David Max Eichhorn

David Max Eichhorn was rabbi of Reform Judaism, a director for Hillel, a chaplain in the Army with a long record of service to Jews in the military, an author, and an authority within Reform Judaism on the subjects of interfaith marriage and religious conversion.

Biographic Summary

David Max Eichhorn was born in Columbia, Pennsylvania on January 6, 1906, the son of Joseph and Anna Eichhorn. He attended the Temple Shaarai Shomayim religious school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was confirmed there in 1921, and graduated from Columbia High School in 1923. He enrolled at Hebrew Union College in 1924, graduated, and was ordained as a rabbi in 1931.

Eichhorn served as the first rabbi of Sinai Temple in Springfield, Massachusetts from 1932-1934, and was the rabbi at Sinai Temple in Texarkana, Arkansas from 1935-1938. In 1935, Eichhorn married Zelda Socol of Texarkana, Arkansas; the couple went on to have four children: Jonathan, Michael, Jeremiah, and Judith Ann. In 1938, he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Hebrew Union College. Eichhorn was the first rabbi of Temple Israel in Tallahassee, Florida from 1939-1942. He was also the first director for Hillel in the state of Florida at the University of Florida in Gainesville and Florida State College for Women in Tallahassee.

In 1941, Rabbi Eichhorn enlisted in the Army as a chaplain. Throughout World War II, Eichhorn was assigned to serve in combat units in France and Germany, and was among the troops that liberated Dachau.

After returning from the war in 1945, Rabbi Eichhorn retained his active military status in the United States Army Reserve. He worked for the Committee on Army and Navy Religious Activities (known later as the Commission on Jewish Chaplaincy) of the National Jewish Welfare Board as Director of Field Operations of the federal chaplaincy program. The Board is authorized by the Government to serve the religious needs of Jewish military personnel. He was also the president of the Association of Jewish Chaplains of the Armed Forces from 1953-1955. He retired from the military with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1968.

In 1970, Eichhorn left the Board and founded Temple Israel in Merritt Island, Florida.

Eichhorn wrote many books, and was known primarily for research in the areas of interfaith marriage and religious conversion.

Eichhorn died on July 16, 1986 of a heart attack at Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne, Florida.^[1][2][3]

Selected Bibliography

• Cain: son of the serpent: A midrash or homiletical narration of the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis (1957) ASIN B0007DPULO
• Musings of the Old Professor: The meaning of Koheles (1963) ISBN 978-0824604790
• Conversion to Judaism: A History and Analysis (1965) David Max Eichhorn, ed. ASIN B000H0SM1W
• Jewish intermarriages: Fact and fiction (1974) ASIN B0006W2D9I
• Evangelizing the American Jew: An account of Christian attempts to convert the Jews of the United States and Canada (1976) ASIN B0007ASIIE
• Joys of Jewish Folklore (1981) ISBN 978-0824602338
• Hagar and Ishmael: A study in Arab-Jewish relations (1985) ASIN B0006YTTWK
• The GI's rabbi: World War II letters of David Max Eichhorn (2004) David Max Eichhorn; Greg Palmer, Mark S. Zaid eds. ISBN 978-0-7006-1356-4

External Links

• The David Max Eichhorn Papers collection at the American Jewish Archives -- Contains correspondence relating to the question of Reform rabbis officiating at intermarriages
• Rabbi David Max Eichhorn Dachau Liberation 1945 -- In this video, Rabbi Eichhorn conducts services at the first Sabbath after his company liberated Dachau

References