LOEWENSTEIN, KURT

LOEWENSTEIN, KURT (1902–1973), Zionist journalist and essayist. Born in Danzig, he studied law and economics at Breslau and Berlin universities and played a leading role in the German pre-Zionist youth movement Jung-Juedischer Wanderbund. Later he was closely associated with the Zionistische Vereinigung fuer Deutschland, serving as secretary for the Rhineland-Westphalia district; he contributed to Die Juedische Rundschau of Berlin, joining the editorial board in August 1933. In the following years he devoted much attention to youth education and vocational training of ḥaluẓim. He succeeded Robert Weltsch as the editor-in-chief of Die Juedische Rundschau before its final closure by the Nazi authorities in November 1938, but edited the only Jewish newspaper after 1938, Juedisches Nachrichtenblatt. In 1939, after a couple of journeys for the Palaestina-Amt 1935–36, Loewenstein settled in Ereẓ Israel, where he worked for various organizations of Jewish immigrants from Central Europe. In 1960, he became deputy editor-in-chief of mb (Mitteilungsblatt), the weekly of the organization of Jewish immigrants from Central Europe. Many of his articles were highly critical of official policy.

Loewenstein's analytical gifts also found expression in a number of major essays, some of which appeared in the Bulletin of the Leo Baeck Institute.

add. bibliography:

Biographisches Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Emigration nach 1933, vol. 1 (1999), 456.

[Erich Gottgetreu]