Bach, Julius Max (1872-1964)

I. Family and Education
Julius Max Bach was born in Vienna on March 25, 1872. His parents were a merchant Leib Eisik Bach and Sali Bach. Between 1893 and 1897 he studied in Berlin and Vienna. He received his religious training at the Berlin Orthodox Rabbinerseminar and the Israelitisch-Theologische Lehranstalt in Vienna (ITLA) and completed his PhD at the University of Vienna in 1895, with a dissertation titled “Die ʾAḥĭqar-Sage bei den Syrern.” In 1898 he was ordained as a rabbi at the ITLA in Vienna and thereafter elected as rabbi of the Israelitische Cultusgemeinde Hernals, Ottakring und Neulerchenfeld, the so-called Hubertempel, the main synagogue in Vienna’s sixteenth and seventeenth district. The congregation was strictly orthodox, but Rabbi Bach had liberal worldviews. In 1900 he married Adele Fuchs (1872–1946 New York City), the daughter of Rudolf Fuchs, who was the secretary of the Viennese Chief Rabbi at the time. As the Rabbi’s wife, Adele Bach became the head of the local Jewish women’s welfare association, Israelitischer Frauen-Wohltätigkeitsverein für den XVI. und XVII. Bezirk. Julius and Adele Bach had a daughter, Margarete (Grete) Bach (1901–1990s?), and a son, Leo Ernst Bach (1902–19?). Margarete gained fame as a reciter of poetry and went on a successful recital tour to the USA in 1933, supported with recommendations to meet prominent rabbis like Julian Morgenstern, Stephen Wise, and Hyman Gerson Enelow.

II. Tenure as Rabbi of the Israelitische Cultusgemeinde Hernals, Ottakring, und Neulerchenfeld in Vienna, 1898–1938
During this tenure at the Israelitische Cultusgemeinde Hernals, Ottakring und Neulerchenfeld, between 1898 and 1938, rabbi Bach also lectured at Jewish organizations and taught Jewish religion at public schools. In May 1907, he handed in a curriculum for “Jewish religious education” for secondary schools to the Austrian ministry of education. During World War One, he delivered patriotic speeches and published drashot (sermons) and lectures. In July 1914, he gave a memorial speech for Theodor Herzl. This stands out, because no further Zionist activities of Bach are known. Due to his erudition and fame as a lecturer, he held a eulogy on the occasion of the death of the Viennese Chief Rabbi Moritz Güdemann in August 1918. Bach repeatedly gave speeches for prominent Jews or presided over their funerals, such as for Moritz Benedikt on March 21, 1920, the fortieth anniversary of Ignaz Ziegler, the liberal rabbi of Karlovy Vary in August 1928, and the funeral of the architect Oskar Strnad on September 6, 1935.

In April 1918, he was awarded an honorary professorship by the Ministry of Culture. After the death of Chief Rabbi Zwi Perez Chajes in 1927, he preached every second week for several years in Vienna’s main synagogue, the Stadttempel In his home district, he introduced the Bat Mitzvah ceremony for girls in the 1920s. In November 1927, under Bach’s leadership, a small and heated, so-called winter synagogue was opened within the compound of the main synagogue. During his time in Vienna, Rabbi Bach published in various newspapers, e.g. in the Neue Freie Presse. On October 13, 1929, Rabbi Bach gave the commemorative speech at the inauguration of the Jewish memorial for soldiers killed in World War One, in which he referred to the importance of international peace. Bach and his family participated fully in public life in Austria. In September 1936, Bach went to Hofgastein, near Salzburg, for a spa treatment.

After the so-called Anschluss of Austria in March 1938, Rabbi Bach and his wife stayed in Vienna. The couple survived the persecution and the November pogrom in 1938, but by the end of March 1939, they fled first to Great Britain (London) and ultimately settled in the USA (New York) in June 1939. Margarete and Leo were thus able to escape to the United States with their families. In the 1960s Margarete Bach moved to Israel while Leo stayed with his family in the United States.

III. Spiritual Leader of the Congregation of Jews from Austria in New York City, 1939–1946
On June 5, 1939, Rabbi Bach and his wife arrived in New York from London. The Bachs settled in the Upper West Side. There, Rabbi Bach became the spiritual leader and rabbi of the American Congregation of Jews from Austria on 252 West 92nd Street, at the intersection of 92nd Street and Broadway. The president of the congregation was Siegfried Altmann (1887–1963), the former director of the Jewish Institute for the Blind in Vienna.  Rabbi Bach attracted many people to his services and became a central figure there.  In 1944, the congregation published a bulletin with an article by Bach detailing the history of the refugee congregation. He also belonged to the advisory board of the German-Jewish refugee-newspaper Aufbau.

Bach died in New York on November 28, 1946, at the age of 74 and was buried in New Jersey. The New York Times and the Aufbau published obituaries. The author of the obituary in the Aufbau (December 6, 1946) was Rabbi Adolf Kober. Bach’s wife died in the same year.

Bach is also referred to in several autobiographical writings by Viennese Jews, some of whom met him in New York City after emigration. Among them was the writer Frederic Morton (Fritz Mandelbaum, 1924–2015), who had his Bar Mitzvah with Rabbi Bach in Vienna in 1937.

Adunka, Evelyn, and Gabriele Anderl. Jüdisches Ottakring und Hernals. Mandelbaum, 2020.
Eppel, Peter. Österreich im Exil: USA 1938-1945. Eine Dokumentation. 2 volumes. Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 1995.
Landau, Landau. Rabbi Ezekiel Landau (1888-1965). His Written and Spoken Legacy. Jonathan David, 1968.
Morton, Frederic. “Runaway Waltz.“ A memoir from Vienna to New York. Simon & Schuster, 2005.
Morton, Frederic. The Forever Street. Doubleday, 1984.
Röder, Werner et al., eds. Biographisches Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Emigration nach 1933. International biographical dictionary of Central European émigrés 1933 – 1945. Saur, 1980.
Wien Geschichte Wicki. “Israelitischer Frauen-Wohltätigkeitsverein für den XVI. und XVII. Bezirk.”  Accessed October 27, 2024. https://www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at/Israelitischer_FrauenWohltätigkeitsverein_für_den_XVI._und_XVII._Bezirk.
Wien Geschichte Wicki. “Julius Max Bach.” Accessed October 27, 2024. https://www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at/Julius_Max_Bach.

Works by Julius Max Bach
Bach, Julius Max. “Die ʾAḥĭqar-Sage bei den Syrern nach der vollständigen Handschrift der Bibliothek zu Cambridge, verglichen mit zwei Fragment-Manuscripten des Britischen Museums in London.” Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Vienna, 1895.
Bach, Julius Max. “Lehrpläne für den israelitischen Religionsunterricht an Mittelschulen: von Rabbiner Dr. Bach in handschriftlicher Form eingereichter Entwurf, Mai 1907.” Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, A-W-1588.12 Vienna – Jewish Community.
Bach, Julius Max. Die Kriegspsychologie der Bibel und unsere Zeit. Kriegs-Vortrag, gehalten am 3. Februar 1915 in der Wiener Urania. Engel, 1915.
Bach, Julius Max. “The Austrian Jewish Congregation.” Bulletin of the Austrian Jewish Representative Committee (1944): 31–32.

Archival Resources
Registration form of Julius Bach in Vienna, Meldezettel von Julius Bach (WStLA, BPD Wien: Historische Meldeunterlagen, K11). Austrian State Archive, Archiv der Republik, Stillhaltekommissar Wien: IV Ac 31 G 14, Karton 560.
Personal file of Julius Max Bach as Rabbi for the Jewish Community Vienna. Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem, A-W-604.2 Vienna – Jewish Community.

Newspaper articles about Julius Max Bach (selected)
“Dr. Julius Max Bach. Former Viennese Rabbi served 40 Years in Austrian Capital.” New York Times, November 30, 1946, 13.
New York Times, June 6, 1939, 17.
Neues Wiener Journal, September 1, 1936, 9.
Die Neue Welt, October 18, 1929, 3.
Wiener Sonn- und Montagszeitung, October 14, 1929, 2.
Neue Freie Presse, September 1, 1928, 1–2.
Die Wahrheit, December 9, 1927, 12.
Die Wahrheit, June 11, 1926, 12.
Neue Freie Presse, March 22, 1920, 1–2.
Dr. Blochs Wochenschrift, April 26, 1918, 255.
Jüdische Zeitung, July 17, 1914, 4.