Leo Jung

Born in Moravia, Leo Jung was raised in the Torah im Derekh Erets [Judaism along with secular culture] tradition of Samson Raphael Hirsch. He studied at the universities of London, Cambridge, Berlin, and Vienna and at the Hildesheimer rabbinical seminary in Berlin and at yeshivot in Hungary. In 1920, Jung came to the United States to occupy the pulpit at Congregation Knesseth Israel in Cleveland. In 1922, he became rabbi at the Jewish Center on West Eighty-Sixth Street in Manhattan, where he served for sixty-five years. Jung was a major force in shaping an English-speaking, modern Orthodox Judaism and an unusual figure on the American scene at the time—a bearded English-speaking Orthodox rabbi with a Ph.D. Unlike the leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis of the period, he was a strong Zionist, affiliating with Po‘ale Agudat Yisrael.