Bernard Zion Lande Papers

Bernard Zion Lande, the grandson of early Denver Jewish pioneer Zion Wolf Karsh, was born in Denver, Colorado, on July 11, 1927. Lande grew up on Denver's west side and attended the Hebrew Educational Alliance, an orthodox synagogue. While still in his teens, he helped to found the Jewish Youth Council and became an active participant in its programs. In 1947, Lande attended the Brandeis Camp in California, where he gained his first exposure to the philosophies of the Jewish Reconstructionist movement. After a brief trip to Israel in 1950, where he met his future wife, Lande returned to Brandeis Camp in 1951 to serve as boys' counselor. He married Betty Freeman in Toronto, Canada, in 1952 and returned to Denver shortly thereafter, where he started a small upholstered-furniture business called the Lande Manufacturing Company.

Bernard Lande had a deep interest in social psychology, especially in the insights it shed upon Jewish identity. He received a master's degree in social psychology from the University of Denver in 1950 and was pursuing post-graduate work in group dynamics when he was drafted into the army in 1953. He served in the army for two years as a research psychologist in Beckly, West Virginia. Lande was instrumental in the establishment, organization, and evaluation of havurot--groups of people who gather together to read, study, and worship at each other's homes--and these fellowships ultimately evolved into the Colorado Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. Lande also played a major role in the founding of Denver's Jewish Community Center. He died at the age of 51 on July 24, 1978.