MINDA, ALBERT GREENBERG

MINDA, ALBERT GREENBERG (1895–1977), U.S. Reform rabbi. Minda was born in Holton, Kansas, and earned his B.A. from the University of Cincinnati in 1918 and his ordination from Hebrew Union College in 1919. He received a doctor of divinity degree (honoris causa) from huc-jir in 1947. Following pulpits at Temple Beth El of South Bend, Indiana, and in Lingonier, Indiana (1919–22), he became rabbi of Temple Israel in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he remained for the rest of his career, becoming emeritus in 1963. During his tenure, the congregation grew from 275 members in 1922 to more than 1,400 in the 1960s. An innovator, Minda pioneered the establishing of a Jewish Art Gallery and Museum on the premises of an expanded temple.

In the greater community, Minda was one of the founders and first presidents of the Minneapolis Federation for Jewish Service, as well as a founder of the Minneapolis Urban League and the Minneapolis Round Table of Christians and Jews. He was also the first president of the Minnesota Rabbinical Association and a member of the executive board of the United Fund of Greater Minneapolis and of the faculty of Hamlin University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Nationally and internationally, Minda served Reform Judaism as a member of the executive board of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in three different decades and chairman of the organization's Church and State Committee (1939–46). Following a term as vice president, he was elected president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (1961–63), concurrently with holding the position of vice president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism.

Minda was also a prolific author, whose writings include Over the Years, vols. 1 and 2 (1957–63); The Sanctuary of the Home (1945); The Fire on the Altar (1948); Speak to the Heart (1956); and And Thou Shalt Write Them (1967).

[Bezalel Gordon (2^nd ed.)]