Nathan Levinson

Nathan Levinson was born Nathan Peter Lewinski on November 23, 1921 in Berlin, Prenzlauer Berg. His first twenty years of life were shaped by the Nazis and their laws. His high school years began as a student in a public high school. After being beaten up by Nazi classmates, he attended a Jewish private school. After the dissolution of all Jewish private schools following the pogroms of November 1938, he could only attend the Gymnasium der Jüdischen Gemeinde in Wilsnacker Straße, where he graduated from high school in 1940. After graduating from high school, he began his studies at the Lehranstalt für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. Here he met people whose friendship and influence shaped him throughout his life. The theological and political views of rabbi and scholar Leo Baeck provided a guide for Levinson's life.

In 1941, the Levinson family emigrated to the U.S. via Poland, Russia, Korea and Japan, settling in Cincinnati, Ohio. He renamed himself Levinson and continued his studies at Hebrew Union College there, graduating after six years, in 1946, with ordination as a rabbi. Levinson married Helga Heimberg in Cincinnati in 1947, and daughter Sharon was born in 1952. His former teacher from Berlin, Leo Baeck, held a professorship at Hebrew Union College from 1948-1953 and persuaded Levinson to go to Germany as a rabbi.

In 1950, Levinson came to Berlin as a representative of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, where he served as state rabbi until 1953. After additional training as a military rabbi, he finally came to Ramstein Air Base via a station in Japan, where he remained until 1961. Already at that time he had established contacts with the communities in Heidelberg and Mannheim. After he finished his time as military rabbi, Heidelberg became the family's center of life. Shortly after completing her medical studies, Helga Levinson succumbed to a long bout of cancer in 1968 and is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Heidelberg.

In 1962, Levinson became rabbi of the Jewish community of Mannheim. In 1964 he became state rabbi of Baden and at the same time state rabbi of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. The membership of the individual congregations was still determined by the bloodletting of the Shoa, and the number of congregations was small. Baden, for example, had six congregations at the time; today there are ten. Mannheim, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein - the description of "the Reiserabbiner" became reality. The congregations were too small to afford their own rabbi. In Baden, there were no independent liberal congregations; in Schleswig-Holstein, almost all congregations were liberal. In the other federal states, they were unitary congregations in which Jews of different orientations were to find a place. The total number of congregation members in Germany was 15,000. Levinson often traveled by train. His many other commitments, even outside of congregational work, required him to manage his time well.

What did it mean to be a rabbi in Germany after the Shoa? In 1964 Levinson became chairman of the Rabbinical Conference of the Federal Republic of Germany, and from 1965 he was the Jewish chairman of the German Coordinating Council of the Societies for Christian-Jewish Cooperation in Bad Nauheim for almost 20 years. Two important positions that span the Christian-Jewish world like a parenthesis. Levinson was an advocate of dialogue between religions. With the small number of Jews*Jewesses in Germany, most of whom were so traumatized by their experiences that they avoided all contact with Christian people, there were only a few people on the Jewish side who could conduct the dialogue. This work was often a balancing act. Levinson always raised his voice when Jewish heritage was in danger of being forgotten. A large piece of work was and is the communication of information about Judaism - today, people meet on an equal footing and can jointly launch projects and initiatives whose impact reaches far into the future. Only the knowledge of the other can prevent another Shoa. This conviction of Levinson's led to his commitment outside of his work for and in the Jewish communities. Be it radio addresses on Judaism, be it Christian events on Jewish topics, be it church conventions, Levinson's access to the young was important. Whenever possible, he took Jewish students to the events involved in the dialogue process. These encounters were formative for some of these young people in their interactions with non-Jewish environments.

Levinson's work in the congregations as well as in the various Christian and Jewish institutions led him and his second wife, Pnina Nave'-Levinson, to mature the desire to make rabbinical training in Germany possible again in Heidelberg. The number of congregations was still so small that many decision-makers could not even imagine rabbinical training in Germany. Only the large congregations in major cities such as Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne and Frankfurt had salaried religious staff. The other congregations recruited religious staff from their own ranks, hired a rabbi for the High Holidays, or one rabbi served several congregations at once. Levinson, because of his work in several congregations,  had a good overview of what they lacked. This made grow in him and his wife Pnina the desire to train as a rabbi in Germany. This desire determined his entire professional life and he used his political and theological influence to always bring up his vision. In the tradition of the Berlin Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, Levinson wanted to establish a university in Heidelberg that would train rabbis*, cantors*, and teachers of religion. In 1979, the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien was founded in Heidelberg, which initially did not train rabbis* and cantors. In 2000, Levinson's wish came true: rabbis were now also trained at the HfjS.

When he reached retirement age, Rabbi Levinson retired from his official posts in 1985. However, he remained connected to his community of Mannheim. The community showed its appreciation of his work and commitment, his personality, by appointing him honorary city rabbi on January 23, 1994. On the High Holidays, Levinson still officiated often in "his" congregations. Overall, he continued to lead an active life. He divided his time between his home in Mallorca, in the artists' village of Deia` and Jerusalem, where his wife Pnina's family lives. Both ran an open, hospitable house in their respective places. Together with Baden formed a triangle of food points. In 1998 Pnina Nave`- Levinson passed away after heart surgery and was buried in Israel. Both had married in 1970.

In 2002, Levinson re-established himself in Berlin, returning to his roots. Suffering from dementia, he spent the last years of his life in the Tertianum retirement home, where he died a few weeks before his 94th birthday, on October 27, 2016. Whenever members of "his" congregations were in Berlin, they visited their rabbi. Memories arose of the student celebrations in which he gladly and often participated, of his generosity and the sermons on the philosophy of religion that challenged. Nathan Peter Levinson, rabbi, scholar, philanthropist. His life and work were marked by a deep religiosity, a sharp sense of humor, and a practical love of life.