Jews in Leipzig - The University of Texas at Austin

existed under one roof. 31 The Leipzig Jewish community was about as divided as it could
be, according to Goldmann and Grubel. But this division reflected a real freedom of self-
definition for Jews in Leipzig. The debates between different versions of what a Jew in
Leipzig was, what he or she ought to be, were much more likely to happen in a free
environment.
The divisions between the “Germans” and the “foreigners”, or “Russians” as they
were sometimes called, never went away entirely; even as late as the Nazi seizure of
power in 1933, one reads of assimilated Jews bemoaning the effects of the foreign-
looking Ostjuden on Jewish/German relations. The complaints of foreign-born Jews
about their assimilated and frequently more-wealthy neighbors were enduring ones, too.
However, the admission of non-German born Jews to the board of directors of the
Gemeinde was an important symbol of an increasing equity—or at least respectability—
within the community for foreign-born Jews.
An important and symbolic figure for this change was the eminent Orthodox
Rabbi Ephraim Carlebach. Carlebach arrived in Leipzig from Berlin in 1900. His work
in establishing schools and the Orthodox role in communal life ended with his emigration
to Israel in 1936. He was a leading figure in the construction of the first Orthodox school,
the Höhere Israelitische Schule [the Jewish High School], and the major Orthodox
synagogue, Ez-Chaim. In between, he had emerged as a revered figure among all sectors
of Jewish society in Leipzig, honored with the title of Gemeinderabbiner, equal to the
leading Reform Rabbi in the city, 32 and the namesake today of a leading institution
devoted to Judaic studies in Leipzig. His appointment as Gemeinderabbiner in 1924,
31 “Leipzig: Profile of a Jewish Community during the first years of Nazi Germany” by Fred Grubel and
Frank Mecklenburg, Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook XLII 1997, 160.
32 Ephraim-Carlebach –Stiftung, Leipziger Jüdisches Jahr-und Adressbuch 1933, 72.
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