Herbert A. Friedman

Who was Herbert A. Friedman?

Herbert A. Friedman was a Reform rabbi who served as the CEO of the United Jewish Appeal and was the founding president of the Wexner Heritage Foundation. He inspired the Wexner Heritage Program seminars, which have now been educating Jewish community leaders for over two decades. He co-founded the foundation in 1985 with Leslie Wexner, chairman of Limited Brands, and served for a decade as president. For more than two decades before that he was executive chairman of the national United Jewish Appeal, where he designed and led the missions to Israel that became the basis for much of the American Jewish community's support for Israel.

Friedman was born to poor immigrant parents in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1918, went to public schools, and was admitted to Yale, graduating in 1938. He worked as a short-order cook and on a factory line during and after college. He studied for the Reform rabbinate in New York and was posted to Denver's Temple Emanuel as assistant rabbi in 1943, but came into conflict with the community and other Reform rabbis over his intense Zionism and relentless advocacy for Nazi victims.

He left to become a U.S.