Fred Blum

Fred Johannes Blum (1914–1990) was an American social scientist and the founder of The New Era Centre.

Blum was born 1914 in Mannheim, Germany to a liberal, professional Jewish family. In the 1930s he went to study social sciences at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. By 1938 he could see no future in Hitler's Nazi Germany and in 1939 he left his family behind, emigrating to the United States to undertake a doctorate at the University of California and later becoming an American citizen. Many members of Blum's family, including his parents, were murdered in the Holocaust (his mother in the Auschwitz concentration camp).

Life

Blum became a member of the Quakers whilst maintaining his Jewish heritage. He held several academic positions in the United States, such as at Howard University where he taught economics, The residential community of The New Era Centre in The Abbey was dedicated on 4 October 1981 as a space to explore and work towards the synthesis of Christianity and more contemporary understandings of societal transformation. In 1984, after The Abbey was improved to a habitable state, the first two resident community members moved in. Stephen Verney extensively discussed, and believed in, the role Buddhist practice and philosophy could play in increasing connectivity with a Christian deity, and it was this belief which led many of The New Era Centre's early pursuits. In August 1991, the charity was renamed 'The Abbey, Sutton Courtenay'.

Blum spent decades researching, interviewing and publishing on Mahatma Gandhi's life works and legacy. He led the "Gandhi Interview Project" in the 1970s and early 80s. Much of Blum's work can now be found in The Abbey's library.

In 1986, Blum decided to be baptised into the Anglican Church and a few months later he was ordained as priest. In December 1989, Blum had a severe stroke which deprived him of speech. He could not imagine a life without this expression and chose to eat nothing, dying in the beginning of January 1990.

Selected works Work and Community (Routledge Kegan Paul, 1968) The Ethics of Industrial Man (Routledge 1970)