Werner van der Zyl

Werner van der Zyl (11 September 1902 – 10 April 1984) was a rabbi in Berlin and in London, where he came in 1939 as a refugee rabbi from Germany. He was the prime mover and first director of studies of the Jewish Theological College of London. The college was inaugurated in 1956 and was renamed Leo Baeck College shortly afterwards at his suggestion.

Career Van der Zyl was born in Schwerte, Germany. A trained chazan, he received his rabbinical training at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin, where he was a pupil of Leo Baeck, qualifying in 1933. During World War II the British Government interned him at Kitchener Camp in Sandwich, Kent and then at Mooragh Internment Camp on the Isle of Man as an "enemy alien". He was released from internment in 1943 and became Minister at North Western Reform Synagogue, remaining there until 1958. he oversaw the creation of the Jewish Theological College of London (later Leo Baeck College), sponsored by the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain, and the College's subsequent additional sponsorship by the Liberal Judaism Movement.

He retired in 1968 to Majorca where he held the post of honorary rabbi to the Jewish community in Palma. whose daughter-in-law Marie van der Zyl was President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews from 2016 to 2024.

Death and legacy Van der Zyl died in Palma de Mallorca, Spain in 1984

An annual lecture is held in his memory at Leo Baeck College. In April 2013 Leo Baeck College announced the appointment of Rabbi Maurice Michaels as its first Van der Zyl Head of Vocational Studies, a post named in honour of the College's founder.

His family papers are held at the University of Southampton.