Joseph Hyman Lookstein was a Russian-born American rabbi who served as spiritual leader of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and was a leader in Orthodox Judaism, including his service as president of the Rabbinical Council of America and of the cross-denominational Synagogue Council of America and New York Board of Rabbis.
13 Facts About Joseph Lookstein
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Joseph Lookstein was President of Bar-Ilan University from 1957 to 1967.
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Joseph Lookstein emigrated to the United States in 1908, attended City College of New York and did graduate work at Columbia University.
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Joseph Lookstein received his Jewish education at Rabbi Jacob Joseph School and received his rabbinic ordination in 1926 from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at Yeshiva University.
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Joseph Lookstein had already served as a rabbi in Brooklyn, and then assistant rabbi for three years at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, under Rabbi Moses S Margolies, grandfather of his future wife.
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Joseph Lookstein continued in that role after receiving his ordination, assuming the title of senior rabbi after Margolies's death in 1936.
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Joseph Lookstein was the chief military chaplain of the United States, holding the ceremonial rank of Brigadier General, in the period after World War II.
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Shortly after the establishment of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, Rabbi Joseph Lookstein became the institution's acting president in 1957 for nine years, succeeding Pinkhos Churgin, before being succeeded by Max Jammer and named as the school's chancellor in 1966.
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Joseph Lookstein was elected as head of the Synagogue Council of America in 1979, was a past president of the Rabbinical Council of America and the New York Board of Rabbis.
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Joseph Lookstein founded the Ramaz School in 1937, which was named in honor of his grandfather-in-law.
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Joseph Lookstein's son, Rabbi Haskel Joseph Lookstein, was a member of the school's inaugural first grade class.
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Gertrude and Joseph Lookstein had two children, Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, who succeeded Joseph as rabbi at his synagogue, and Dr Nathalie Friedman.
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Joseph Lookstein suffered a stroke in 1979, and died about two weeks later, age 76 on July 13, at Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami Beach, Florida.