The Jewish world lost two religious titans recently: Rabbi Sherwin Wine and Rabbi Abraham Klausner. Their names may have been unfamiliar to most people, even to most Jews, but their contributions to Jewish spiritual life will be tallied for years to come.
Rabbi Sherwin Wine, the founder of the Society of Humanistic Judaism, died in an auto accident last week while on vacation in Morocco. He was 79.
Wine was surely anathema to some in the Jewish world. As an atheist, he denied the existence of the God of the Torah, worshipped by Jews for millennia. But his love for Jewish culture and the Jewish people proved so deep, he could not give them up.
In 1963, he founded the first Humanistic congregation in his native Detroit. The movement grew, and today there are 30 Humanistic congregations across North America claiming a total of 10,000 members, along with an appreciable presence in Israel.
Some of his innovations –– such as eliminating the Sh’ma and all references to God from services –– sparked much controversy and criticism.
Yet even his detractors acknowledged Wine’s towering intellect. Ordained in the Reform movement, he earned two advanced philosophy degrees. He wrote and lectured prodigiously. He was a tireless advocate for an ethical, superstition-free brand of Judaism.
It was not for everybody. In fact, Humanistic Judaism is one of the smallest Jewish denominations. But in terms of the ongoing intra-Jewish dialogue, he had an impact far beyond the borders of his movement.
Rabbi Abraham Klausner was the first Jewish clergyman to set foot in the newly liberated Dachau concentration camp in Germany. The hellish suffering he saw there so appalled him, he devoted much of the rest of his long life to aiding Holocaust survivors. He died last month at 92.
As a U.S. military chaplain, Klausner remained in Europe in the immediate post-war years, helping to reunite Jewish families and assist them with securing the basic necessities of life. Once back in the United States, he became a pulpit rabbi in Yonkers, N.Y., but he continued his Holocaust work, both as a historian and activist.
He wrote several books, and his memoirs were published by the Holocaust Center of Northern California, based here in San Francisco. His son, Amos Klausner of San Francisco, sits on the Holocaust Center board.
With the passing of Rabbis Wine and Klausner, we have lost two bright lights who did much to impact Jewish life over the last century. They will be missed.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California