RIP: Rabbi Josef Dunner ...
Josef Dunner died on April 1, proud in the knowledge that every single one of his more than 100 grandchildren are observant Jews....
Rabbi Josef DunnerLast Updated: 12:01am BST 10/04/2007Rabbi Josef Dunner, who has died aged 94, was one of the last German Jewish Orthodox rabbis ordained before the Holocaust.
After escaping to England he became a leading light in the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations based at Stamford Hill in north London, the main umbrella organisation of the "black hat" or Charedi community in this country, and the head of a large rabbinical dynasty.
Josef Hirsch Dunner was born in Cologne on January 4 1913 and named after a great-uncle who had been Chief Rabbi of Holland.
He studied under Rabbi Yehiel Ya'akov Weinberg, head of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary, and was ordained in 1936. Later that year, he was appointed Chief Rabbi of East Prussia, based at Königsberg. He was young for the appointment, but German Jewry was already starting to feel the pinch of the Nazi regime and the number of those who were willing to accept such jobs was much reduced.
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