Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich, a Jewish religious philosopher who escaped the Nazis and became a European bridge-builder between Christians and Jews, has died at age 86.

According to a family notice, Ehrlich died on October 22 at his home in Riehen, a suburb of Basel. The Berlin-born Ehrlich studied at Higher Institute for Jewish Studies, Rabbi Leo Baeck's rabbinical seminary, until the Nazis closed it in 1942. He was made to perform forced labour until he was able to find shelter with a Berlin couple and was then smuggled in 1943 into Switzerland.

He obtained his doctorate at Basel and later he taught at universities in Switzerland and Germany. From 1961 to 1994, he was European director of the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith, founded in New York in 1843.

At the Second Vatican Council in 1965, he was the adviser to German Cardinal Augustin Bea in preparing "Nostra Aetate," a key document on Roman Catholic-Jewish relations.