Alexander Burnstein

Alexander J. Burnstein (1900 – October 17, 1980), a rabbinic ordinand of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, was a writer, editor and interfaith leader.
Burnstein was born in Kyiv and, after making his way to the United States, graduated from Northwestern University.

Biography

At a ceremony where Hayim Nahman Bialik received an honorary Doctorate of Hebrew Letters by the Seminary, Burnstein was ordained in June 1926—in the same class as Rabbis Joel S. Geffen, Israel M. Goldman, Elhanan H. Golomb, Jacob Granowitz, Louis Greenberg, Lewis B. Grossman, Moses Hadas, Michael Higger, Jonas Kaminkowski, Herbert Parzen and Benjamin Unger. In addition to his rabbinic ordination, Burnstein also held a master's degree from Columbia University and earned a Doctorate of Divinity from the Seminary in 1965.

In 1928, Burnstein began what was, according to ''The New York Times'', a ten-year term serving Temple Beth El of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A young rabbi, only three years after ordination, at the Rabbinical Assembly conference of 1929, Burnstein lectured on "The Abiding Values of the Resurrection Belief." Only two years into his tenure at Temple Beth El, Burnstein witnessed and offered some words upon the congregation's dedication of its new building in 1930 at a ceremony attended both by Harrisburg's mayor George A. Hoverter and Philadelphia's Rabbi Max D. Klein. Pamela Susan Nadell and Marc Lee Raphael write, however, that Rabbi Max "Gelb succeeded ... Burnstein as rabbi of Temple Beth El, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (1933–39)" and "found the congregation beset by serious financial problems, brought on by the Depression ... declining membership and the failure of most of the congregation's auxiliaries." The exact dating of Burnstein's tenure in Harrisburg is complicated by the official records of Tifereth Israel Congregation in New Bedford, MA, which note that "Rabbi Alexander Burnstein was elected to replace Rabbi ochman S.Arnoff on January 30, 1927, but only stayed with this congregation for 2 years before returning to New York." During this time it is recorded that "Cantor Boris Alper came to the congregation in 1928, and formed the first mixed choir" before Alper "passed away in 1947." Ultimately, "Rabbi Bernard H. Ziskind was elected to replace Rabbi Burnstein." (One separate record recalls Ziskind as having begun his career in New Bedford in 1930.) Notably, the ''Report of the Forty-Second Year of the Jewish Publication Society of America 1929-1930'' indicates that there was in this time period a Rabbi A. Burnstein at Beth El in Harrisburg, PA.

On December 1, 1938, upon the successful arrangement of this position by Cyrus Adler (who had presided over Burnstein's ordination less than a decade before), became the executive secretary of the Advisory Committee on Refugee Jewish Ministers from 1938 to 1942. Burnstein, who, in this capacity, worked with representatives of the three major denominations of American Judaism at the time, regarded Adler as having "done more toward the consummation of this project than any other man." In this capacity, Burnstein was tasked with handling all of the requests that Adler had forwarded from cantors and rabbis asking the Seminary to bring them to the United States from Europe. On May 1, 1939, Burnstein informed Adler that he had successfully relocated 33 rabbis to the United States, including Rabbi Emil Schorsch of Hanover, the father of JTS' former Chancellor Rabbi Dr. Ismar Schorsch

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