Rabbi Frederick Solomon Papers

Frederick Solomon was a rabbi, artist and art historian who was born into a Jewish family in 1899 in Germany. He studied in Berlin, gaining a doctorate on German Expressionism in Berlin, and training as a painter under Eugen Spiro and Willy Jaeckel. Solomon fled Germany for England in the 1930s, settling in London. In 1940-41 he was interned in the so-called ‘Artists’ camp’, Hutchinson, on the Isle of Man, where he signed the famous ‘Art Cannot Live Behind Barbed Wire’ letter, published in the New Statesman and Nation in August 1940, pleading for the release of artist internees.

In 1954, Solomon left England to take up a position as rabbi for Temple Beth Ha Shalom in Williamsport, PA. After three years in Pennsylvania, he sought another position and, as a member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, was appointed rabbi at Temple Beth Israel in the Vedado suburb of Havana, where he wrote sermons and hosted religious services for his congregation, a part of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. Solomon was also active in the Jewish Progressive movement, frequently communicating with representatives of The World Union for Progressive Judaism throughout the 1950s in an attempt to officially associate his congregation with the organization.

Dr. Solomon left Havana in 1960 and relocated to Laconia, N.H., where he served as rabbi at Temple B’nai Israel until 1963. He and his wife then moved to Rochester, N.H. in 1963, where he opened the New English Art Gallery and Studio. In his later years, Solomon served as the chair of the Department of Fine Arts at Nathaniel Hawthorne College in Antrim, New Hampshire. He died in in 1980.

Source:

James Melikian Books, https://melikiancollection.com/

University of New Hampshire, Rabbi Frederick Solomon Papers Finding Aid, https://library.unh.edu/find/archives/collections/rabbi-frederick-solomon-papers-1927-1977