Eliezer Berkovits

Born in Nagyvárad, Hungary (present-day Oradea, Romania), Eliezer Berkovits was a Zionist and Orthodox rabbi, educator, theologian, and philosopher. After undergoing rabbinic training in Hungary and Germany, he was ordained in 1934 at Berlin’s Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary under the influence of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg. Simultaneously, he received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Berlin. He served as rabbi in Berlin from 1934 to 1939, when he fled from the Nazis. Over the next decade and a half, he held rabbinic positions in England, Australia, and the United States. From 1958 to 1975 he was chairman of the department of Jewish philosophy at Hebrew Theological College in suburban Chicago. He then relocated to Jerusalem.