Fred Manders grew up as Fritz Mandelbaum in the Max and Else Mandelbaum family of pharmacists in Würzburg.
He attended the secondary school in Würzburg and was a member of the Jüd. Jugendbund Würzburg (Jewish youth movement. He grew up in a spacious family estate on the outskirts of the city.
At the beginning of 1939, the youngster emigrated with his family to Manchester and a few months later to the USA.
He and his wife, Ilse, raised their sons Michael, David, Robbie and Steven in the family's long-term residence in Vineland, New Jersey.
Fred Manders, who was also a painter in the region, died at the age of 92 in Voorhees Township, New Jersey , as his wife, who died in 2014, was buried in Salem County, New Jersey.

ART REVIEW; Jewish Life, From a Number of Vantage Points

The NEW York Times
By Fred B. Adelson / Nov. 16, 1997

FROM the 1920's through the 1950's, Camden was a hub of Jewish life in South Jersey. Its flourishing community supported six synagogues, a Y.M.H.A. and a Talmud Torah, an independent religious school. Given the subsequent demographic changes, it is rather bittersweet that ''Chosen,'' an exhibition celebrating Jewish culture, is being held at the Walt Whitman Cultural Arts Center here. At the same time, the show is a tribute to the center's namesake, who, writes David S. Reynolds, the poet's biographer, had a ''liberated openness to all kinds of religious discourses.''

''Chosen'' was organized by Herbert Appelson of Cherry Hill, a professor of art at Rowan University and a printmaker whose work is included, along with that of 12 other artists working in the Philadelphia-South Jersey region. This exhibition was planned in conjunction with the Notable Poets and Writers Series, the center's flagship program, which brings in authors of cultural and ethnic diversity. Today, the distinguished guest is the novelist Chaim Potok, who will be lecturing and reading from his works.

The 31 objects on display form an eclectic mix of artistic and spiritual points of view, made even more intriguing by the fact that not all the artists are Jewish. From the hand-crafted ''Yiddish Kite,'' by Elmer Friedman, whose title is a very clever Duchampian word play on the Yiddish word for Jewishness (Yiddishkeit), to the abstracted forms painted by David Estey, the exhibition embraces too much. Even if Jewish art is not easy to define, Mili Weiss's ''Behind the Bamboo,'' a color xerographic print that deals with China's human rights violations, does seem out of place.

Although the show's title is taken from Mr. Potok's first novel, published 30 years ago, this was never intended to be an exhibition of artwork illustrating his writings. Mr. Appelson's metal reliefs are certainly reminiscent of the Hasidic characters from ''The Chosen.'' His small prints possess a sense of monumentality in their powerful use of chiaroscuro. Each of his Expressionist-like heads has a face that bears a map of personal struggle. In ''Memories,'' the figure boldly emerges from the darkness just as the image must have come forth from the artist's memory of his boyhood in Brooklyn.

Books and words are prominent motifs in this show. In ''Exodus to Exodus,'' Fred Manders of Vineland created a text with 36 woodcuts -- twice the 18 that stands for chai, or life -- to tell the history of the Jews, from the Book of Exodus to the establishment of the State of Israel and its Law of Return.

In ''The Nameless,'' Libbie Soffer of Wallingford, Pa., has hand-crafted a book that is a testimonial to the women of Jewish history, who have been largely unrecognized by name. Women and girls were traditionally not given the opportunity to study Hebrew or to contribute to the religious liturgy. Ms. Soffer's impressive tome can be opened and closed, but its pages have no text and have been knotted together so they cannot be turned. Thus, it is a book that does not fully function.

A bound shaft of wheat is placed below this grand volume in its transparent pedestal-like lectern. The artist declares that ''women are to Judaism as wheat is to life.'' She explains: ''This book is for all those noble women who collaborated with men to create subsequent generations.'' Ms. Soffer raises the most profound issues in the exhibition as she considers Judaism and feminism, the Biblical past and contemporary attitudes.

Fran Gallun of Haddonfield has created the show's largest piece, and the only one made specifically for this exhibition. The artist has constructed a ''Bookhouse,'' architectural in scale, which she describes as ''big enough to walk into, to be awed by the scope, mystery and beauty of the ancient text.'' All visitors can become people of the book. Both front and back are painted with patches of vibrant, saturated colors. The letters of the Hebrew alphabet are subtly included as stylized design elements. The decorative quality of the construction assumes the character of a folding screen, while the two-hinged panels also bring to mind a traditional diptych altarpiece. To reassert its Judaic sensibility, the rococo-like finials bring to mind the rimonim, or decorative Torah bells, traditionally placed atop the rollers of the Torah scroll.

In ''Behold, How Good It Is'' (''Hinei Ma-Tov''), Lois Lewis Schumm of Cherry Hill places the first verse of Psalm 133 over a richly colored and figurative field, whose surface texture results from her use of kosher salt on the gouache ground. Unlike Barbara Kruger's biting message art, Ms. Schumm says, ''it is a mitzvah'' -- a commandment -- ''to speak out and to include in one's work statements of mutual respect and brotherhood.'' The artist does not rely on traditional Western types. Her animated figures are based on such diverse sources as sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania. These free-floating images also suggest the Surreal world of this century's most celebrated Jewish artist, Marc Chagall.