Kindler of souls : Rabbi Henry Cohen of Texas / by Henry Cohen II.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cohen, Henry, 1927-

Series:

Focus on American history series.

Focus on American history series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rabbis--Texas--Galveston--Biography.

Rabbis.

Reform Judaism--Texas--Galveston.

Reform Judaism.

Galveston (Tex.)--Social conditions.

Galveston (Tex.).

Galveston (Tex.)--Biography.

Cohen, Henry, 1863-1952.

Cohen, Henry.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (169 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, 2007.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In September 1930, the New York Times published a list of the clergy whom Rabbi Stephen Wise considered "the ten foremost religious leaders in this country." The list included nine Christians and Rabbi Henry Cohen of Galveston, Texas. Little-known today, Henry Cohen was a rabbi to be reckoned with, a man Woodrow Wilson called "the foremost citizen of Texas" who also impressed the likes of William Howard Taft and Clarence Darrow. Cohen's fleeting fame, however, was built not on powerful friendships but on a lifetime of service to needy Jews—as well as gentiles—in London, South Africa, Jamaica, and, for the last sixty-four years of his life, Galveston, Texas. More than 10,000 Jews, mostly from Eastern Europe, arrived in Galveston in the early twentieth century. Rabbi Cohen greeted many of the new arrivals in Yiddish, then helped them find jobs through a network that extended throughout the Southwest and Midwest United States. The "Galveston Movement," along with Cohen's pioneering work reforming Texas prisons and fighting the Ku Klux Klan, made the rabbi a legend in his time. As this portrait shows, however, he was also a lovable mensch to his grandson. Rabbi Henry Cohen II reminisces about his grandfather's jokes while placing the legendary rabbi in historical context, creating the best picture yet of this important Texan, a man perhaps best summarized by Rabbi Wise in the New York Times as "a soul who touches and kindles souls."

Contents:

From Torah to Tennyson

Being Jewish in Jamaica

Little Jerusalem

Planting roots

The storm and its impact

From health to horror

"Through the gateway of Galveston"

"Dear graduates" : on being a rabbi

From the Kaiser to the Klan

Prison reform : the rabbi and the convict

Family matters and memory : 1930-1950

The rabbi and his times

Appendix : selected poems by Rabbi Henry Cohen.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [143]-145) and index.

ISBN:

0-292-79479-7

OCLC:

319492736