Joshua L. Liebman

Who was Joshua L. Liebman?

Joshua Loth Liebman was an American rabbi and best-selling author, best known for the book Peace of Mind, which spent more than a year at #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Born in Hamilton, Ohio, Liebman graduated from the University of Cincinnati when he was 19 years old. He went on to be ordained and also earned a doctorate in Hebrew letters from Hebrew Union College. From 1934 to 1939, Liebman served as rabbi of K.A.M. Temple in Chicago, Illinois. In 1939, Liebman became the rabbi of Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue in Boston, Massachusetts.

A sermon Liebman gave at Temple Israel, titled "The Road to Inner Serenity", was published as a pamphlet by one of his friends, bookstore owner Richard Fuller, who passed it on to publisher Richard L. Simon of Simon & Schuster. Simon & Schuster then arranged to publish Liebman's self-help book titled Peace of Mind, issued in 1946, which sought to reconcile religion and psychiatry. Liebman had himself previously undergone psychoanalysis. In Peace of Mind, Liebman "addressed himself to the individual whose personal grief and anxiety, unassuageable by social betterment alone, required an inner peace that psychology and religion, working together, could provide." Peace of Mind became one of the year's best-selling books. Reaching #1 on the New York Times nonfiction best-sellers list on October 27, 1946, Peace of Mind held the top position on the list for a total of 58 weeks, and spent more than three straight years on the list.