second Joe Louis versus Max Schmeling boxing match in order to protest Adolf Hitler's "view that a bout between a German and a Negro was improper". Lyons denounced the Nazi racial ideas, which he noted discriminated against blacks as well as Jews, and encouraged the audience to boycott all German-made goods until "Hitler comes to his senses". Lyons died the following year, and Landman served as sole rabbi. After his death, the Central Conference of American Rabbis described Lyons as the "dean of the Brooklyn rabbinate from the point of view of service". World War II and aftermath: Sack joins, Landman dies The synagogue's fortunes improved in the 1940s, but in 1946, its bank threatened to foreclose on its buildings, in anticipation of their sale to the local Catholic diocese, as the congregation had not paid the mortgage in many years. The congregation succeeded in convincing the bank to re-negotiate its mortgage, and reduce the outstanding loan, and Max Koeppel led a drive to pay it off completely. Eugene Sack, the father of Second Circuit Court of Appeals judge Robert D. Sack, joined Landman as rabbi in 1946. While serving as assistant rabbi of Congregation Rodeph Shalom of Philadelphia, Sack had been instrumental in the founding of the Reform movement's National Federation of Temple Youth in 1939, and had presented a paper at its first biennial convention. Starting in 1943 he spent 18 months in the Pacific Theater of Operations of World War II as an army chaplain; at one point he had to substitute peach juice for Passover wine. Sack had also previously been involved in anti-Zionist efforts amongst the Reform rabbinate. In 1942 the Central Conference of American Rabbis had abandoned its former anti-Zionist stance, and adopted a resolution favoring the creation of a Jewish army in Palestine, to fight alongside other Allied armies, and under Allied command. Sack and other prominent Reform rabbis opposed this; meeting on March 18, 1942, they agreed "there was a need to revitalize Reform Judaism, to oppose Jewish nationalism, and to publicize their point of view". They planned "for a meeting of non-Zionist Reform Rabbis to discuss the problems that confront Judaism and Jews in the world emergency", to be held in Atlantic City. 36 rabbis eventually attended the two-day conference on June 1, 1942, including Beth Israel's Landman. The conference led to the formation of the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism,