Asher, Joseph, 1921-1990

Joseph Asher and his family were from Germany, which they fled in 1936. Before serving as rabbi of San Francisco's Congregation Emanu-El (1967-1985), Asher first served congregations in Florida, Alabama, and North Carolina. After the Holocaust, Asher found West Germany's attempts to instill "a sense of atonement" about the Holocaust in its young people to be honest but, overall, a "negative and incomplete approach." In 1966, Asher succeeded in getting the Union of American Hebrew Congregations to sponsor a project where rabbis visited West Germany and taught Germans about Jews. In 1989, West Germany awarded Asher the Grand Cross of Merit. He died in 1990.