Joseph Lookstein

Who was Joseph Lookstein?

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.

Lookstein was born in 1902 in Mogilev, Belarus, then in the Russian Empire, and after emigrating to the United States, attended City College of New York and did graduate work at Columbia University. He 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. He had already served as an assistant for three years at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, assisting his grandfather-in-law Rabbi Moses S. Margolies, and continued in that role after receiving his ordination, assuming the title of Senior rabbi after Morgolies's death in 1936.

In 1930, he established the Hebrew Teachers Training School for Girls, now part of Yeshiva University, and served as its principal for ten years. Shortly after the establishment of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, Rabbi Lookstein became the institution's acting president for nine years, before being name as the school's chancellor in 1966. During his tenure, the school grew from a single building with 40 students into a school with an enrollment of thousands.