Howard Maer Lenhoff was born in 1929 in North Adams, Massachusetts to Charles and Goldie Rubin Lenhoff. He received his undergraduate degree from Coe College in 1950 and his PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 1955. By 1970 Lenhoff was a professor of biology at University of California Irvine (UCI), where he would remain for the next three decades, residing in Costa Mesa, California. Between 1968 and 1974, Lenhoff spent time in Israel as a visiting fellow and professor at the Weizmann Institute, Hebrew University and Technion Israel Institute of Technology. In the early 1970s he co-founded the UCI Judaic studies program, and he was involved in the Hillel Advisory Council of Orange County, the Jewish Federation Council of Orange County, State of Israel Bonds, American Professors for Peace in the Middle East and United Jewish Appeal.
Howard Lenhoff’s interest in Ethiopian Jews began in Israel in the spring of 1974, when he met Rahamim Elazar, an Ethiopian Jewish student who had recently immigrated to Israel. Following that meeting, Lenhoff became active in the American Association for American Jews, which was also incorporated that same year as a non-profit merger of the former American Pro-Falasha Committee and the Friends of Beta-Israel (Falasha) Community in Ethiopia. Lenhoff served as western regional director and national vice president while Graenum Berger was president. Lenhoff was then elected president in September 1978 and held the position until his resignation in July 1982.
During his four-year tenure as president, AAEJ’s membership and reach grew, and its budget and operations were professionalized and streamlined. It was also during this time when AAEJ began executing missions to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel, and by July 1982, the organization had carried out three such missions. AAEJ also placed great pressure on Israel and on American Jewish organizations to act on behalf of the Jews in Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Jewish refugees in Sudan. Lenhoff generated extensive publicity around his cause and brought American Jewish attention to the Ethiopian Jews. Also during his tenure, AAEJ started up a program in Israel to assist Ethiopian Jewish refugees with housing, educational and medical needs.
Following his presidency and the entrance of Nate Shapiro as president, Lenhoff continued on in leadership roles in AAEJ for a few years, heavily engaged in publicity and writing up until about 1987. By the early 2000s he was working in earnest on his book, Black Jews, Jews and Other Heroes: How Grassroots Activism Led to the Rescue of the Ethiopian Jews (2007), an autobiographical account of his activities with AAEJ. Lenhoff died on July 12, 2011.
From the guide to the Howard Lenhoff Papers, 1947-2007 (bulk 1974-2006), (American Jewish Historical Society)
