As chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Louis Finkelstein (1895-1992), a renowned scholar of classical Jewish history and literature, headed the American religious movement Conservative Judaism.

The son of Rabbi Simon and Hannah (Brager) Finkelstein, Louis Finkelstein was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 14, 1895. In 1902 his family moved to the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. There, under the supervision of his father, Finkelstein continued his intensive religious education, rising early each day to pursue his religious studies prior to setting off for school. Finkelstein earned an A.B. from the City College of New York in 1915 and a doctorate from Columbia University in 1918. In 1919 he was ordained rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. In 1922 he married Carmel Bentwich; they had three children.

From 1919 to 1931 Finkelstein was rabbi to Congregation Kehillath Israel in the Bronx in New York City. At the same time he joined the...