NEUMAN

Isaac Neuman z”l

 Isaac Neuman, M.A.H.L., D.D., was Rabbi Emeritus at Sinai Temple from his retirement in 1984 until his passing in 2014. Rabbi Neuman was born in Zdunska Wola, Poland, in 1922. He studied at three European Talmudic academines: Eitz Chaim in Kalisz, Emek Halacha in Warsaw, and Yeshivat Chachmei in Lublin, before Nazis invaded Poland in 1939.

Rabbi Neuman was a survivor of six Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz and Mauthausen. Neuman was a slave laborer for the Nazis and German munitions companies during a portion of his four years of internment. Neuman’s parents, six sisters and a younger brother all perished in the Holocaust.

Rabbi Neuman was liberated at Ebensee, Austria, by American soldiers of the 11th Armored Division in May of 1945. He arrived in the United States in 1950 with no family, no assets, and little knowledge of English. Thanks to a scholarship from the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, Rabbi Neuman was able to earn a Bachelors degree from the University of Cincinnati, and Bachelor and Master of Arts and Hebrew Letters degrees from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, where he was ordained as a rabbi.

Rabbi Neuman served as a pulpit rabbi in the Republic of Panama, Alabama, Iowa, Illinois, and California over the course of 28 years. For 25 years, Neuman served as an auxiliary chaplain in the United States Armed Forces. In 1985, Rabbi Neuman was awarded a Doctor of Divinity degree from Hebrew Union College.

Rabbi Neuman was long active in interfaith and civil rights activities, serving as president of both the Cedar Rapids Conference of Clergy and the Champaign-Urbana Ministerial Association. He participated in the 1965 civil rights march in Selma, Alabama with the late Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Rabbi Neuman also served as Chief Rabbi of the German Democratic Republic from 1987 to 1988. President Ronald Reagan appointed Rabbi Neuman to a six-year term on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council in 1985.

Rabbi Neuman was the author of a memoir, The Narrow Bridge: Beyond the Holocaust, published by the University of Illinois Press.

Sinai Temple Yom Rishon Tevet 5777