Isaac Cohen (26 July 1914 – 30 November 2007) was a distinguished Talmudic scholar and Chief Rabbi of Ireland for 20 years.
Born in Llanelli, Wales to immigrants from Lithuania, he won a scholarship in 1928 to Aria College in Portsmouth, a boarding school which combined Jewish study with a place at Portsmouth Grammar School. In 1931 he enrolled at Jews College and University College London and gained a BA (Hons) in Semitics in 1935. In 1939 he ma...
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Isaac Cohen (26 July 1914 – 30 November 2007) was a distinguished Talmudic scholar and Chief Rabbi of Ireland for 20 years.
Born in Llanelli, Wales to immigrants from Lithuania, he won a scholarship in 1928 to Aria College in Portsmouth, a boarding school which combined Jewish study with a place at Portsmouth Grammar School. In 1931 he enrolled at Jews College and University College London and gained a BA (Hons) in Semitics in 1935. In 1939 he married Fanny Weisfogel of London and they settled in Leeds. After the Second World War, he returned to London to complete his rabbinical diploma, which he gained in 1948, and subsequently took up a rabbinical position in Edinburgh. In 1956 he gained his Ph.D. from Edinburgh University for research into Talmudic thought.
His first post was at Harrow and Kenton Synagogue in Middlesex in 1935. In 1939 he moved to Leeds United Hebrew Congregation in the capacity of an additional minister in the Moortown area. He set up a Citizens Advice Bureau to...
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