Solomon Schonfeld

Solomon Schonfeld (21 February 1912 – 6 February 1984) was a British rabbi who was honoured as a British Hero of the Holocaust for saving the lives of thousands of Jews. ), one of seven children.

Schonfeld studied at the yeshiva in Nyitra, Austria-Hungary (now Nitra, Slovakia), for a doctorate at the University of Königsberg, East Prussia.

When the scale of rescue work needed became apparent in the 1930s, he became the executive director of the Chief Rabbi's Religious Emergency Council, formed under the auspices of his future father-in-law, Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz, in 1938. He personally rescued many thousands of Jews from Nazi forces in Central and Eastern Europe during the years 1938–1948. He felt Zionism had aided the Nazi regime's persecution of Jews.

In 1940, he married Judith Helen Hertz, daughter of the Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz. They had three sons.

In the autumn of 1938, following Kristallnacht, Julius Steinfeld, a communal leader in Austria, called Rabbi Schonfeld, pleading with him to assemble a children's transport to England for Vienna's Orthodox Jewish youth. Rabbi Schonfeld met with Yaakov Rosenheim and Harry Goodman, president and secretary of World Agudath Israel respectively, but even before they could decide on a strategy, he boarded a train to Vienna. Rabbi Schonfeld helped Steinfeld organize a Kindertransport of close to 300 Orthodox Jewish youngsters, providing the British government with his personal guarantee in order to secure their entry.

He assumed that if he owned an island he is free to invite Jews who can escape from the continent to stay there even for extended periods. He got positive response from the Colonial Office, raised £10,000 and purchased Stranger's Cey, an island in the British Bahamas. Later a different Colonial Office department countered the initial support for the plan.

He founded the Hasmonean High School and the other schools that formed the Jewish Secondary Schools Movement.

Family life

Schonfeld was the son of Avigdor (Victor) Schonfeld, rabbi of the Adath Yisroel Synagogue and founder and principal of what became known as the Avigdor School (posthumously named in his honour). In 1940 he married Judith Hertz, daughter of the Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz, with whom he had three sons between 1940 and 1951. They lived in Highgate, north London.

One of the sons, Victor, died in May 2022.

Death Schonfeld died in 1984 of a long-term brain tumour. He was posthumously given the British Hero of the Holocaust award in 2013.

Recorded talks, statements and music

Professor David Kranzler Interview with Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld (Holocaust historian. Interview in London)

Professor David Kranzler. Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld

Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm (Chancellor of Yeshiva University, New York). Beacons in the Dark

Professor MP Irwin Cotler (MP in Canada). Beacons in the Dark

The Rescuers song by David Ben Reuven