Manfred Swarsensky

Born in Marienfließ in Pomerania (renamed Marianowo after 1945), Prussia, Swarsensky gained a PhD from the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies in Berlin in 1929.{{cite news |title=Civic, Religious Leader Rabbi Swarensky Dies |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/50917321/manfred-swarsensky-1906-1981/ |newspaper=Wisconsin State Journal |date=November 11, 1981 |page=1 |via = Newspapers.com |accessdate=May 14, 2020}} {{Open access}}{{cite book|title=Biographical guide to Forest Hill Cemetery: the ordinary and famous women and men who shaped Madison and the world|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ruEqAQAAMAAJ|accessdate=October 28, 2012|year=2002|publisher=Historic Madison, Inc.|page=343}} He became a liberal Rabbi with Jüdische Gemeinde zu Berlin, the Jewish unity congregation comprising the bulk of Jewish faithful in Berlin and combining Jews of mainstream (also called liberal, in today's English terminology 'conservative'), Orthodox and Reform affiliation. In 1938 the Nazis burned his preferred synagogue on Prinzregentenstraße and imprisoned him in Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

In February 1940 Swarsensky emigrated to the United States. For the next thirty-six years he worked as Rabbi for Temple Beth El, a Reform synagogue in Madison, Wisconsin.{{cite book|author1=Kerry M. Olitzky|author2=Marc Lee Raphael|title=The American Synagogue: A Historical Dictionary and Sourcebook|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=weL9M46TcU8C&pg=PA368|accessdate=October 28, 2012|year=1996|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-28856-2|page=368}} He married Ida Weiner (January 22, 1918 – June 15, 2010) in 1952 and had two children. Swarsensky died of cancer at the University of Wisconsin Hospital on November 10, 1981.

The Manfred E. Swarsensky Humanitarian Service Award, awarded for outstanding voluntary contributions on behalf of race relations, women's health, conservation or public service, is named after him and is awarded annually by the Rotary Club of Madison, of which Rabbi Swarsensky was a member.{{cite book|author=Barbara J. Love|title=Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-1975|url=https://archive.org/details/feministswhochan00love|url-access=registration|accessdate=October 28, 2012|year=2006|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=978-0-252-03189-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/feministswhochan00love/page/242 242]}}

Rabbi Swarsensky also served as Chair of Jewish Learning while teaching at Edgewood College.{{cite book|title=Central Conference of American Rabbis, Annual convention|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qk0RAQAAIAAJ|accessdate=October 28, 2012|year=1983|publisher=Central Conference of American Rabbis.|page=260}}

• Mensch: Biography and Writings of Manfred Eric Swarsensky, Marvin Zolot, Edgewood College Press, 2009 {{cite web|url=http://www.jewishchronicle.org/article.php?article_id=11817|title=New book captures dramatic life of Madison's Rabbi Swarsensky|work=The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle|author=Leon Cohen|date=October 30, 2009|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402094259/http://www.jewishchronicle.org/article.php?article_id=11817|archivedate=April 2, 2015}}

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• [http://findingaids.cjh.org/?pID=475712 Guide to the Manfred Swarsensky Collection] at the Leo Baeck Institute, New York
• [http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/HolocaustSurvivors/Swarsensky.asp#transcript Manfred Swarsenksy], Oral Histories: Wisconsin Survivors of the Holocaust, Wisconsin Historical Society

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Category:1906 births

Category:1981 deaths

Category:20th-century German rabbis

Category:American Conservative rabbis

Category:Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States

Category:People from Madison, Wisconsin

Category:People from the Province of Pomerania

Category:20th-century American rabbis

Category:Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums alumni

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