Dr. Joachim Prinz served as Chairman of the Conference of Presidents from February 1965 to December 1967.

Dr. Prinz received a Ph.D. from the University of Giessen and was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau. He was a rabbi in the Berlin Jewish community from 1925-1937, distinguishing himself as a Zionist leader and a fearless preacher against Nazism. After Hitler became Chancellor and the Nazi Party assumed power in 1933, Dr. Prinz urged Jews across Germany to leave the country and move to Palestine. He was arrested repeatedly by the Gestapo and was ultimately expelled by the Nazi government in 1937. Dr. Prinz emigrated to the US and in 1939 became rabbi of Temple B’nai Abraham in Newark, NJ.

In the United States, Dr. Prinz was a vocal advocate of liberal causes and a fighter against racism and bigotry. He saw parallels between his experience as a Jew in Germany under Hitler and the plight of African-Americans in the US, and encouraged his congregation to get involved in the civil rights movement.

Dr. Prinz served eight years as president of the American Jewish Congress (1958-1966) and was the sole national Jewish leader among the founding chairmen of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 March on Washington.

He held other positions in Jewish communal organizations, including the World Jewish Congress, the World Conference of Jewish Organizations, and the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, leading the American Jewish community’s successful efforts to negotiate West German economic aid for Israel.

Dr. Prinz passed away in 1988.