Courage of the Spirit

Courage of the Spirit portrays the spiritual struggle of one man during the first half of the twentieth century-the author's father, Rabbi Dr. William Weinberg, who survived Nazi and communist tyranny to become the first State Rabbi of the community of Holocaust survivors in the German State of Hesse. Rabbi Weinberg's journey spanned thousands of physical miles by freight train and on foot, from cosmopolitan Vienna and Berlin to Stalingrad and central Asia as he and his brother Benjamin kept a step ahead of the Nazi armies. The book spans the mental and emotional journey from the medieval shtetl and the great empires to the weak democracies and totalitarian regimes that followed, and finally, to freedom. Courage of the Spirit reconstructs these events from conversations with the author's father and his uncle, from family notes, and from historical documentation.

About the Author :
Rabbi Dr. Norbert Weinberg received his BA from New York University and his MA degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and was ordained as a rabbi. He also studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and has had a distinguished career in the Rabbinate. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinities, honoris causa, by his alma mater, the Jewish Theological Seminary, in recognition of his service. He served as Rabbi to Hollywood Temple Beth El in Los Angeles, California, from 1990 to 1996, where his primary focus was the integration of the new wave of Russian Jewish immigrants into American Jewish life. He has returned to serve the congregation on a part-time basis. Prior to that, he directed the Central Institute for Jewish Studies at Bet Berl, Israel, under the auspices of Israel's Federation of Labor. His mandate was to help bridge the gap between the secular and religious Jews within the labor movement and to emphasize Jewish societal values. He and his wife, Ofra, ran the Huntington Learning Center and School Services in Encino, California, from 1996 through 2013, where they provided WASC-accredited supplemental education services for children on a private pay basis and in conjunction with the Los Angeles Unified School District under the Federal No Child Left Behind Act. Rabbi Dr. Norbert Weinberg is currently compiling research on the Jews of twentieth-century Europe in a series titled Courage of the Spirit: The Story of Europe's Jewry in the Twentieth Century, based on family accounts and historical documents. His work is posted online at www.courageofspirit.com. He is advisor to live360.com, a social media service for health and wellness. He also posts essays on www.vintagewein.blogspot.com. He and Ofra have three children, Danit, Adi, and Eran, and four grandchildren. Janet Angelo has been a freelance book editor since 2005, and she is the founder and publisher of IndieGo Publishing, a company she formed in 2011 to help independent authors achieve their publishing dreams. She has several repeat clients and enjoys working in collaboration with her authors to produce top-quality books.