Abraham Cohen (rabbi, 1887)

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Abraham Cohen (born March 22, 1887 in Reading , Berkshire , † May 28, 1957 ) was a British rabbi and scholar.

Life and activity

Cohen was the son of a tailor from Poland. He grew up in Whitechapel . Because of his academic achievements, he received an Alfred Louis Cohen scholarship to Emmanuel College, Cambridge University , where he studied oriental languages. He later earned a PhD from the University of London .

In 1909 he became rabbi of the Higher Broughton Jewish community in Manchester . In 1913 he moved to the Jewish community in Birmingham, which he chaired until 1949. He also represented this community in the Jewish representative body of Great Britain, which he chaired from 1949 to 1955. In 1942 he also helped found the British Council of Christians and Jews.

From 1936 to 1938 and from 1950 to 1957 Cohen taught at the Jews College.

As a Jewish scribe, he contributed to the translation and editing of the new translation of the Talmud and the Midrash . He was also active in the World Jewish Congress and the Zionist movement.

Due to his leading role in Jewish life in Great Britain, Cohen came under the sights of the police forces of National Socialist Germany, who classified him as an important target at the end of the 1930s: In the spring of 1940 the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a directory of people who The Nazi surveillance apparatus considered them to be particularly dangerous or important, which is why they should be located and arrested with special priority by the occupying troops following special SS units in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht.

Fonts

  • Everyman's Talmud The Major Teachings of the Rabbinic Sages , 1932.
  • The Parting of the Ways: Judaism and the Rise of Christianity , 1954.
  • Introduction and commentary, The Psalms , 1950.
  • To Anglo-Jewish Scrap-Bool, 1600-1840 , 1968.

literature

  • W. Rubinstein / Michael A. Jolles: The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History , 2011, p. 158.
personal data
SURNAME Cohen, Abraham
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British rabbi and scholar
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Reading , Berkshire
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 1957