W. Gunther Plaut

W. Gunther Plaut was a German-born Canadian Reform rabbi and author known for his influential The Torah: A Modern Commentary , which became a foundational text in non-Orthodox Jewish study, as well as for his leadership in Reform Judaism and advocacy for human rights. He combined rigorous scholarship with progressive interpretations and helped reintroduce serious engagement with Hebrew Scripture in Reform congregations across North America.

Born Wolf Gunther Plaut on November 1, 1912, in Münster, Germany, he grew up in Berlin and earned a Doctor of Laws from the University of Berlin in 1934. Barred from legal practice under Nazi rule, he pursued Jewish studies before fleeing to the United States in 1935 on a scholarship to Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, where he was ordained as a rabbi in 1939. He became a U.S. citizen in 1943, served as a U.S. Army chaplain during World War II, and participated in the liberation of the Dora-Nordhausen concentration camp.

After the war, Plaut served congregations in Chicago and St. Paul, Minnesota, before moving to Toronto in 1961 to become senior rabbi at Holy Blossom Temple, a position he held until 1977, after which he served as senior scholar. He authored or edited more than twenty books on Jewish theology, history, and culture, including The Haftarah Commentary and memoirs such as Unfinished Business . His work extended beyond scholarship to public leadership, as he served as president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Canadian Jewish Congress, co-founded Toronto’s Urban Alliance on Race Relations, and held positions on the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

Plaut was a prominent advocate for refugee rights, racial equality, and interfaith dialogue, earning honors including appointment as an Officer of the Order of Canada. He remained active in community service and writing into his nineties, until health issues associated with Alzheimer’s disease curtailed his activities; he died in Toronto on February 8, 2012. His legacy endures through his contributions to modern Jewish thought and his commitment to justice across religious and societal boundaries.

Gunther Plaut was born Wolf Guenter Plaut on November 1, 1912, in Münster, Germany, to Jonas Plaut and Selma Plaut (née Gumprich). His father, a Jewish educator, relocated the family to Berlin in 1915 after accepting the position of headmaster at the Jüdische Mädchenschule, a Jewish girls' secondary school. In 1922, Jonas and Selma assumed joint direction of the Baruch Auerbach Orphanage (Baruch Auerbach’sche Waisenhaus) in Berlin, an institution for Jewish boys and girls that provided education and care in a progressive environment with cultural activities and a synagogue on the premises. The family lived in an apartment within the orphanage compound, where the Plauts raised their sons alongside the resident children.

Plaut was reared in this orphanage setting with other children, immersed in a supportive Jewish communal life from an early age. He had a younger brother, Walter Horst Plaut, born August 28, 1919, in Berlin, who later became a rabbi and died in 1964. Growing up in Berlin's vibrant yet increasingly precarious Jewish community during the Weimar Republic, Plaut developed an early awareness of his Jewish identity amid the rising anti-Semitism that marked the interwar period in Germany.

Gunther Plaut earned a doctorate in law from the University of Berlin in 1934, but Nazi racial laws barred him from practicing as an attorney. He subsequently enrolled at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin, where he spent a year studying Jewish theology under Rabbi Leo Baeck, seeking to understand his Jewish identity amid intensifying persecution.

In 1935, Baeck selected Plaut as one of five German-Jewish students to receive scholarships from Rabbi Julian Morgenstern of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, enabling his emigration to the United States.