Harry Jacobi

Rabbi Harry Martin Jacobi (19 October 1925 – 24 April 2019) was a rabbi in the United Kingdom, where he came in 1939, via The Netherlands, as a refugee from Nazi Germany.

Early life and education Born Heinz Martin Hirschberg in Berlin on 19 October 1925, his parents were Margarete (nee Jacobi) and Eugene Hirschberg. At the age of five, when his parents divorced, he moved with his mother to Auerbach, a town in the Vogtlandkreis, Saxony, Germany. He and his mother later returned to Berlin, where he attended the Theodor Herzl Schule and received his bar mitzvah at Friedenstempel in Halensee, Berlin in 1938, only a few weeks before the synagogue was destroyed on Kristallnacht. In February 1939 he travelled to The Netherlands and in May 1940 to the United Kingdom, as a refugee from Nazi Germany. They had three children – Margaret (who became Rabbi of Birmingham Progressive Synagogue), Richard (who became Rabbi at East London & Essex Liberal Synagogue) and David

Honours and awards In recognition of his services to the Jewish community, he was appointed MBE in 2006.