(Rabbi in Fürth, Bavaria and Washington Heights, New York. 1894-1983).

Born in Kempen-in-Posen (Prussia), Rabbi Dr. Leo (Yehudah) Breslauer studied in Frankfurt’s Torah Lehranstalt (Breuer’s Yeshiva), followed by the Rabbiner Seminar Berlin, where he was ordained by Rabbi David Zvi Hoffman. After serving as a military chaplain, Breslauer was Rabbi in Kiel where he also completed his doctorate. In 1923 he was appointed to lead Fürth’s Alt-Neuschul where he remained until its dissolution by the Nazis. Breslauer subsequently found temporary refuge in Holland, and in 1941, arrived in America. Within a year he founded, in the Washington Heights neighborhood of upper Manhattan, Congregation Kehillas Yaakov, which primarily served his former congregants from Fürth, along with other refugees stemming from adjacent towns in Bavaria such as Nüremberg. Washington Heights, new home to some 20,000 German Jews, was where Breslauer sought to maintain and model to his flock, a traditional Orthodox life imbued with High German custom and orientation, amidst the free-spirited nature of American society. This archive provides much material as to how this particular German Orthodox rabbi, with all his varied interests (rabbinic, scholarly, communal and political), sought to make the challenging adjustment from a refined position of leadership in Germany, to the very different society of America with its new, contemporary challenges. In addition to Breslauer’s own unpublished rabbinic scholarship, this archive contains important historical source material pertaining to the two communities Breslauer led over many decades. Also preserved here are files relating to Breslauer’s involvement with various Jewish political parties and other groups, especially Agudath Israel. Much may be gleaned from here in regard to the development of a community of Jews, deeply entrenched in their German roots and traditions, subsequently violently removed to the very different culture of America. The transition would naturally bring about many a range of results: A most notable example was statesman Henry Kissinger and his family, who were members of Breslauer’s synagogue. Indeed Breslauer presided over young Henry’s barmitzvah in Fürth and subsequently conducted the marriage ceremony between 25 year-old Henry and his (first) wife Anne Fleischer, in the Kissinger family apartment in Washington Heights. (See N. Ferguson, Kissinger Vol. I (2015) pp. 225-26). Amidst the abundance of materials concerning the development of Breslauer’s new community in America, we may witness the language of expression moving from German to English – while all along, Breslauer’s personal scholarship continues in Hebrew. Breslauer was a man of both varied and deep scholarship. He was also a man who held opinions which often went against the popular tide. Most strikingly so, his outspoken voice in opposition to the secularism that permeated the Zionist movement and the nascent State of Israel. We find in this archive details of Breslauer’s actions during war-time and especially post-war, where he became a most active voice against political Zionism. <<An important archive, containing a wide variety of primary documentation, certainly a source of much original study material.>>