Biographical/Historical Information

Leo Baeck was born in 1873 in Lissa (now Leszno, Poland), in the then German province of Posen, to Rabbi Samuel Baeck and Eva née Placzek. From 1891 to 1894, Baeck was in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland), studying at the Jewish Theological Seminary as well as at the University. He continued his studies in Berlin at the Lehranstalt für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, where he studied with Wilhelm Dilthey. By 1897 he had secured his first post as rabbi in Oppeln (now Opole, Poland). He married Natalie Hamburger in 1899, moving to Düsseldorf in 1907 and then to Berlin in 1912. There, he worked both as a rabbi at the large synagogue on Fasanenstraße as well as a lecturer at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. During the First World War, Baeck served as a chaplain in the German Army, serving on both the east and west fronts. He returned to Berlin and worked at the Prussian Culture Ministry as an expert in Hebrew. During the 1920s he became involved in the work of several Jewish organizations. When the Nazis rose to power in 1933, Baeck was elected president of the Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden (renamed the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland after the Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935). In 1943, Baeck and his family were sent to the concentration camp at Theresienstadt (Terezin), where he continued to teach in secret and wrote a manuscript on Jewish history. After the camp was liberated in May 1945 by the Red Army, he joined his daughter, Ruth, in England. The remainder of his life was devoted to travel, teaching, and writing. Leo Baeck died in 1956.

The Leo Baeck Institute was founded in 1955 by leading German-Jewish émigré intellectuals including Martin Buber, Max Grunewald, Hannah Arendt and Robert Weltsch, who were determined to preserve the vibrant cultural heritage of German-speaking Jewry that was nearly destroyed in the Holocaust. They named the Institute for Rabbi Leo Baeck, the last leader of Germany’s Jewish Community under the Nazi regime, and appointed him as the Institute’s first President, overseeing independent centers in New York, London, and Jerusalem. LBI – New York is a founding partner of the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan and maintains an office in Berlin and a branch of its archives at the Jewish Museum Berlin. The Leo Baeck Medal is the highest honor that Leo Baeck Institute bestows on those who have made extraordinary efforts to preserve the memory of German-speaking Jews

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Citation

Medallic Art Co., Danbury, CT.: Leo Baeck Institute Medal, Leo Baeck Institute, 79.7.