Strauss, Carol Kahn

The Kahn family can be traced back to the early 19th century in rural Westphalia. Alexander Kahn (1816-1909), a butcher, moved to Dortmund (Germany) in 1840, where he lived until his death at the age of 93. He married Berta née Zuckerberg (1827-1890), and they had eight children. Their son Abraham (1866-1919) was a businessman in Dortmund. In 1895, Abraham married Wilhelmine Strauss (1866-1956), and the couple had two sons, Walter (1896-1953) and Alfred (1899-1983).

Alfred Kahn entered Realgymnasium in Dortmund in 1910. Both he and his brother Walter served in the German army during World War I. After the end of the war, Alfred completed his final examinations at his Realgymnasium and found a job in an iron wholesale business. He left this job to study law at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, and eventually earned a law degree from the University of Erlangen in 1930. In 1921, Alfred got engaged to Rosa (alternatively Rosel) Baum, whom he had known since his high school years. Rosa contracted pneumonia and, after spending years in a sanatorium, died of the disease in 1931. Alfred’s nascent legal career was cut short after the Nazi party took power in 1933. In 1937, he married Lotte Landau (1912-2004). In December 1938, Alfred and Lotte immigrated via Holland to the United States and settled in New York City.

Alfred’s mother Wilhelmine Kahn and Lotte’s parents Moritz and Ida Landau were on a ship to the United States when Pearl Harbor was bombed and the U.S. entered the war. Their ship was rerouted to Cuba, where they lived for three years before joining Alfred and Lotte in New York.

Alfred’s brother Walter Kahn became a doctor, earning a degree in medicine from the University of Bonn. During World War I, he served as a military doctor, and after his emigration he set up a practice with offices in Chelmsford and Lowell, Massachusetts. He married Margaret (alternatively Grete) Kamp in 1922. They had one son, Ernst, in 1926.

Alfred and Lotte Kahn’s son Steve was born in 1940 and their daughter Carol in 1944. After initial struggles as new immigrants, the family’s economic condition improved when Alfred established a law practice specializing in restitution claims and Lotte made a name for herself as a stockbroker.

Their son Steve studied law at New York University and then pursued a career in advertising and publishing, focusing on teen popular culture during the 1960s and 1970s and then writing books on how to succeed in business in the 1980s. He married Evelyn Grunfeld, and they had a son, Andrew. Steve Kahn died of a heart attack in 1988.

Carol Kahn Strauss studied political science and international relations and took on positions in administration, including work as the Senior Editor at the Hudson Institute and as the book editor at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. She was elected the President of the Congregation Habonim in 1984 and continued in this role until 1992. She served the Leo Baeck Institute as the Executive Director from 1994 until 2012, when she became the International Director.

The Kahn family was very active in the Congregation Habonim, a Jewish synagogue founded in 1939 by immigrants who had fled Nazi persecution. Lotte and Alfred Kahn knew the founding rabbi Hugo Hahn from their childhood and young adult years in Dortmund, and they joined the newly-formed congregation shortly after their immigration to the United States. Both Steve and Carol were confirmed in this congregation, and Lotte and Carol served the congregation in many roles throughout their lives.

References

“Carol Kahn Strauss.” Leo Baeck Institute. Retrieved 10 April 2013 from http://www.lbi.org/about/staff-directory/carol-kahn-strauss

From the guide to the Carol Kahn Strauss Family Collection, 1826-1999, (Leo Baeck Institute)