chairman of the World Jewish Congress, an active member of the World Zionist Organization and a participant in the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington.

Prinz was born in the village of Bierdzany (near Oppeln), in the Prussian province of Silesia.

Prinz was born to a Jewish family. Early on, he became motivated by a charismatic rabbi and Prinz took an increasing interest in Judaism. His Jewish roots grew even stronger following his mother’s death. By 1917, he had also joined Blau Weiss (Blue White), the Zionist youth movement.

At 21, Joachim Prinz received his Ph.D. in Philosophy, and had minored in Art History, at the University of Giessen. He was ordained as a rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau. He married Lucie Horovitz, the daughter of the seminary’s most prominent professor. She died in Berlin shortly after giving birth to their daughter Lucie. Prinz married Hilde Goldschmidt in 1932. They had three children, Michael (born in Berlin), Jonathan and Deborah (both born in the United States)

As his prominence grew in Germany and his fears of Hitler's reign coming to fruition, he earned the sponsorship of Rabbi Stephen Wise who was a close adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt. In 1937, Prinz immigrated into the United States. He immediately began lecturing throughout the U.S. for the United Palestine Appeal, established in the 1920s as the fund raising arm in the United States for the Jewish Agency for Israel. It was, essentially, the precursor to what became the American Jewish support base for a nation state of Israel and the United Israel Appeal.

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