Joseph Breuer
| Joseph Breuer | |
|---|---|
| Born |
March 20, 1882 Pápa, Hungary |
| Died | April 19, 1980 (aged 98) New York City, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Spouse(s) | Rika Eisenmann (m. 1911) |
| Children | Marc Breuer (b. 1912) |
| Parent(s) | Solomon Breuer and Sophie Hirsch |
Joseph Breuer (March 20, 1882 – April 19, 1980) was a rabbi and community leader in Germany and the United States. He was a Rabbi of one of the large Jewish synagogues founded by German-Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi oppression that had settled in Washington Heights, New York.
Joseph Breuer was born in 1882 in Pápa, Hungary to the local Rabbi Solomon Breuer and Sophie Breuer née Hirsch, who was the youngest daughter of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. After the passing of Hirsch in 1888, Solomon Breuer was elected his successor as rabbi of the Austrittsgemeinde (seceded community) of Orthodox Jews known as Khal Adath Jeshurun. Here, Breuer Sr. founded a yeshiva called the Torah Lehranstalt and became its first Rosh Yeshiva.
Joseph studied at the Torah Lehranstalt until 1903, when he was awarded semicha, and in 1905 he completed university studies at the University of Strasbourg with a PhD on the work of legal scholar Anselm von Feuerbach. He became a teacher at the Realschule (secondary school) and lecturer at the Torah Lehranstalt. He married Rika Eisenmann of Antwerp, granddaughter of Eliezer Liepman Philip Prins in 1911. In 1919 he was also appointed rabbi of the Klaus synagogue of Frankfurt.
Following Solomon Breuer's death, in 1926, Joseph Breuer lost the election to succeed his father as rabbi of the community, but he did succeed him as Rosh Yeshiva. In 1933, with the rise of Nazism, he briefly moved the yeshiva to Fiume, Italy, where he had assumed the rabbinate, but this arrangement lasted only until the next year and the family and the yeshiva returned to Frankfurt. It was formally dissolved by the Nazis in 1935, but continued to function unofficially. On the day after Kristallnacht, Rabbi Breuer was arrested but subsequently released. The family left Germany, initially to Antwerp. A former pupil was then, with the assistance of Rabbi Bernard Revel, able to procure an affidavit of support, which enabled Breuer and his family to relocate to New York in 1939.Bernard Revel offered Joseph Breuer a teaching position in his institution, which he brusquely turned down. He reportedly said that he would rather "clean the streets".
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