Leader of German Jewry before and during the Holocaust, Baeck was one of the great theologians of the Reform movement. He explained his views of Judaism in his book Essence of Judaism, and later in This People Israel, which grew out of his experience at the Theresienstadt concentration camp. After the war he taught at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. A college in England, an institute in New York, and a high school in Haifa, Israel are named after him.