Wolfe Kelman was an Austrian-born American Rabbi and leader in the Conservative Judaism in the United States who never led a congregation, serving for decades as a mentor to hundreds of rabbis in his role as the executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, where he also prepared the initial steps for the rabbinic ordination of women in the Conservative movement.
Background
Kelman was born in 1923 in Vienna to Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kelman, the scion of a line of Hasidic rabbis originally from Poland. His mother took on the responsibilities of leading the Jewish community after the death of his father when Kelman was a 13-year-old. His mother"s assumption of the leadership role was one of the factors that led Kelman to "believe women could function as rabbis".
Education
Bachelor of Arts, University Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1946;
M.H.L., Jewish Theological Seminary American, 1950;
honorary Doctor of Divinity, Jewish Theological Seminary American, 1973.
Career
He moved with his family to Toronto, Ontario, Canada as a child. He served with the Royal Canadian Air Force during World World War II
Eschewing a congregation and a pulpit, and at the prompting of Doctor Louis Finkelstein and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, he accepted a post at the Rabbinical Assembly in 1951. There he helped professionalize the Conservative rabbinate, adding educational retreats and ensuring that rabbis received compensation and benefits commensurate with their role.
In the nearly four decades before his retirement in 1989, the number of Conservative rabbis quadrupled from 300 to 1,200 during a period when the Conservative movement grew together with the rise of suburban Jewish communities.
He did advance work with Rabbi Heschel preparing him for his 1964 meeting with Pope Paul VI in Vatican City. He fought against increasing intermarriage, receiving publicity for his outspoken criticism on religious grounds of the popular television show, Bridget Loves Bernie, which showcased a happily married Jewish man and Catholic woman.
He called the show “an insult to some of the most sacred values of both the Jewish and Catholic religions."
In addition to his duties with the Conservative Assembly, Kelman was the head of the United States. division of the World Jewish Congress starting in 1986. A resident of Manhattan with an apartment on West End Avenue, Kelman died of melanoma at age 66 at the New York University Medical Center on June 26, 1990.
Achievements
Membership
Member governing council World Jewish Congress, 1968-1990 chairman cultural commission, 1975-1977, co-chairman interreligious affairs, 1979-1986, chairman committee on small communities, 1986-1990 chairman American section, 1986-1990. President Committee Neighbors Concerned for Elderly, Their Rights and Needs, from 1971. Board directors, executive committee Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, 1974-1990.
Served with Royal Canadian Air Force, 1943-1945.
Connections
Married Jacqueline Levy, March 2, 1952. Children: Levi Yehuda, Naamah Kathrine, Abigail Tobie.