Tishah B’Av marks the 88th yahrtzeit of Dr. Leo (Shmuel) Deutschlander
The Gerrer Rebbe [the Imrei Emes] is reported to have said, “I have thousands of bochurim amongst my followers, but I’m not sure whether there exist even for ten of them girls who are fit and willing to share their lives. What will become of our future families?”
The day when Leo Deutschlander met Sarah Schenirer and agreed to take charge of the development of the Beth Jacob movement was a historical day. Here, a union of vision, ecstasy, and practical efficiency was created which was to bring about the fulfillment of a great plan. Sarah Schenirer, the daughter of Chassidic Jewry, entrusted the furthering of her ideals to the educationist reared in Western Europe, in the schools of Torah im derech eretz. Leo Deutschlander gave his heart, his soul, his strength, his methodical care, and perhaps most of all his genius of human relationship to Beth Jacob and helped it to grow into a world-wide movement of such driving force that even the demons of hell that tried to annihilate our Jewish World could not weaken it.
—Dr. Judith (Rosenbaum) Grunfeld
Shmuel (Leo) Deutschlander was born in 1892 in Berlin. His father, Rabbi Nathan Deutschlander, had been the first director of the religious school of Congregation Adas Yisrael. Orphaned of both parents by age seven, Leo was taken in by his sister and brother-in-law, Rabbi Dr. Chaim Biberfeld. He received a religious education before studying in the universities of Berlin, Warburg, and Giessen, where he received his doctorate. He later graduated from Berlin’s Rabbinical Seminary.
During World War I, Deutschlander was conscripted into the German army. He was appointed as Jewish cultural advisor in Kovno during the German occupation, and together with Rabbi Joseph Tzvi Carlebach, he liaised with the Jewish community, establishing the Yavneh religious school system in Lithuania. He stayed there in the Jewish Ministry from 1919 to 1922, supervising the school system and beginning his lifelong commitment to Torah education. Following the war, he married Resi Lindberger, whose family was a pillar of the Berlin community. The first Knessiah Gedolah in Vienna in August 1923 saw the establishment of the Keren HaTorah to fund religious education. Dr. Deutschlander was appointed to oversee its operations.
Create a free account to keep reading.
