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Biography of Rabbi Louis FinkelsteinName: Rabbi Louis FinkelsteinBirth Date: June 14, 1895 Death Date: November 29, 1992 Place of Birth: Cincinatti, Ohio, United States Nationality: American Gender: Male Occupations: rabbi, religious leader, scholar Rabbi Louis Finkelstein As chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Louis Finkelstein (1895-1992), a renowned scholar of classical Jewish history and literature, headed the American religious movement Conservative Judaism.The son of Rabbi Simon and Hannah (Brager) Finkelstein, Louis Finkelstein was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 14, 1895. In 1902 his family moved to the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. There, under the supervision of his father, Finkelstein continued his intensive religious education, rising early each day to pursue his religious studies prior to setting off for school. Finkelstein earned an A.B. from the City College of New York in 1915 and a doctorate from Columbia University in 1918. In 1919 he was ordained rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. In 1922 he married Carmel Bentwich; they had three children.From 1919 to 1931 Finkelstein was rabbi to Congregation Kehillath Israel in the Bronx in New York City. At the same time he joined the seminary faculty, serving …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…a major, three volume study, The Jews: Their History, Culture and Religion (1949), as well as American Spiritual Autobiographies (1948) and Social Responsibility in an Age of Revolution (1971). In 1985 he published the third and fourth volumes of a projected six volume critical edition of the Sifra, a fourth century commentary on the biblical book of Leviticus.Finkelstein died November 29, 1991, at his home in New York City after a long bout with Parkinson's disease. He was 96 years old. Further Reading For additional information, see the article on Louis Finkelstein in the Encyclopedia Judaica (1972). For background on Conservative Judaism and on Finkelstein's role during its expansion period, see Herbert Rosenblum's Conservative Judaism: A Contemporary History (1983), available from the United Synagogue of America in New York City, and Marshall Sklare's Conservative Judaism (3rd ed., 1985). For Finkelstein's interpretation of Conservative Judaism, see his essay "Tradition in the Making," in Tradition and Change edited by Mordecai Waxman (1958). |