JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

FEINBERG, ABRAHAM L. (1899–1986), Reform rabbi and
activist. Feinberg was born in Bellaire, Ohio, to immigrant
parents from Grinkishok (Grinkiskis), Lithuania, which Feinberg
referred to as “the birthplace of my spirit.” He earned a
B.A. from the University of Cincinnati and was ordained at
Hebrew Union College in 1924. After ordination he served in
a number of American pulpits but left the rabbinate in 1929
to embark on a singing career as Arthur Frome. He returned
to the pulpit in 1935 in response to Hitler’s growing strength
and attacks on the Jews. In 1943 he accepted a position at Toronto’s
Holy Blossom Temple, the premier Reform congregation
in Canada. During his tenure, the Holy Blossom grew
rapidly, a testimony to Feinberg’s skills as religious leader, and
especially as a preacher. He extended his influence by being a
highly successful radio orator.
A firm believer in the prophetic ethic as emphasized
in Reform Judaism, Feinberg had supported various leftwing
causes while in the United States, and threw himself
into the Canadian scene with energy. Holding that Canada
should be free of all forms of prejudice, he spoke out
against antisemitism and racism including Canada’s wartime
treatment of the Japanese and discrimination against
blacks in Canada. He was a crucial presence on the Joint
Public Relations Committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress
and B’nai B’rith, pressing the committee to protest mandatory
prayers and Christmas carols in Ontario public schools and
to lobby for fair employment and housing practices in Ontario.
Feinberg became an outspoken advocate of nuclear
disarmament and chaired the Toronto Committee for Disarmament
while he continued his advocacy of civil rights
as the vice president of the Toronto Association for Civil
Rights. Feinberg’s political activism led to surveillance by
Royal Canadian Mounted Police intelligence officers. An
RCMP file eventually released to his daughter contained
1,100 pages, with even more devoured by the RCMP’s shredder.
Feinberg retired from Holy Blossom in 1961 and was
named rabbi emeritus. He continued his activism, protesting
the war in Vietnam, and in late 1966 and early 1967 led
a delegation to meet with Ho Chi Minh. In 1972 he moved
to Berkeley, California, to be near his son Jonathan but relocated
across the Bay to be the rabbi for Glide Memorial
Church, which catered to “the outcasts of our social system.”
He also became a spokesman for “gray lib,” fighting oppression
of the elderly. He subsequently moved to Reno, Nevada,
where he continued his advocacy for the elderly. At age 70
Feinberg resumed his singing career and released 10 songs,
but his most famous performance was singing “Give Peace a
Chance,” with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in their Montreal
hotel room in 1969.
Feinberg was the author of three books, Storm the Gates
of Jericho (1964); Rabbi Feinberg’s Hanoi Diary (1968); Sex
and the Pulpit (1981). He also wrote numerous magazine and
newspaper articles.
[Richard Menkis (2nd ed.)]
Feinberg, Kenneth
FEINBERG, DAVID (1840–1916), Russian communal leader.
Born in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, Feinberg studied law at
St. Petersburg University. While in his twenties he attained a
responsible position in the St. Petersburg-Warsaw railroad
company and was active in promoting the organization of
a community in St. Petersburg. Feinberg was instrumental
in obtaining, with the support of Baron Horace Guenzburg,
Samuel *Poliakoff, and others, authorization for building the
first synagogue as well as for the establishment of a Jewish
cemetery there. He enlisted the support of Adolphe Crémieux,
Baron Maurice de Hirsch, and Sir Moses Montefiore in the
struggle of Russian Jewry for rights. When the *Jewish Colonization
Association (ICA) was founded in 1891 Feinberg became
its secretary-general and was active in promoting Jewish
agricultural settlement in *Argentina, where one of the settlements
was named after him. During World War I he did much
to relieve the sufferings of refugees.
Bibliography: S. Ginsburg, Amolike Peterburg (1944), 111–
24; Feinberg, in: He-Avar, 4 (1956), 20–36; I. Halpern, Yehudim ve-
Yahadut be-Mizraḥ Eiropah (1969), 372–3.
FEINBERG, KENNETH (1945– ), U.S. attorney, expert in
mediation and alternative dispute resolution. Born and raised
in Brockton, Mass., Feinberg graduated cum laude from the
University of Massachusetts in 1967 and from New York University
School of Law, where he was articles editor of the Law
Review, in 1970. He served as law clerk to Chief Judge Stanley
H. Fuld, New York State Court of Appeals, from 1970 to 1972.
He was assistant U.S. attorney, Southern District of New York,
from 1972 to 1975 and special counsel, U.S. Senate Committee
on the Judiciary, from 1975 to 1980. Feinberg served as administrative
assistant to Senator Edward M. Kennedy from 1977 to
1979. He was a partner in the firm of Kaye, Scholer, Fierman,
Hays & Handler from 1980 to 1992, then founded The Feinberg
Group in Washington, D.C., in 1993. He was also a lecturer
at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, New York
University School of Law, University of Virginia Law School,
and Columbia Law School.
Feinberg served as mediator and arbiter in thousands of
disputes, involving such issues as breach of contract, product
liability, civil fraud, and various environmental matters.
He served as court-appointed special settlement master in
several high-profile cases, including the Agent Orange product
liability litigation, the RICO class action concerning the
Shoreham Nuclear Facility, and many asbestos personal injury
litigations. He was the first trustee of the Dalkon Shield
Claimants’ Trust. Feinberg was one of three arbitrators chosen
to determine the fair market value of the Zapruder film
of the John F. Kennedy assassination, and he was one of two
arbitrators selected to determine the allocation of legal fees
in the Holocaust slave labor litigation.
In 2001 Feinberg was appointed Special Master of the
Federal September 11th Victim Compensation Fund by Attorney
General John Ashcroft. The Fund was created by federal
legislation to compensate victims and families of victims in-
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 737