Peter J. Walter, New York painter, a Roman Catholic, embraced Judaism last week, it was learned yesterday. Mr. Walter, who is 38 years old, was born in Cologne, Germany, in a German Catholic family. He was admitted to the Jewish faith with the consent of Rabbi M. S. Margolies, dean of the Orthodox Rabbinate in the United States. Dr. Julius Bloom of 955 Walton Avenue, the Bronx, officiated. The convert was named Abraham ben Abraham, in accordance with Jewish practice.
Although married to a Jewish woman for the past seventeen years, Abraham ben Abraham Walter will have to remarry her three months after his entry into the Jewish faith. Mr. and Mrs. Walter have two children, a girl of 14 and a boy of 10. They have been reared in the Jewish faith. None of their friends in New York knew that Mr. Walter is not a Jew. It was related that when Mr. Walter was a young man, he was on a visit to Warsaw with his father, a prominent Cologne physician. It was then that he met and fell in love with the daughter of a Warsaw Jewish merchant. Soon after they married and left for the United States.
“In spirit I have been a Jew for the past 17 years,” Mr. Walter stated. “I embraced Judaism out of conviction.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
