 All ministers had either received their training in the United States or were graduates of the Orthodox Jews' College who had later switched allegiance and served Reform synagogues.The College was founded in 1956 as the Jewish Theological College of London for the training of Liberal and Reform rabbis and was seen as a successor organisation to the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin and the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau.It was renamed Leo Baeck College shortly afterwards at van der Zyl's suggestion in honour of his teacher, Dr Leo Baeck, the inspirational 20th-century German Liberal rabbi.