Cover Ephraim Carlebach, Marco Helbig, Jewish culture and contemporary history
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Marco Helbig

Ephraim Carlebach

Neoorthodox Rabbi in a liberal town

Translation: Jos Porath
Language: English
116 pages, softcover with (fold-in) flaps
24 illustrations
ISBN: 978-3-95565-335-4
Publication date: 2019
14.90 €

“[…] go to Leipzig. [...] If you leave Germany someday, and they ask you where you have been and you answer in Chemnitz, they will ask you where that is, but if you answer, with Carlebach in Leipzig, everyone will know where you’ve been.” Letter of recommendation from 1934 to Josef Burg from his father

Ephraim Carlebach was Leipzig’s most famous rabbi, and his lifework emanates far beyond the borders of the city till this day. His Neoorthodox upbringing had instilled in him an urge to bend boundaries and break new ground, and so Carlebach founded the first Jewish school in Saxony, achieved lesson-free Shabbat and implemented progressive educational methods in his school. Carlebach was the heart and soul of the school, and his tireless efforts for understanding and collaboration set him apart as a person. This book introduces Ephraim Carlebach and embeds him in a contemporary context. His life and work are exemplary of a generation of rabbis who combined religious and secular education. As a proponent of Neoorthodoxy Carlebach’s life story serves as an illustration of the surmountable and the insurmountable barriers he faced.

With a preface by George Y. Kohler


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Marco Helbig

Jahrgang 1979, studierte Ethnologie und Religionswissenschaften mit dem Schwerpunkt jüdische Geschichte und religiöse Minderheiten im Nahen und Mittleren Osten. Helbig wurde zum Leben und Werk des Leipziger Rabbiners Dr. Ephraim Carlebach promoviert. Seit 1998 organisiert und realisiert er Rap- und Poesie-Workshops zu den Themen Antisemitismus, Rassismus, Mobbing, Misogynie und Exklusion. Für diese Arbeit wurde er mehrfach, unter anderem von der Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung und von der Stadt Leipzig mit dem Courage Preis, ausgezeichnet.