Rabbi Henry G. Brandt

Born Heinz Georg Brandt in Munich, at the age of eleven his family escaped from Germany in 1939 to England and later settled in Tel Aviv. He served as an officer in the Palmach during the War of Independence and became an officer in the navy. From 1951 he studied economics at Queens University in Belfast, then worked as a market analyst for the Ford Motor company in the UK, while doing volunteer work in the Ilford Jewish community. In 1957 he began rabbinic studies as one of the first students at the recently opened Leo Baeck College, obtaining rabbinic ordination in 1961. His first rabbinic post was in Leeds, following which he served an international community in Geneva, and in 1978 was the founding rabbi of the Liberal Jewish congregation ‘Or Chadash’ in Zurich and later served as the community rabbi in Gothenburg.