Portraits

Portraits reveal the likeness of famous, infamous, and just not famous men and women.

Rabbi Leo Baeck

Leo Baeck (1873-1956) was the last organizational and spiritual leader of the 1,000-year-old German Jewish community before the Nazis and a living symbol for German Jews’ determination of survival during the Holocaust. The Leo Baeck Institute, which is named in honor of Rabbi Leo Baeck, holds many paintings, statues, drawings, and photographs of our revered friend and rabbi. (Image: LBI Photograph Collection, F 1877B)

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) – Nobel laureate, physicist, humanitarian, violinist, and charmer – does not need any further introduction. The Leo Baeck Institute is proud to hold a myriad of portraits, snapshots, and photographs showing Einstein with colleagues, friends, and family: relatively more (pun intended) than may be found in any other library or archive outside of Princeton University. (Image: LBI Photograph Collection, F 3136C)

Joseph Roth and His Circle

Joseph Roth (1894-1939) was one of the most prominent Austrian writers of the 20th century, and his novels brought him global fame. The Leo Baeck Institute holds manuscripts of his work as well as private photographs. Joseph Roth's cousin and later Executive Director of the Leo Baeck Institute, Fred Grubel, found a suitcase with Joseph Roth's papers in Paris and brought them to New York. (Image: LBI Photograph Collection, F 11650)