Rabbi Braude photograph
The Jewish Encyclopedia
of Western Pennsylvania
A project of the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center
Rabbi Max Albert Braude (1913-1982) was a Jewish chaplain in the U.S. Army during World War II. He arranged military Passover seders in Europe as Allied troops were liberating the continent.
Rose R. (Zeman) Braude (b.1880) and Joseph N. Braude (b.1878) immigrated to the United States from the Russian Empire in the early 20th century and settled in Western Pennsylvania. They ran department stores in Harmony and Zelienople. They had four children, Nathan (1902-1958), Bessie (b.1903), Gertrude (b.1908), and Max.
Max Braude graduated from the Hebrew Institute of Pittsburgh elementary school in 1926 and its high school in 1928 and then graduated from Fifth Avenue High School in 1929. Upon his graduation from the University of Pittsburgh in 1933, he enrolled at the Hebrew Theological College in Chicago, graduating in 1936 and subsequently receiving rabbinic ordination. Braude married Eunice A. Harris (1916-1984) of Chicago in March 1940.
Braude registered for the draft in October 1940 and entered the U.S. Army in May 1941 as a 1st Lieutenant. He was later reassigned to the U.S. Army’s Chaplain’s School at Harvard University and promoted to captain in 1942. Braude went overseas in 1945 as Chaplain to the Seventh Army in the European Theatre of Operations. While serving overseas, Braude organized makeshift Passover seders for Jewish soldiers and civilians in France and Germany. By the end of the war in 1945, Braude was the ranking Jewish Chaplain in Europe.
After the Allied troops liberated the Dachau concentration camp, General Alexander Patch assigned Braude to address the spiritual care of its former prisoners. Braude continued that work after the war in Displaced Persons camps, including the Feldafing camp with approximately 3,500 Displaced Persons. Braude was honorably discharged in 1947 with the rank of Lt. Colonel. Between 1947 and 1951, Braude served with the International Refugee Organization (“IRO”), which was an intergovernmental organization founded to deal with the refugee crisis after World War II. In Germany, he was Chief of Camp Operations and later Chief of the Care and Maintenance Division. In his role with the Care and Maintenance Division, he was responsible for DP camp operations, vocational training, and relations with area volunteer agencies. He was later appointed Special Assistant to the Chief of Mission and Liaison to the Bonn Government and U.S. High Commissioner for Germany.
Braude was appointed Director for Administrative and Operational Affairs for the World ORT Union in 1951 and supervised ORT vocational training system in 22 countries around the world. In 1957, Braude was appointed Director-General of the World ORT Union, the organization’s first Director-General in its history. He retired from this role in 1980.
