The rabbi Leo Jung (1892-1987) provided practical and theological leadership to American Orthodox Judaism, helping it become more dignified and responsive to the needs of contemporary Jews while retaining traditional rabbinical values and laws.

When Leo Jung (born June 20, 1892, in Ungarisch Brod in Moravia) first came to the United States in 1920 he was charged with hypocrisy. Americans could not believe that an intellectual rabbi, who spoke in elegant English and whose approach to Judaism was sophisticated and modern, could be truly Orthodox. After more than 60 years that mistake (ludicrous even in its own day) was unthinkable; by the 1980s American Jewish Orthodoxy itself demonstrated a dignity, intellectualism, and responsiveness to modernity that resulted in no small measure from the work of Jung.

A Life Dedicated to Orthodox Judaism

Jung was educated in both secular German studies and in traditional Hebraica by a father who understood the challenges of...