Richard L. Rubenstein (born 1924) was an American Jewish theologian and writer who defined the agenda of post-Holocaust theology for Christians and Jews.

Richard Lowell Rubenstein was born on January 6, 1924, in New York City. The eldest son of an assimilated, educated, poor Jewish family, he did not have a Bar-Mitzvah, the traditional rite affirming a 13-year-old as an adult member of the Jewish community. Educated at the prestigious Townsend Harris High School, as a teenager Rubenstein considered converting to Unitarianism and becoming a minister. When the pastor advised him to change his last name, Rubenstein began his slow journey back to Judaism.

Ordained as a Rabbi

In 1942, during the height of the Holocaust, Rubenstein entered the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati (Reform Judaism's rabbinical seminary) and simultaneously continued his studies at the University of Cincinnati. While millions of Jews were being slaughtered in Europe, Rubenstein was taught an anti-Zionist...