Warschauer, Malvin (1871-1955)

Malvin Warschauer was born in 1871 the son of a timber merchant in a small village in Kanth, near Breslau, Silesia (now Wroclaw, Poland). He was a student at Berlin University from 1890 where he studied oriental languages, Arabic and Syrian and philosophy and became a member, then later president, of the Academic Union for Jewish History and Literature. He also studied at the College of Jewish Learning at Unter den Linden where most of the students were from Eastern Europe, Austria and Hungary. It was during this time that he became a life-long friend of Leo Baeck.

He was an early Zionist and often met with opposition from his rabbinical colleagues over his ideas on the subject. He married Recha Blum in 1904 and had children in 1905 and 1907 respectively. Having been a temporary preacher at the new synagogue in Luetzowstrasse, he became a rabbi in 1906. In 1911 he took over as head of the College of Jewish Learning. He later became the Rabbi of Oranienburgerstrasse. The children having already emigrated to England earlier in the decade, Malvin Warschauer was himself forced to flee and arrived at Croydon airport in January 1939.

His years in England were spent officiating as a guest rabbi, involving himself in work with the considerable refugee community in and around Guildford and writing his memoirs. He died on 27 January 1955.

James Walters