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Joseph Breuer was born in 1882 in Papa, Hungary to the local Rabbi Solomon Breuer. His mother was Sophie Breuer née Hirsch, daughter of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. When the latter died in 1888, he was succeeded by his son-in-law, and Joseph was to live in Frankfurt until the 1930s.
He attended the local yeshiva founded by his father (the Torah Lehranstalt), and became teacher and later head at that institution. His father, Rabbi Solomon Breuer headed the Frankfurt Yeshiva and Rabbi Joseph Breuer assumed his post after his death in 1926. He married Rika Eisenmann of Antwerp. In the 1930s, he briefly moved the yeshiva to Fiume, Italy, but this arrangement only lasted a brief period of time. After his return to Frankfurt, he was arrested by the Gestapo, and plans were made to leave Germany. A former pupil procured an affidavit with the assistance of Rabbi Dr. Bernard Revel, and the family relocated to New York in 1939.
In New York, Breuer took the initiative to start a congregation with the numerous German refugees in Washington Heights, which would closely follow the morale and customs of its "spiritual ancestor" in Frankfurt. The congregation came to be called Khal Adath Yeshurun ("KAJ"), but is colloquially called "Breuer's" after its founder. In addition, he founded Yeshiva Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, a yeshiva elementary school and high school named after his illustrious grandfather. He also founded a teachers' seminary for girls that would be renamed the Rika Breuer Teachers' Seminary after his wife's death. All institutions closely followed the teachings and ideology of Rabbi Breuer's grandfather, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch.
He died in 1980, survived by his 7 children.
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