Albert’s Story
Rabbi Friedlander married in 1961 and had three children. His life experiences formed the values that he passed on to his children and community as a Rabbi and as a father.
Though Albert and his family did not experience antisemitism in Vicksburg, they found a new kind of intolerance in the South, between the “whites” and the “blacks.” Albert learned about segregation in the South, and became a strong supporter of the African-American civil rights movement .
Rabbi Friedlander became a leader in the Reform movement and a respected scholar of the Holocaust. Throughout his career, Rabbi Friedlander also made trips back to Germany to serve the growing Jewish community there. Even though he found returning to Germany difficult, he believed in working with those who were interested in learning more about their heritage, and in pursuing reconciliation among Jews and Germans. In Germany, he would lead religious services, attend cultural events, and lecture. He worked to teach both Jews and Germans about the Holocaust.
TESTIMONY: “BEING YOURSELF… AS A JEW”
“Bar and bat mitzvah is not the end of a process, it is the beginning.”
—Albert Friedlander