Leopold Cohn

Who was Leopold Cohn?

Leopold Hoffman Cohn 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 Messianic Jewish evangelists. 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 generally 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".