| Alfred Wolf | |
| Birth Date: | 1915 |
| Birth Place: | Eberbach, Germany |
| Death Date: | August 1, 2004 |
| Death Place: | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Nationality: | American (naturalized in 1941) |
| Occupation: | Rabbi |
| Spouse: | Miriam Wolf |
| Children: | 2 sons, 1 daughter |
Alfred Wolf (1915–2004) was a German-born American rabbi.
Alfred Wolf was born in 1915 in Eberbach, Germany.[1] [2] [3] He attended a Hebrew seminary in Berlin and went to the Hebrew Union College in Ohio on a student exchange program.[1] As the Nazis had come to power, Wolf decided to stay in the United States.[1] He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1941.[1] Later that year, he sponsored his parents to emigrate to the United States on visas.[4]
Wolf served as a rabbi in Dothan, Alabama from 1941 to 1946.[1] He served as the director of the Union for Reform Judaism from 1946 to 1949.[1]
Wolf became a rabbi at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, a Reform synagogue in Los Angeles, California, from 1949 to 1985.[1] [2] [3] During his tenure, he promoted inter-faith dialogue, even meeting Pope John Paul II in 1987.[1] Additionally, he established summer camps for Jewish children on the West coast.[1] As early as 1952, he established Camp Hess Kramer in Malibu, California.[3] [4]
Wolf co-founded the Inter-Religious Council of Southern California in 1969.[1] [2] [4] He served as its founding president.[1] During the 1984 Summer Olympics, he made sure the organizers added a mosque for Muslim athletes.[1] [2]
Wolf served as the founding director of the Skirball Institute on American Values, a program of the American Jewish Committee founded by Jack H. Skirball, from 1985 to 1996.[2] [5] [6]
Wolf had a wife, Miriam.[1] They had two sons, Dan and David, and a daughter, Judy Wolf Lee, who predeceased him in 1987.
Wolf died on August 1, 2004, at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.[1] He was eighty-eight years old.[1]