Barnett Robert Brickner (September 14, 1892 – May 14, 1958) was an American rabbi who ministered in Cleveland, Ohio for over thirty years.
During World War I, he worked as Director of the Training School and Personnel Division of the Jewish Welfare Board.
On behalf of those two organizations, he helped arrange for the Canadian government to admit five thousand Russian Jewish refugees stranded in Romania and settle them in Canada.
When he left Canada in 1925, the University of Toronto established the Rabbi Brickner Scholarship in Social Science in his honor.
[6] Brickner instituted Sunday services at the Fairmont Temple, which attracted large audiences and improved the congregation's educational program, although it was later discontinued.
He was later appointed administrative chairman of the Jewish Welfare Board Committee on Army and Navy Activities and went on a world tour of American military bases.
He was chairman of the Jewish Welfare Fund Committee in Cleveland, chairman of the CCAR Social Justice Committee and its president from 1955 to 1956, an executive committee member of the Zionist Organization of America, an executive board member of the National Council for Jewish Education, a board member of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, vice chairman of the Jewish Welfare Federation of Cleveland, and a member of the National Conference of Jewish Social Work, the Religious Education Association of America, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the Foreign Policy Association of Jewish Academicians, and the Actions Committee of the World Zionist Organization,[8] In 1919, Brickner married Rebecca Ena Aaronson of Baltimore, Maryland.
[4] Brickner died from a cerebral hemorrhage in Lorca, Spain, where he was stopping on his return from a visit to Israel under the auspices of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, on May 14, 1958.