Funeral services were held today for Rabbi Max Nussbaum, 64. spiritual leader for 32 years of Temple Israel in Hollywood and one of the nation’s major rabbinic and Zionist leaders. He collapsed in his home Friday night and was rushed to the hospital where he died from a heart attack. He achieved world fame for officiating in the conversions and marriages of a number of celebrities. Rabbi Nussbaum and his wife had just returned from a trip to Israel and Europe where he had attended a number of Zionist and Jewish conferences and was to have reported to his congregation on his meetings.
He was a former president of the Zionist Organization of America and former chairman of its national executive committee. Rabbi Nuss-baum was a national vice-president of the American Zionist Federation, a national vice-president of the American Jewish Congress, a member of the board of directors of the United Jewish Appeal, an honorary vice-chairman of the Jewish National Fund, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.
He was also a member of the board of governors of the Israel Bond Organization, a member of the UJA’s Rabbinical Advisory Council, and a member of the administrative board of the Hebrew Union College, American Jewish Committee executive committee, the Joint Distribution Committee’s national council, the regional board of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and the World Union of General Zionists Executives.
AUTHOR OF NUMEROUS BOOKS
Rabbi Nussbaum had served as chairman of the American Zionist Council and the World Jewish Congress-American section and had been a member of the Zionist Actions Committee since 1960. He was a prolific writer and the author of several philosophical books including “Yehuda Halevi’s Philosophy of Nationalism” (1933), “Kantianism and Marxism in the Social Philosophy of Max Adler” (1934), “Nachman Krochmol, the Philosopher of Israel’s Eternity” (1942-3) and “Eretz Yisrael. Galut and Chutz La’Aretz in Their Historic Settings” (1952). Born in Suczava. Austria, he came to the United States in 1940. He was ordained at the Breslau Theological Seminary in 1934 and was a Zionist leader in Germany until 1938, when he fled from the Nazi regime.
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