Harry Halpern

Rabbi Harry Halpern
Rabbi Harry Halpern
Religion	Judaism
Personal
Nationality	American
Born	February 4, 1899 New York City, New York
Died	June 10, 1981(1981-06-10) (aged 82) Southbury, Connecticut
Religious career
Ordination	Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1929
Previous post	East Midwood Jewish Center

Harry Halpern (February 4, 1899 – June 10, 1981) was an American religious and community leader, a powerful orator, a respected religious educator, and a prominent Conservative rabbi who served for almost 49 years as the rabbi of the East Midwood Jewish Center (EMJC), in Brooklyn, New York.

Halpern was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, attending Brooklyn's Public School (PS) 37 and Eastern District High School. He received his bachelor's degree in philosophy from the City College of New York in 1919 and a master's degree from Columbia University in 1925. He also received both a bachelor and doctoral degree from Brooklyn Law School, studied at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, and earned ordination as a rabbi from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS), in 1929. He later received a Doctor of Hebrew Literature degree from JTS in 1951.

Halpern served as the first "pupil rabbi" for the Talmud Torah "junior congregation" of Congregation Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom in Long Island, New York. He also served for a short time as the "student preacher and spiritual leader" of the Jewish Communal Center of Brooklyn, before taking the position of rabbi for the East Midwood Jewish Center in 1929, where he served for almost 49 years. At the EMJC, his sermons constantly educated, challenged and inspired the congregation both in terms of Jewish identity and larger social concerns such as the rights of minorities, and he "pleaded for intensive Jewish Education of the Day School-Yeshiva type long before private schools became fashionable. He retired from the EMJC in 1977 to live in Southbury, Connecticut until his death four years later, in 1981.