Above, as Austrian Jews flee for their lives, only to be turned back at the border, Los Angeles congregations prepare to celebrate Purim. Note the name of Jacob Sonderling, identified in The Times as former chief rabbi of the German army. Below, a 1938 Times article by Sonderling on the reinterpretation of Jewish music. According to his obituary, Sonderling was the oldest active Zionist in the United States. He was the leader of Hamburg, Germany’s Reform Temple before he was 30 and came to the U.S. in 1923. He was professor of Jewish thought and homiletics at the California School of Hebrew Union College. He died in 1964 at the age of 86. 

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