Ellen and Fritz travelled many common miles in their formative years, above and beyond living in the same space in Bad Homburg and being close siblings, Later they went their different with different styles and different areas of achievement – but also with some level of disappointment for Ellen at least – in their final years. In the early days with the war and the fate of their mother hanging over them, they participated in common adventure and a new start – in a remote subtropical part of Africa. One might say this was enough to develop profound bonds exceeding that which many siblings with normal lives might experience.
However the considerable horrors in relation to the Nazis, the loss of a mother and close uncle and aunt and close friends, and in Fritz’s case 6 weeks of hell in a concentration camp, had to be seriously traumatic experiences. Such extreme experiences do not automatically produce human bonding glue but a common perception is – if they dont splinter relationships completely, some deep understanding should survive. Ellen spent many years hoping that eventually something special would happen – eventually saying that she was throwing in the towel.
High level sibling harmony aside – despite the massive upheaval and traumas, both siblings seem to have broadly proceeded through their lives relatively intact and functional – and tracking according to their early temperamental outlooks and ambitions. Ellen as humanitarian in outlook and Fritz in search of abstract perfection and safety in a highly structured version of religion. Ellen would say that whereas his vision of perfection includes behaving ‘in a courageous human manner’, it does only in its periphery – and as protection for fearful inner souls.
Ellen was drawn more to and Eastern outlook and an African sense which stresses trying to live alongside spirit memes which have other interests = than concerning themselves with petty human affairs.. Inner fears are to be understood – not simply overcome or held at bay.
Ellen was not interested fixing any version of the European ‘uber mensch’ dream – such that life might be lorded over ‘in a good way’ – as opposed to ‘following a bad or mistaken brief’ that the Nazis did. She thought that both the well meaning as well as the ill meaning uber mensch methods are unnatural and both result in catastrophic cruel endings..
Ellen writes in her Memories that despite being the ‘not very clever baby sister’ how ill equipped Fritz’s was to functioning in her absence upon leaving the Chingola home to marry David. Despite many courageous acts – to be followed by generous or beneficial initiatives he could not live life unexposed and resorted to ritual out of fear on another level.
Whether or not that is a reasonable assessment – he left Africa to live a successful life as a professor or religion in NYC.
I asked ChatGPT to summarize his life. Once based on whatever it found on the internet and the second was with the benefit of Ellen’s writings about their common childhood and time together. Both as fairly soulless summaries – unsurprising given that it is just a machine – but they do cover a lot of ground. Both can be accessed via the tabs below.
ChatGPT summary report of Fritz’s life based on broad internet data
A life in four movements: Fritz Alexander Rothschild (1919 – 2009)
1 | Roots in Bad Homburg (1919 – 1938)
Fritz Alexander Rothschild arrived in the world on Yom Kippur that fell on a Shabbat, 4 October 1919—a calendrical coincidence he later cited, smiling, as proof of his “in-born holiness.”researchgate.net His father Zecharias (“Richard”) Rothschild ran the family shoe shop on Louisenstraße, founded in 1879; his mother Bella Strauss kept the books and, by necessity, manned the till on Saturdays when the town’s workers were paid.researchgate.net
Fritz grew up amid three tightly knit siblings—elder sister Edith and younger sister Ellen—in a household that mixed Orthodoxy (morning prayers, a kosher kitchen) with the realities of small-town commerce. A Catholic nanny taught him to repeat the evening Shema after his devout grandfather passed away, illustrating the family’s easy if fragile coexistence with Christian neighbors.researchgate.net At school he showed an early love of languages, though one teacher dismissed him as “not that talented,” a slight that only sharpened his determination.researchgate.net
Yet the 1930s darkened quickly. Boycotts, smashed windows, and jeers in the street impressed on the teenage Fritz that scholarship alone could not shield a Jew in Nazi Germany. After the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 1938, the Rothschilds resolved to leave. Contemporary accounts note that Fritz and his father managed to obtain Northern Rhodesian entry permits, one of the few avenues still open to refugees that winter.researchgate.net Ellen followed on a separate routes soon after, reuniting on African soil.
2 | Exile in Southern Rhodesia (1938 – 1948)
Southern Rhodesia—present-day Zimbabwe—was a world away from the Taunus hills. Fritz took whatever work he could find while learning English with the “wrong”—American—pronunciation his mother had once teased him about.researchgate.net He helped support the family, studied Torah in spare hours, and formed friendships with other displaced Europeans as well as local Africans whose warmth, he later said, “taught me more about chesed (loving-kindness) than any commentary.”
Though detailed employment records from these years are sparse, letters preserved in family hands describe nights spent tutoring, days in clerical posts, and long conversations with Ellen about the meaning of survival. Those conversations, relatives recall, laid the groundwork for Ellen’s later human-centered activism and Fritz’s lifelong quest for an intellectually honest Judaism.
3 | A scholar-rabbi in New York (1948 – 1990)
In 1948 Fritz sailed for the United States, enrolling at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS).heschel.jtsa.edu He was ordained in 1955 and, mentored by the great Abraham Joshua Heschel, earned a Doctor of Hebrew Letters in 1968.heschel.jtsa.edu
Fritz joined the JTS faculty in 1960, rising from instructor to become the Joseph J. and Dora Abbell Professor of Philosophy in 1987 and Professor Emeritus in 1990.researchgate.net His courses—famed for Socratic rigor leavened with dry humor—drew students from across denominations.
Signature works
- Between God and Man (1959, rev. 1997) – the first systematic English introduction to Heschel’s thought.
- Jewish Perspectives on Christianity (1996) – a pioneering reader that opened genuine inter-faith conversation.
Colleagues remember that he wrote slowly but listened quickly: “Fritz could spot a false dichotomy before you finished the sentence,” one former student quipped. Outside class he dispensed pastoral care with the same meticulous attention he gave to Maimonides’ footnotes—qualities Ellen, commenting from a distance, admired even as she joked that her brother “lives happily in the clouds of abstraction.”
4 | Character, family, and last years (1990 – 2009)
Retirement freed Fritz to lecture worldwide and to edit Jewish liturgical texts for communities seeking accessible Hebrew-English prayer. He also spent stretches with Ellen’s family, doting on nieces and nephews and indulging a passion for classical music first sparked by his mother’s boarding-school stories.
Fritz never sought the limelight. He declined honorary doctorates that required black-tie galas, insisting the funds be diverted to refugee scholarships—an echo of the help that saved him in 1938. Friends treasured his playful humility: asked once why his bibliography seemed modest for a chaired professor, he replied, “Some people publish; some polish.”
He passed away on 7 March 2009 in New York, aged 89.heschel.jtsa.edu Obituaries catalogued his academic milestones, but former students spoke instead of “a gentle mentor who taught that philosophy begins in wonder and ends in responsibility.”
ChatGPT summery report of Fritz’s life with input of ‘Ellen’s Memories’
A Brother Remembered – Fritz Alexander Rothschild
(Bad Homburg 1919 – New York 2009)
1 │ Childhood behind the shop-window (1919 – 1935)
Fritz was born on 4 October 1919 in Bad Homburg, the middle child of shoe-dealer Richard (“Zecharias”) and Bella Rothschild, above the family store at Louisenstraße 35. His earliest memories, preserved in the reminiscences of his sister Ellen, are thick with sensory detail: the clacking of customers’ heels on the parquet, the smell of polish, and—most coveted—turning the little stools upside-down to make rocking chairs while their mother dealt with buyers .
Home spilled into a paved courtyard that doubled as fortress, castle, or ship during epic games with the Becker and Ackermann children, all supervised by the family nanny, Eugenie . Christmas was celebrated with Christian neighbours; Hanukkah in the salon; and Friday nights found the children helping Bella lay out the Sabbath cloth. That blend of Jewish rootedness and outward-looking ease shaped Fritz’s sense of self long before politics intruded.
At the Kaiser-Friedrich-Gymnasium he proved good at languages—enough that his mother insisted he be allowed to skip a grade after an anti-Semitic headmaster refused the request. She prevailed a year later, and he passed into Obersekunda at 15 . Around the same time he discovered Hebrew, joined the Orthodox-Zionist youth group Young Mizrachi, and published his first article in Der Israelit after gaining privileged access to communal archives while delivering shoes . He would later say that Hitler “made me a Zionist”—not out of ideology alone but because persecution stripped away doubt.
2 │ Frankfurt apprenticeship & intellectual awakening (1935 – 1938)
Forced out of the Gymnasium in 1935—the lone Jew left in his class —Fritz apprenticed as a typesetter and antiquarian with Dr Felix Kauffmann’s Jewish publishing house. There he handled Hebrew books by day and attended Rabbi Martin Buber’s lectures by night . His circle was eclectic: socialist Cohen, Hasidic teacher Twerski, and the brown-shirted Revisionist youth of Betar whom he studied “just to stick my nose in” .
Life in Frankfurt grew harsher: the family business had already been “Aryanised”, Bella suffered a breakdown, and Richard worked as an underpaid cigar salesman. Yet Fritz’s intellectual hunger expanded; he met Abraham Joshua Heschel at a study group, an encounter that would later blossom into scholarly partnership .
3 │ Kristallnacht, Buchenwald, and rescue (Nov 1938 – Feb 1939)
On 9 November 1938 storm-troopers burned synagogues and smashed Jewish shops. Fritz rushed to aid relatives in Wiesbaden and was arrested en route; his father voluntarily surrendered in hopes of finding him. Both were beaten and transported to Buchenwald .
Fritz became prisoner #24959, enduring shaved head, freezing barracks, and food so rotten that four men shared one tin plate; his toes nearly required amputation . In the camp he watched his uncle Julius die after guards refused a heart-medicine injection .
Outside, Bella pressed officials relentlessly; a caustic remark—“I thought you were a humane person”—won signatures on her son’s release papers. Father and son left the camp on 24 December 1938, gaunt but alive .
4 │ Six weeks to Africa (1939 – 1948)
Visas proved the next hurdle. Fritz first escorted Ellen to the Dutch border so she could join a Kindertransport to England, then returned alone to board the steamer Ussukuma with Richard. The voyage—south along the African coast to Beira—lasted six weeks; he translated for fellow refugees and petitioned every colonial officer he met for a visa to rescue his mother . Two passengers, denied papers, threw themselves overboard—an episode that haunted him for years .
Father and son reached Chingola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) in April 1939, joining Rothschild cousins in the Copperbelt. Jobs were scarce, so Fritz did whatever paid—mine-clerical work, language tutoring, occasional sermons for the tiny Jewish outpost—while absorbing local warmth that, he said, “taught more chesed than any commentary.”
5 │ Scholar-rabbi in New York (1948 – 1990)
Determined to study again, Fritz sailed to New York in 1948, enrolled at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS), and received rabbinic ordination in 1955. Mentored by Heschel, he completed a doctorate in 1968 and joined the faculty, ultimately holding the Joseph J. & Dora Abbell Professorship of Philosophy heschel.jtsa.edu.
His best-known book, Between God and Man (1959; rev. 1997), introduced Heschel’s thought to English readers and remains a staple in Jewish studies curricula. Yet colleagues recall that he wrote sparingly, preferring to “polish”—his term—students’ ideas in Socratic seminars. He was ordained, lectured worldwide, and edited bilingual prayer texts but declined gala dinners in favour of directing honoraria to refugee scholarships.
6 │ A human portrait—through Ellen’s lens
Playful solidarity Ellen never forgot her brother hiding contraband marzipan in her dollhouse after Hanukkah .
Protective courage He secured her two-year English work visa while still stateless himself .
Intellectual restlessness At 17 he was already debating Zionism with boys who later beat him in the street, yet he kept reading their pamphlets “to understand, not to hate” .
Quiet empathy On the Rhodesian train platform he spent his last coins buying tea for a distraught Polish mother who had lost everything but her sleeping child — a story he told Ellen “because you look after the human bits” rather than the theories, she wrote .
7 │ Final years & legacy (1990 – 2009)
Retiring from JTS in 1990, Fritz split his time between lecturing, editing liturgy for emerging Jewish communities, and visiting Ellen’s growing family in Zimbabwe and California. He died in New York on 7 March 2009, aged 89 heschel.jtsa.edu. Obituaries lauded his scholarship; former students spoke instead of the soft-voiced mentor who “made philosophy sound like listening.”
Chronology at a glance
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1919 | Born Bad Homburg (4 Oct) |
| 1935 | Leaves Gymnasium under Nazi pressure |
| Nov 1938 | Arrested; six weeks in Buchenwald |
| Feb 1939 | Emigrates via England to Northern Rhodesia |
| 1948 | Arrives USA; enters JTS |
| 1955 | Rabbinic ordination |
| 1960–1990 | Teaches at JTS; Abbell Professor 1987 |
| 2009 | Dies New York (7 Mar) |
