Moments before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, a German-born rabbi stood at the Lincoln Memorial speaking words of liberty and justice.
Rabbi Joachim Prinz’s journey to that moment was a long march. A fiery voice of resistance against the Nazis in Germany and then an outspoken leader of post-war American Jewry, Rabbi Prinz’s life was defined by his willingness to stand up and be heard.
What made a German rabbi take on a leading role in the fight for civil rights in the United States?
Prinz’s origin story
Life in Eastern Europe was never easy for Jews, so when Germany finally granted them full rights as citizens, they breathed a sigh of relief.
Emancipation unlocked a new life for the Jews of Germany. Eager to cast off the shackles of antisemitism, many abandoned traditional Judaism. They assimilated into secular society, hoping for acceptance from their German neighbors.
For the young Joachim Prinz, born into Germany’s newly emancipated Jewish community, Judaism was about as distant as the North Pole. His father had sworn off all connections to his Jewish past. His mother was his only link to Judaism, and when she died, his Jewish identity almost died with her. That is, until he discovered Zionism.
Theodor Herzl’s “The Jewish State,” one of the foundational texts of the Jewish self-determination movement, wasn’t on the shelves of local Jewish bookstores. Desperate to be considered “real” Germans, German Jews avoided people and ideas that pushed a proud Jewish identity. Prinz ordered the book secretly, and from then on, his life was never the same.
Herzl’s vision for Jewish independence lit a fire in Prinz’s soul. Jews were a nation that deserved safety and self-determination, and that could only be done with a Jewish state. For Zionists, Judaism wasn’t a mark of shame. It was a point of pride.
Zionism sparked Prinz to reconnect with his Judaism. Undaunted by his father’s opposition to all things Jewish, Prinz pursued a career as a rabbi. By the time he graduated from rabbinical school, he had become a charismatic and popular speaker. His speeches brought crowds of young men and women into Germany’s largest synagogues.
In a country where being Jewish was considered shameful, Prinz fought to restore pride in Jewish identity — but the situation for Germany’s Jews was shifting with alarming speed.
The rise of the Nazis
Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were in power. They enacted suffocating laws, stripping Jews of their hard-won rights, and treated them as scapegoats for all of Germany’s problems.
Prinz saw the writing on the wall. Worried for the future of his community, he got on the road, traveling around Germany and Europe to warn Jews about Nazi antisemitism.
Speaking up against the Third Reich was dangerous, to say the least. Nazi eyes and ears were everywhere, quick to find traitors and punish them viciously.
Prinz wasn’t safe for long. The notorious Nazi secret police hunted him. He endured several arrests until the German authorities permanently expelled him.
Ironically, this was probably the best thing that could have happened to Prinz. Within just a few short years, the German once-vibrant Jewish community would be utterly decimated, its people murdered in the brutal Nazi concentration camps.
Forced to flee, Prinz was invited by leading American Rabbis to rebuild his life in the U.S.. He had visited there before, but hadn’t been overly impressed with its decaying cities and pervasive racism.
Confronting American racism
In the 1930s, American Jews were busy climbing the social ladder. Despite the bigotry that Jews faced in the U.S., Prinz was disturbed that some of them had absorbed the racist attitudes toward Black Americans that infected many of their white neighbors.
Prinz felt a strong kinship with the African American community, particularly in the Jim Crow South. The intolerance they faced was all too familiar to the refugee from Nazi Germany. They were forced to sit at the back of the bus. Hotels and restaurants refused to serve them. Black children were required to attend segregated schools. The list of injustices went on.
The bespectacled Jewish boy from Germany, who had grown into a passionate fighter for his people, now became one of the strongest allies in the battle for racial equality in the U.S.
He reached out across racial divides to connect with Black religious and civil leaders. When Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became the foremost leader of the non-violent civil rights movement, Prinz was captivated by his message.
He invited him to speak to Jewish gatherings and at his synagogue in Newark, New Jersey. Prinz didn’t just talk the talk; he walked the walk, literally. He marched and protested alongside Black civil rights activists. He even picketed a Woolworth’s department store to fight their segregationist policies in the South.
A few decades after Prinz arrived in the U.S., the African American community’s long struggle for equality and civil rights hit a fever pitch. Black civil rights leaders had finally found an ally in President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy and Black activists pressed hard to pass the Civil Rights Act, a bill that would make segregation and discrimination illegal.
Opposition to the act was fierce. Civil rights leaders knew they needed to do something big to sway the hearts and minds of the American people. They had to form a massive movement to prove once and for all that Black Americans deserved justice.
Black organizers wanted other community leaders to join their fight. These allies were crucial in demonstrating the movement’s unity to the world. This was the event of the century. The destination for this movement was the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
On a sweltering hot day in 1963, Prinz stood with the other organizers and leaders before hundreds of thousands of people on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Minutes before King took the stage to deliver his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Prinz shared a profound message:
“The most important thing that I learned in my life is that the most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful, and the most tragic problem is silence.”
The message of the March on Washington was heard loud and clear by millions. The scales finally began to tip in favor of justice. A year later, the Civil Rights Act became the law of the land.
Inter-communal tensions
Despite the monumental achievement of the March on Washington, life didn’t immediately improve for many African Americans. Just because there was equality on paper didn’t change racist conditions or centuries of discrimination.
First, Kennedy was assassinated, followed by Malcolm X and then King. Hope for justice was replaced with disappointment and anger. Trust and unity between Jewish and Black advocacy groups began to dissolve.
Jews in the U.S. were becoming increasingly successful. The majority of American Jews presented as white. To some radical activists, Jews were seen and targeted as oppressors, feeding into antisemitic stereotypes. The racism that Prinz highlighted in Jewish communities became a flashpoint in Black-Jewish relations.
Like King, Prinz preached a message of unity. But it was often ignored in favor of more strident messages of uprising and anger. As tensions grew, many Jews left neighborhoods with large Black communities. Prinz’s own synagogue was located in Newark, a city home to both communities. A realist as well as an idealist, Prinz still believed in coexistence, but he couldn’t escape the growing conflict.
Prinz and his synagogue became targets for radical groups. A Black janitor employed by the synagogue was abducted by Black national extremists who targeted the rabbi for ransom. His synagogue was even targeted in an attempted arson attack. The building survived, but the psychological damage cut deep.
Nevertheless, Prinz still had friends among the African American community. Local Black leaders came to commiserate with him and express their solidarity.
Sometimes the tensions were a bit closer to home. Other factions in the Jewish community didn’t always see eye-to-eye with Prinz. His embrace of a more universalist Judaism led to a split between him and Israeli Zionists.
Some rabbis and Jewish thought leaders were suspicious of Prinz’s ideas. They thought his interpretation of Jewish values was too narrow. Judaism, after all, isn’t just about racial justice – although pursuing justice is a core Jewish concept – but Prinz kept marching to the drum of freedom.
After many years in Newark, he was finally forced to move with his congregation to a suburb, but he never gave up on his vision of equality. He requested that his new synagogue have no stained glass windows. He wanted people to see the world clearly, not through any distortions.
When he died in 1988, Prinz died as a rabbi, beloved by his community. Decades later, his civil rights legacy endures.
These are uncertain times. Once, Black and Jewish activists marched shoulder to shoulder. Now, it often feels that our causes are at odds. Instead of finding where we align, we’re more focused on where we clash. But in our fractured society, Jews can still heed Prinz’s call: We are all each other’s neighbors, and the greatest issue we face is not hate, but the majority who remain silent in the face of it.
