Chief Rabbi Eliezer Berlinger of the Utrecht district of Holland died here last Thursday at the age of 81, after a protracted illness. Following memorial services Sunday at the main Ashkenazic synagogue here, he was provisionally buried in Muiderberg cemetery outside town. His remains will eventually be transferred to the Mount of Olives cemetery in Jerusalem.
Berlinger served as a rabbi in Malmo, Sweden, during World War II. In 1943, he was helpful in receiving the 6,000 Jews ferried over from Nazi-occupied Denmark. He was presented with a High Danish Royal Award for his aid to the rescued Jews of that country. Immediately after the war, he helped bring large numbers of liberated concentration camp inmates to Sweden.
In 1956, Berlinger was appointed Chief Rabbi of the Utrecht district of Holland, which covers the entire country except for Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague, a demanding post he held until the end of his life.
He was born in 1904 in Saarbruecken, then Prussia and now part of West Germany, and was ordained at the Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin. After his service in various congregations in Germany, and in Malmo, he became Chief Rabbi of Finland in 1946, a post he held until he come to Holland in 1954. He was honored by the Netherlands in being made an officer in the Dutch Order of Orange Nassau.
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