Abraham Feinberg facts for kids

Abraham Feinberg (14 September 1899 – 5 October 1986) was an American rabbi who lived much of his life in Canada.

From rabbi to pop star

Feinberg was born in Bellaire, Ohio, the son of Ashkenazim (Yiddish-speaking Jews) immigrants from Grinkishki (modern Grinkiškis, Lithuania) in the Russian empire. His father, Nathan was a rabbi while his mother, Sarah (née Abramson) was a housewife. Feinberg was the 7th of the 10 children in his family.

Bellaire was an impoverished coal-mining town located on the Ohio river across from Wheeling, West Virginia and Feinberg grew up in poverty. Feinberg found himself shocked by the mistreatment of the black residents of Bellaire when he was growing up. Feinberg's best friend as a child was Dude, the son of a black garbageman. His childhood experiences left him with a strong sympathy for Afro-Americans as fellow victims of prejudice, and throughout his life he was a champion of civil rights. An intellectual prodigy, Feinberg graduated from high school at the age of 14. After graduating, he went to work as a menial laborer while saving up enough money to attend university.

He was educated at the University of Cincinnati, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1920. In 1924, he was ordained a rabbi at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. Feinberg worked as a rabbi in a number of American cities between 1924 and 1930. Feinberg began his rabbinical career at Temple Beth-El in Niagara Falls, New York. In 1925, he moved to Wheeling to become the rabbi of Eoff Street Temple.

In 1928, Feinberg became the rabbi at a New York synagogue, the Temple Israel, attended by a wealthy congregation, and he often went to parties and dinners hosted by New York's Jewish elite on exclusive Park Avenue. Temple Israel was the second largest Reform synagogue in New York. By his own admission, he found himself bored by the superficiality of upper-class life in New York, and found himself yearning for something more in life than attending one party after another.

On 27 February 1930, he announced in a sermon his resignation as a rabbi. His resignation from a prestigious synagogue attended by some of the richest Jews in New York attracted much publicity at the time.

Feinberg then went to France, where he studied singing at the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau for a few months. Upon his return to New York, he announced his intention to have a career in show business. On November 4, 1930, he married Ruth E. Katsh in New York. Feinberg sang under the Gentile-sounding stage name Anthony Frome. From 1932 to 1935, he hosted a popular radio music show in New York, where he was known as the "Poet Prince of the Air Waves". Feinberg's radio career began at WMCA radio station, but he was soon promoted up to WOR, a station with a more powerful radio broadcaster that covered much of the northeast of the United States. By 1932, Feinberg was being paid $1, 500 dollars per week, a substantial sum in the Great Depression.

Feinberg believed that much of the success of his radio show was due to the fact that starting in 1933 it always aired right after President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his weekly "fireside chats" on the radio. His persona was that of a "vagabond prince" who would "visit" a different country every radio show and sing love songs in whatever language of the nation he was pretending to visit (Feinberg was fluent in six languages). Feinberg was described as having a "melodious baritone" voice. Feinberg's mother disapproved of his change of career.

Tikkun olam: the activist rabbi

By 1935, he was sufficiently troubled by Nazi Germany to end his career as a singer and returned to working as a rabbi. Feinberg later stated that in view of what was happening in Germany that he could not be a singer and had to return to the service of God. Feinberg stated in 1950 about his return to religion: "I began thinking about what was going to happen to the Jews and I knew that there was only one thing for me to do—I had to go back to the rabbinate. That was, and is, where I belong. Singing is only amusement. My soul is in the pulpit and in the study." In 1935, he became the rabbi of Mount Neboh Temple, a small synagogue located in a poor neighborhood of New York. Mount Nehob was so poor the synagogue had been lacking a rabbi for some time as most rabbis did not wished to accept the low salary the synagogue offered, but Feinberg accepted the position as he wanted to be close to the poor. Feinberg's principle worry was the Third Reich, and from 1935 onward, he sought to build alliances outside of the Jewish community to rally a front against the Nazi regime. In 1938, he moved to Denver, Colorado to become the rabbi of Temple Emanuel.

In 1943, he accepted an offer to become the rabbi at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, the most prestigious Reform synagogue in Canada. An extremely charismatic man and an excellent speaker, Feinberg soon became the best known rabbi in Canada, who hosted a weekly radio show where he spoke about various political and social issues. Feinberg often wrote about social issues in publications such as the Globe and Mail, Saturday Night, Maclean's, and the Toronto Star. Despite living much of his life in Canada and being very involved in Canadian issues, Feinberg always remained an American citizen.

In 1945, he was the inspiration behind a legal challenge to the "restrictive covenants" that forbade the selling or renting of property to Jews by supporting the Re Drummond Wren case. In a calculated risk, a Jewish group, the Workers' Education Association (WEA) had purchased a property in Toronto known to have a "restrictive covenant" in order to build a home for veterans of World War Two. Only after construction was well under way was it announced that the property had a "restrictive covenant" and was thus illegal as the WEA was a Jewish group. The historian Philip Giarad observed the Drummond Wren case appeared to have been a set-up as the WEA should had known the property had a "restrictive covenant", and the case appears to have been launched to take advantage of a moment when public opinion was much more sympathetic towards Jews. In April–May 1945, the last of the death camps and concentration camps of Nazi Germany had been liberated, and newsreel footage of emaciated Holocaust survivors had suddenly made antisemitism unfashionable. On 31 October 1945, Justice John Keiller MacKay ruled against the "restrictive covenant" laws as a violation of the law in the Drummond Wren case. In a pamphlet he printed praising MacKay's ruling, Feinberg wrote: "It clothes in concrete reality, for specific cases, the universally acclaimed principles for which World World Two was pursued to a victorious end".

Feinberg became the vice president of the Toronto Association for Civil Rights. Feinberg's social activism made him not only the famous rabbi in Toronto, but also one of the most famous rabbis in the world.

Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. Feinberg served as the rabbi of Holy Blossom from 1943 to 1961

In 1948, MacKay's ruling in the Drummond Wren case was struck down in the Noble v Alley case by the Ontario Superior Court of Appeal, which ruled that "restrictive covenants" were "legal and enforceable". The Noble case had been started when a woman named Anna Noble tried to sell her cottage at the Beach O' Pines resort to a Jewish businessman, Bernard Wolf, only to be blocked by the Beach O'Pines Resort Association which had a "restrictive covenant" forbidding the sale of cottages to any person of "Jewish, Hebrew, Semitic, Negro or colored race or blood." At the time, a heartbroken Feinberg told the media that the ruling in the Noble case was "a blow to the prestige and mature development of Canada". However, with the support of the Joint Committee, the Noble ruling was appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which struck down "restrictive covenants" in November 1950.

In 1957, Feinberg became the first rabbi to receive an honorary degree from the University of Toronto. Feinberg also protested against the nuclear arms race of the Cold War, and became president of the Toronto Committee for Disarmament. His activism led the Canadian government to regard him as a trouble-maker and during his time as rabbi of Holy Blossom from 1943 to 1961, he was spied upon by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) as a "subversive".

The Singing Rabbi

In 1961, Feinberg retired and was granted the title of rabbi emeritus. Feinberg's retirement was caused by an eye ailment. After his retirement, he became involved in the civil rights movement and in protesting against the Vietnam war.

In 1969, Feinberg went to Montreal to join John Lennon and Yoko Ono in their "Bed In For Peace". A singer, Feinberg joined Lennon and Ono in singing "Give Peace a Chance." Feinberg suggested some changes to the lyrics of "Give Peace a Chance," which were incorporated by Lennon. The Montreal Gazette in its edition of 30 May 1969 credited Feinberg with coining the title of the song.

At the time, Feinberg told The Montreal Gazette that he had gone to join the "Bed-In" out of admiration for Lennon, saying "he is one of the most powerful influences in the modern world, and I feel he is doing a phenomenal thing for peace." Feinberg was described having bonded with Lennon, forming an instant friendship.

On 1 June 1969, in their room at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Lennon and Ono recorded the version of Give Peace A Chance alongside a chorus of their friends that was released to the public. Feinberg served as one of the backup singers making up the chorus in Give Peace A Chance together with Timothy Leary, Petula Clark, Allen Ginsberg, Tom Smothers, Kyoko Cox, Derek Taylor and many others. In August 1969, the version of Give Peace A Chance that was recorded in Montreal was released. In 1969, in Toronto, Feinberg and Lennon recorded a duet of Give A Peace A Chance, which was released as a single. Feinberg and Lennon worked together on several peace projects over the course of 1969. The success of his duet with Lennon inspired Feinberg to resume his singing career and he released more 10 songs over the last years of his life. At Lennon's encouragement, Feinberg recorded an album I Was So Much Older Then, which was recorded in 1969 and released in 1970. The songs on I Was So Much Older Then were mostly covers of songs by Neil Young, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, which a reviewer on Billboard noted in 1970 gave one a clue to the kind of music that Feinberg was listening to.

Return to America

In 1972, he returned to the United States to be close to his son Jonathan. Feinberg settled in Berkeley, California, and worked as the rabbi for the Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco which catered to "the outcasts of our social system." Feinberg became the "Rabbi-in-Residence" at the Glide Memorial Church, a Methodist church mostly attended by homosexuals and homeless people. As an old man, he was active in the "grey lib" movement, demanding better treatment of the old. In Berkeley, he hosted a radio show called Grey Lib, criticizing America's treatment of the elderly. In 1976 he settled in Reno, where his son Jonathan had gone to work as a doctor. In Reno, Feinberg worked as "Rabbi-in-Residence" at Temple Sinai. He also served as a rabbi at the Center for Religion and Life at the University of Nevada. From 1976 to 1978, he hosted another radio station in Reno called Grey Lib Plus.

In 1983, Feinberg married Patricia C. Blanchard. In 1986, he died in Reno of cancer.

Books by Feinberg

• Storm the Gates of Jericho (1964)
• Rabbi Feinberg's Hanoi Diary (1968)