Executive director of the Conference of European Rabbis and an integral part of the London Jewish community, Reb Aba Dunner opens a window on the more personal sides of his community work. Emunah and bitachon, in good times and bad, shine through the conversation.
As executive director of the Conference of European Rabbis (CER) and a member of one of London’s most prominent families, Reb Aba Dunner has imbibed a concern for the klal in the very air of his childhood home. That unceasing dedication has spurred him in recent months to continue soldiering on for the benefit of the greater Jewish community, despite a staggering succession of devastating losses. In a soul-baring conversation that is highly emotional and at times humorously self-deprecating, Reb Aba describes his upbringing as the son of the eminent Rav Yosef Tzvi Dunner ztz”l, discusses his current focus with the CER, lovingly remembers his famous philanthropist son Bentzi, and muses about the way he’s found strength and inspiration in the words of the siddur
Our conversation was a journey of laughter and tears. Memories of an illustrious father and a remarkable son, recollections of an accomplished life filled with interesting twists and turns, and in between, an unforgettable lesson in emunah and bitachon.
“In our home, there was no such thing as individuals; we grew up with an acute awareness of the klal and their needs. But even so, even with the incessant demands on my parent’s time, we never missed a dinner together with my father. He was there for each and every one of us, available and ready to discuss any issue that was important to us.”
For five decades, Londoners knew Reb Abba’s father as “the Rov,” but who was Rav Yosef Tzvi Dunner? In every sense a true German Rov, a link in a mesorah of punctiliousness and order, Rav Yosef Tzvi was a student in the Hildesheimer Seminary of Berlin, where he studied for the rabbinate under Rav Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg. After graduating from the seminary, in 1936, he was appointed Rov in Koenigsberg — earning the distinguished title of chief rabbi of East Prussia.
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