Funeral services were held today for Fritz Bamberger, a German Jewish scholar who directed the 140-school system for the education of Jews in pre-World War Germany. He died last Friday at the age of 82. At the time of his death, he was vice president of the Leo Baeck Institute and vice chairman of the North American Board of the World Union of Progressive Judaism.
Bamberger was a faculty member at the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. He joined the faculty in 1962 as assistant to the president and professor of intellectual history. He retired from the college in 1979.
Bamberger moved to the United States in 1939. He taught at the College of Jewish Studies and the University of Chicago. He left his academic career in 1942 to become editor in chief of Coronet magazine and executive director of Esquire Inc.
He was the author of numerous books, including “Moses Mendelssohn” (1929); “The System of Maimonides” (1935); “Zunzs’ Conception of History” (1941); “Leo Baeck – the Man and the Idea” (1958); “Spinoza’s Tractatus (1961); and “Books are the Best Things” (1962).
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