Robert Weltsch

Robert Weltsch was born in 1891 in Prague

Robert Weltsch was born on 20 June 1891 in Prague, then part of Austria-Hungary. His father, Theodor Weltsch, was a lawyer active in the Jewish community. His cousin Felix Weltsch was a friend of Franz Kafka and Max Brod, and Robert stayed friends with Brod all his life.

He studied at the Charles Ferdinand University in Prague and joined the Zionist student group Bar Kochba, which he headed in 1911 and 1912. He began publishing in Jewish German-language journals in 1910. In World War I he fought on the side of the Central Powers.

From 1919 to 1938 he edited the Jüdische Rundschau in Berlin, until the Nazis closed it. After the Nazi boycott of Jewish shops in April 1933, he wrote an editorial calling on Jews to wear the yellow badge with pride, as a call for unity. From 1925 to 1933 he was active in Brit Shalom, which supported Jews and Arabs living together in one state.

He fled to Palestine in 1938 and kept urging an agreement with the Arab population. He was a correspondent for Haaretz and in 1945 moved to London, where he reported on the Nuremberg Trials. He helped found the Leo Baeck Institute and edited its Yearbook from 1956 to 1978.

He received the German Leo Baeck Award in 1980. He died in Jerusalem on 22 December 1982.