Leopold Cohn - Biography

Leopold Hoffman Cohn (1862, Berezna, Hungary - December 19, 1937, Brooklyn, NY) was a Jewish convert to evangelical Christianity who formed the Brownsville Mission to the Jews, an organization that now exists as Chosen People Ministries. Cohn lived in Hungary, and, shortly after his arrival to the United States, converted to Christianity. He was ordained a Baptist minister. In his day, he was one of the most successful and controversial Christian evangelists to the Jews. In 1930, Cohn was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity by Wheaton College, an evangelical Christian college.

Cohn states in his autobiography that he was ordained as a rabbi in his native Hungary in the 1880s, though Jews doubted this claim. Yaakov Shalom Ariel writes that "there could be little doubt that he was well read in rabbinical literature and had acquired, after his conversion to Christianity, a good knowledge of Christian theology as well." Even his name was contested: David Max Eichhorn writes that "As early as October 13, 1893, Adolph Benjamin wrote in the Hebrew Standard that Cohn's real name was Itsak Leib Joszovics". In a 1913 court case, a number of people claiming to be Cohn's relatives and friends stated that Cohn was in fact Joszovics, a saloonkeeper who had been arrested and sentenced for fraud in Hungary in 1891, and that he left Hungary to avoid serving a two and a half years sentence, leaving behind his wife and children. The relationship between Cohn and his detractors was acrimonious, resulting in several lawsuits and counter-complaints. Cohn denied the accusations and the court refused to act upon the charge.