In Memoriam: Alfred Gottschalk

Holocaust and Genocide Studies notes with sadness the passing of Dr. Alfred Gottschalk, Chancellor Emeritus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, on September 12, 2009, at the age of 79. A pioneering Reform rabbi, champion of education, and prominent scholar of Jewish studies, Dr. Gottschalk played a crucial role in the founding of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies.

Born in Oberwesel, Germany in 1930, Alfred Gottschalk had his childhood interrupted by the rising antisemitism of the Third Reich, an experience that inspired him to dedicate his life to preserving Jewish culture, faith, and memory. In November 1938 he witnessed the destruction of the town’s Jewish businesses and synagogue during Kristallnacht. His father, targeted by the Gestapo, fled Germany for New York that year. In 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II, Alfred and his mother followed. The town’s remaining Jews, including many of Gottschalk’s relatives, were murdered in the Holocaust.

The family settled in Brooklyn, where they became integrated into the city’s Jewish community. After his father died, Gottschalk helped with the family financial situation. He graduated from Boys’ High School and in 1952 earned a bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College. In 1957 he was ordained as a rabbi at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. He joined the faculty of the HUC Los Angeles campus and was appointed dean in 1959. Over the next decade, Gottschalk demonstrated his commitment to educational exchange by forging links with the University of Southern California, while also building ties to the Los Angeles community by initiating service programs. In 1967, he earned a Ph.D. from USC. In 1971, he was appointed president of the HUC system, a post he held until 1995. He immediately set about expanding the New York City campus, establishing common programs with New York University.

As a rabbi, Dr. Gottschalk helped steer the course of the Reform movement: in 1972 in Cincinnati he ordained the first female rabbi in America; in 1975 he presided over the investiture of the first female cantor in America; in 1980 he ordained the first Reform rabbi in Israel; and in 1992 he ordained the first female rabbi in Israel. In the late 1980s, he admitted the first openly gay and lesbian students to rabbinical studies at HUC.

Appointed by Jimmy Carter as one of the original members of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, Dr. Gottschalk was among the strongest advocates of the creation of a national museum to memorialize the victims, and later served on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. Though on friendly terms with President Reagan, Dr. Gottschalk criticized the president during the Bitburg controversy. He served as interim Council chair in 1986, between Elie Wiesel and Harvey M. Meyerhoff. At various times Gottschalk chaired the Council’s Education and Academic Committees, envisioning an academic research center as a vital component in supporting the Museum’s memorializing mission and efforts to prevent other genocides. He lent invaluable HUC resources in planning the Museum’s Library and Archives, ensuring that the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies would be equipped to carry out the work it has performed since its creation. For three years he was president of New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust and, not least, served as a member of this journal’s editorial advisory board since 1987.