Leopold Cohn (Christian clergyman)

Leopold Hoffman Cohn (September 12,[1] 1862, Berezna, Hungary - December 19, 1937, Brooklyn, NY) was a Jewish convert to Evangelicalism[2] who formed the Brownsville Mission to the Jews, an organization that now exists as Chosen People Ministries. Cohn lived in Hungary, and, shortly after his arrival to the United States, converted to Evangelicalism.[2] He was ordained a Baptist minister.[3] In his day, he was one of the most successful and controversial Christian evangelists to the Jews.[4][5] In 1930, Cohn was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity by Wheaton College,[6] an Evangellical college.

A 1914 newspaper advertisement for Cohn's "regular gospel services," under the church denomination heading of "Hebrew-Christian."
Leopold Cohn
Rev. Leopold Cohn
BornSeptember 12, 1862
Berezna, Hungary
DiedDecember 19, 1937
Brooklyn, NY
Other namesItsak Leib Joszovics
OccupationMissionary
Known forChristian evangelism

Early life

Leopold Cohn was born as Eisik Leib Yosowitz in 1862 in a small town in eastern Hungary.[7] Cohn states in his autobiography that he was ordained as a rabbi in his native Hungary in the 1880s,[4] though Jews doubted this claim. One historian has asserted that whether or not Cohn was actually an ordained rabbi, he was clearly very familiar with rabbinic texts.[8] Even his name was contested: Rabbi David Max Eichhorn writes that "As early as October 13, 1893, Adolph Benjamin wrote in the Hebrew Standard that Cohn's real name was Itsak Leib Joszovics".[9] In a 1913 court case, a number of people claiming to be Cohn's relatives and friends stated that Cohn was in fact Joszovics, a saloonkeeper who had been arrested and sentenced for fraud in Hungary in 1891, and that he left Hungary to avoid serving a two and a half years sentence, leaving behind his wife and children.[10][11] The relationship between Cohn and his detractors was acrimonious, resulting in several lawsuits and counter-complaints.[12] Cohn denied the accusations and the court refused to act upon the charge.[8]

Later years and death
Leopold Cohn memorial plaque in New York City

In his later years, Cohn turned over many of the day-to-day operations of the mission to his son, Joseph Cohn, while he concentrated on fund-raising. Cohn died in 1937, but the organization he founded continued to thrive even after his death.[7]

References
  1. Passport application. "Ancestry.com". Ancestry.com.
  2. Randall Herbert Balmer (2002). Encyclopedia of evangelicalism. Westminster John Knox Press. pp. 127–. ISBN 978-0-664-22409-7. Retrieved 21 August 2011. Chosen People Ministries Shortly after Leopold Cohn arrived in New York City from Hungary in 1892, he forsook his Jewish heritage and converted to Christianity. He founded the Williamsburg Mission in 1894 and started a newsletter, Chosen People, in an attempt to apprise Christians of Evangelistic initiatives among the Jews. In 1924, Cohn gave the Williamsburg Mission a new name, the American Board of Missions to the Jews; the administration of the organization devolved in 1937 to Joseph H. Cohn, a graduate of Moody Bible Institute, after the death of his father, the mission's founder. The San Francisco arm of the American Board of Missions to the Jews, headed by Moishe Rosen, broke off from the national organization in 1973 to form Jews for Jesus. The original mission changed its name yet again in 1986, to Chosen People Ministries. The organization, now based in Charlotte, North Carolina, produces a daily radio program, Through Jewish Eyes, occasional television specials, and various evangelistic materials.
  3. "MINUTES OF THE FIRST Hebrew-Christian Conference OF THE United States". 1903. Retrieved 21 August 2011.
  4. Ariel, Yaakov Shalom (September 13, 2000). Evangelizing the Chosen People: Missions to the Jews in America, 1880 - 2000. H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs Lehman Series. Vol. 1358. The University of North Carolina Press. p. 28. doi:10.1007/b62130. ISBN 978-0-8078-4880-7. The founder of the mission, Leopold Cohn, became one of the most noted and at the same time controversial figures in the field of Jewish evangelism, provoking heated reaction from all sides. For the mission's people and its supporters, he was nothing short of a saint. For his antagonists, both Jewish and Christian, he was practically the devil incarnate. The controversy manifested itself even in relation to Cohn's elementary biographical details. There has been little agreement, for example, as to the events of his early life. Even his real name has been in dispute. The founder of the mission was born in 1862 in Berezna, Hungary. According to his autobiographical account, which has become the accepted history for his mission, he spent his early years studying with the Hasidic rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum. He then pursued his studies at the prestigious non-Hasidic Hatam Sofer's Yeshiva in Presburg, currently Bratislava, the Slovak capital. According to his account, he was ordained as a rabbi when he was eighteen.
  5. Ariel (2000). p. 30. "Although Jewish activists despised him, Cohn undoubtedly possessed a personality that impressed both Christian supporters and prospective converts. It is an ironic fact that this very controversial evangelist laid the foundation for what would later become the largest mission to the Jews in America and made many more converts than any other missionary during the 1890s to 1910s. This included persons who later made a name for themselves and enjoyed a great amount of respectability in the evangelical community, such as Samuel Needleman, who became a minister in Maine."
  6. "Wheaton College: Honorary Degrees". Retrieved 16 August 2011.
  7. Keren-Kratz, Menachem (2022). "Leopold Cohn and the Evolution of Messianic Judaism into the Leading Missionary Movement among American Jews". Religions. 13 (2): 104. doi:10.3390/rel13020104.
  8. Ariel (2000). p. 101. "Although Jews doubted Leopold Cohn's claim that he had actually been an ordained rabbi before his conversion to Christianity, there could be little doubt that he was well read in rabbinical literature and had acquired, after his conversion to Christianity, a good knowledge of Christian theology as well."
  9. Eichhorn, David Max (1978). Evangelizing the American Jew. Jonathan David Publishers. p. 173.
  10. Ariel (2000). p. 29."The mission's antagonists drew a different biographical sketch. Cohn's real name, they argued, was Itsak Leib Joszovics. Orphaned at an early age, he received little education, and upon marriage and settling in his wife's hometown, he became an inn- or saloon keeper rather than a rabbi. The Hungarian authorities, the alternative biography says, charged him and his brother-in-law with forging the deed of a dead peasant's farm. Joszovics (alias Cohn) fled. Thereafter, one's assertion of Cohn's true identity and the biographical account one chooses to adopt have typically reflected one's standing not only toward Cohn the person, but also toward his mission as a whole, and at times, toward the movement to evangelize the Jews at large. For his supporters he was the former rabbi he claimed to have been. For Jewish antagonists, and at times non-Jews, he symbolized all that was wrong with the movement to evangelize the Jews."
  11. Melton, J. Gordon (1999). Religious leaders of America: A biographical guide to founders and leaders of religious bodies, churches, and spiritual groups in North America. Gale Research. p. 129. "... several people claiming to be the relatives and friends of Itzak Leib Joszovics, a convicted felon whose life seemed to closely parallel Cohn's, swore in a New York court that Joszovics and Cohn were the same person. Cohn denied the accusations and the court refused to act upon the charge".
  12. Bacon, Colonel Alexander S. (1918). The strange story of Dr. Cohn and Mr. Joszovics: (with apologies to "Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde"). New York. OCLC 11482268.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
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