A FACE-TO-FACE ENCOUNTER with the Holocaust transformed the life of an American rabbi—and, in turn, transformed the American Jewish community in the decades to follow. Herschel Schacter, a U.S. army chaplain in World War II, was part of the unit that liberated the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald. After the war, Rabbi Schacter helped spearhead a revival of Orthodox Judaism in America, played a significant role in the Soviet Jewry protest movement, and led efforts to secure American support for Israel. He was the first Orthodox rabbi to reach the pinnacle of communal leadership as chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Through the prism of Rabbi Schacter’s remarkable life, The Rabbi of Buchenwald sheds important new light on how American Jewry grappled with the political, social and racial crises of the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond. When Herschel Schacter passed away in 2013, his obituary appeared on the front page of the New York Times, an honor rarely accorded to an American rabbi and a reminder of Schacter’s significance in American Jewish life.
Dr. Rafael Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, based in Washington, D.C., which focuses on America’s response to Nazism and the Holocaust. He is the author of more than 20 books about the Holocaust, Zionism, and American Jewish history. He has taught Jewish history at Ohio State University, Purchase College of the State University of New York, and elsewhere, and is a Fellow of the Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research at Bar- Ilan University.
Dr. Medoff has served as associate editor of the scholarly journal American Jewish History, contributed to the Encyclopedia Judaica and many other reference volumes, and served as a consulting historian for numerous historical societies and other institutions. He is also a winner of the American Jewish Press Association’s Simon Rockower Award for Excellence in Jewish Journalism.
